My Sanity

Chapter Nine

Eventually both of us calm down and we simply hold on to each other, comforting each other wordlessly. I still feel numb and my mind is still full of swirling thoughts that flip through my mind like a fast moving film.

I remembered how we all mourned this… loss.

My mother… I remember how she did not leave her room for so long. Right after the funeral finished, she entered her room and did not step out of it even once for thirty-four days. What she did in there, I do not know. A maid would always bring her a tray of food three times a day and then in a couple of hours that tray was brought out by another maid, looking as full and untouched as it was before.

My father, he buried himself in work. After the funeral, he stood beside the marble headstone marking the place where Xavier rested and he just stared at the mound of earth in front of it. I remember the driver walking out to escort him into the car, but he just continued to stare at the dirt and did not acknowledge the man talking to him. After a few minutes of this, the driver gave up and we drove away. He only came back home after it had grown dark, even though it had started raining a few hours after we had gotten home.

I remember… He came home soaked… his suit dripping water all over the entrance floor. And then, I remember he trudged upstairs leaving a trail of mud and water behind him and a few minutes later, he came downstairs again. He had on a fresh, dry suit and a pair of clean, shiny shoes with his leather suitcase in one hand. Then, without a word he left the house slamming the door behind him.

He only came back home at around six the next morning. And then, he simply ate, changed his suit and went back to work.

Lilliana dealt with it by always being out with her friends and shopping. She would always go out somewhere with her friends and when she returned home she was laden with shopping bags. She would then disappear into her room and only came back out to go out with friends again.

Derek… He dealt with it in his own way. He too, locked himself up in his room ever since we got back from the funeral. I remember how he disappeared somewhere the morning after we returned from the hospital and then he appeared back out of nowhere carrying a huge cardboard box. And then, ever since then he locked himself up in his room.

The day after the funeral I remember how I knocked on his door. I remember, I was still in my funeral wear and I had been crying all night. Derek let me in and I found out what was in that box and what he was doing in his room.

That box was full of old family photos and home videos. In his room, Derek would spend all his time poring over the photo albums and watching the videos. I would sometimes join him. Derek watched the video and flipped through the pictures with a stony, blank expression on his face. I wept through all the videos and pictures of Xavier. He looked so happy and healthy and… alive.

And then me… I dealt with the loss of Xavier by observing everyone and everything so closely, putting everything else out of my mind. I tried my best not to think about it… I would just observe my family and the other people in my house, thinking of nothing in particular. Sometimes I would go outside and just walk around observing random people.

This way, I did not think about him. I might even sometimes forget that he was gone.

Sometimes I'd notice something really funny or just weird about a person and I'd rush home to tell Xavier about this and just laugh… And then I'd remember. I'd walk into his room… And I'd remember. And then it would start.

I would start hyperventilating and everything around me would spin. Then I would always end up crawling into Xavier's bed and pressing my head into his pillow that still smelt like him… Like love and home and comfort and safety. And then I would cry, I would cry for so long. I cried so much those days that I was surprised my body did not just shrivel up.