Embers We Bury

vii. a dead old woman

vii. a dead old
woman | reese

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It was like the whole world was against me.

I can remember it clear as day; how Sadie's face looked bright that morning, popping a pimple on her forehead, asking me jokingly where I was that night. When things are making you angry and they're stirring up in your chest, little things can make you even angrier, and now I'm regretting what I did.

I shouldn't have opened my goddamn mouth; I was sure then that Sadie was already finding me suspicious.

I tried to get things off my mind so I could focus on things that were really important. That morning I'd decided to take Ember's corpse from that fucking basement because I was thinking that the mother might increase the reward money to even half a million if I kept making it seem that her daughter had disappeared. I also planned to move my grandmother to a bigger hospital. I planned to make a small business that would support both of us once she got better.

None of my plans succeeded because of everything that happened that day.

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If a cherry blossom had a sound, it would probably sound like my grandma. Smooth, soft, relaxing, warm. Grandma liked reading books out loud. When I was ten, I'd pretend to be doing homework in her bedroom so I could listen to her read a magazine, and back then, it didn't matter what kind of magazine she was reading; whether it was about an engaged celebrity or a dead priest, I'd listen to her until I fall asleep, and I'd wake up to the sound of her voice again and it would be the nicest feeling.

My grandma liked singing a lot, but she also liked smoking cigarettes, an addiction she got from grandpa who died several years back. She smoked so much that her lungs got sick and she lost her ability to speak.

I'd never heard her voice again.

I wish I'd done something.

I wish I didn't find grandma dead on her hospital bed that Thursday evening.

Everything that happened then was all a painful blur, as though etched with the sharpest of knives. I lost two friends that day and when I visited the hospital so I could comfort myself by holding my grandmother's hand, I was only met with her cold corpse and a nurse saying she's already dead.

I remember crying so much that I was basically screaming on my grandmother's side. I didn't want to let go of her hands. The pain of loss blurred my senses, and all I wanted was to hold onto her presence, even in death. I wanted to take her to my house and I didn't even care that her corpse would smell. 

She's grandma anyway.

I just didn't want to lose her. 

How I got home that night, I cannot remember. My mind was way too clouded, but the memory of Ember's death and the argument with Toni and how scared Sadie looked filled my head with thoughts and I realized that we should finally return Ember to her parents.

I realized that if I were rich and someone took away my grandmother's dead body for a reward money I'd give, I would be really enraged. I wouldn't like it, so I thought that we should bring Ember back to her mother. However, I couldn't deny the practicality of the situation. If I were to leave the town, seeking a fresh start away from this web of tragedy, the reward money could provide a means to do so. If Toni wanted, I'd bring her with me. 

If she was still mad, I didn't care. When I dialed her phone number to call her, it took at least five rings before she answered.

When she spoke, I immediately knew that something was wrong.

I'd only known her for seven years then, but it was like I had known her all my life. I knew what everything meant. A slight shift of tone of her voice, a single glance, a tiny gasp, an inaudible whisper under her breath; and when she answered the phone I knew something was wrong based on the tone of her voice.

Weirdly though, I didn't ask her what was wrong. I was probably just still mad at her for accusing me, or I was just too sad about grandma's death. I just proceeded to tell her that we have to return Ember's body.

"Are . . . are you sure?" she asked.

Was I sure? Maybe. I said yes.

"Where would we bury Ember?"

"Woods," I just said. "In the woods. They didn't search there, did they?"

"They did."

"It's okay. They'd appear like idiots."

"When?"

"Tomorrow night should be fine."

"Why all of a sudden?" she asked. I noticed there were crickets and that was odd because there were no crickets near Toni's house. Only in the woods. What was she doing in the woods? "I thought you needed a hundred thousand . . ."

"Fifty is fine," I said, sighing. I looked up at my ceiling with cobwebs in it. "It doesn't matter. She died tonight."

"No," she mumbled. The silence was so heavy I couldn't bear it. I heard a few sniffles. "Oh, God."

We didn't say anything for about a couple of minutes. She felt sad. Maybe.

"Should I come over?"

I chuckled because that was the first thing she thought of. Maybe we could drink and we could watch Jennifer's Body, as we had always done. When she heard me chuckle, she chuckled as well, and I suddenly wanted to hug her because I realized that even though we did what we did, we were still friends. She was Toni and she was my friend.

"Okay," I replied. I thought about Sadie and about what I did to her. "We should bring Sadie."

"We shouldn't," she said hurriedly. "I thought it would be safer to stay away from her?"

I blinked and I thought she had a point. "You're right."

"I'll come over in thirty minutes," she just said and I almost heard her smile. "With your favorite beer."

I smiled and thought that she could be really sweet . .. but if I only knew what she was really doing that night, I would never have allowed myself to see her face.

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