Double-Sided Letters

Recollection of a Memory: SIDE B

She was leaving.

Today.

Oh, she'd make a few requests over there, all right—mostly involving some choice words and a return trip.

But most of all she wanted simply the why of it- why on earth was she bound for some obscure town named Lillian?

And that, folks, is the MIL-yun dollar QUES-hstun! 

Catherine's heart jumped, her body being a little too slow to follow. After some processing, she whipped her head around to find their old television set blaring a soundtrack of pre-recorded applause. She steamed angrily at the speaker (who happened to be Jerry Ferdinand, her mother's all-time favorite grin-bearing game show host, and who also happened to be a complete and utter cuss-worthy character in Catherine's opinion).

He was nodding on screen, modestly accepting the clapping soundtrack with the air of a humbled miser (although he was most definitely the opposite). She gave him a death glare across the room before swirling around in a whirlwind of skirts, feeling slight pleasure at the sensation of bare legs and swishy fabric. She was supposed to be donning a flat black dress around half an hour ago, but she felt the dead could wait a few more minutes for their passing.

(She realized all too quickly that funerals were not for the dead at all, instead being aimed at the paranoid and motherly.)

✎ ✐ ✎ ✐ ✎ ✐

5 (HOURS) B.L.- Before Lillian

Departure time to proceed as planned after funeral

"Stop being so morbid, dear, and get on the dress!"

"Mom, I just don't see the point in having some sort of celebration when the guest of honor is dead-"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you not to say!"

"Can't we all wear something nice and comfortable so they can see that we're happy?"

"We are remembering someone—this isn't a beach cookout, Catherine!"

And so continued their mother-daughter bonding period.

Catherine squirmed protestingly as rather ironically-named Lacey Lamott struggled to mend the sleeve of the aforementioned dress. She was completely opposed to even making an appearance at the upcoming funeral, seeing no point so long as her mother refused to tell her who had died or why this was so important. Groaning in frustration, she stared stubbornly upwards, oblivious to her mother's yelling for eye contact when she was speaking, and roamed over the ceiling until she found a familiar picture of Jesus Christ giving her a parental look.

Her mother had taken it upon herself to dedicate Catherine's room to the Lord when Catherine herself had resisted decoration, posting up Bible-esque images on the slanted ceiling and walls that had become nearly transparent with age and crackly paint. These photos both almost comforted and definitely terrified her, regretful to know that dozens of eyes would stare ceaselessly forward at her while she slept. They chased her into the dark and back into light again by morning, where she woke up breathless and strangely  a little pleased that she'd been watched over for the night (if rather blankly and obsessively.)

She much preferred the pictures she kept in her file cabinet (which was firmly convinced it was a night desk) drawers to the left of her bed— true, they were but ordinary pictures of grass and trees and rocky sand, but inside them she felt more of a presence than any amount of HAVE FAITH posters could convey. In nature she felt this abstract Lord, in the swishing of ferns and breathing of corn, as both a masculine and feminine entity.