soft spot

chapter six: the funeral

Silena

It had been an entire week since she'd arrived at camp and quite honestly it had been the worst week of her life. The people seemed nice enough, apart from a few individuals aka those two girls and Clarisse, yet she was missing her home, her cafe, her dad... She missed her dad the most, but nothing was going to bring him back. She just had to suck it up and deal with it, which sounded awful but it was the harsh reality of the situation.

So it was pretty surprising when Chiron asked her to meet him in his office since he had news regarding her father. A small glimmer of hope had appeared in her thoughts that maybe, just maybe the doctors had got it wrong and her father actually was still alive. Though she knew she was foolish in this belief, she still had to hope. She sat down opposite Chiron in his office which she felt like she'd already spent a considerable amount of time in considering she'd only been there a week.

"Silena, I realise that you are still clearly distressed about the sudden, tragic passing of your father" Chiron began, carefully wording what he was saying, so as not to upset her, "but your grandmother has sent you an invitation to his funeral." Silena didn't know what surprised her more, her family actually caring enough to host a funeral for her poor father or them having the audacity to invite her as if she wasn't automatically invited being her father's only child. "Please may I read it?" She asked, her fists clenching underneath the desk, her family had always hated her and her father. They were all rich, snobby idiots who didn't care about anything or anyone but themselves and had disowned her dad when he'd run away from home in his early twenties to start a chocolate making business that was now very successful. Chiron saw the anger in her eyes, and looked at her empathetically, sighing as he passed her the invitation.

"Dear Silena Liliana,"
"We all realise and understand the pain and grief you must be enduring doing this difficult time and we empathize with you completely"
"Although we must all learn to move on in spite of this, your father wouldn't have wanted us to all mourn over his loss for the rest of our lives"
"So therefore, a funeral has been arranged for him, it shall be held this weekend on the 6th of August at the Ritz-Carlton in New York"
"The funeral will begin at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and we expect you to be here by 11 o'clock, no later and it shall end by 2 o'clock and afterwards we shall have some afternoon tea which is a requirement for you to attend"
"Sincerely, your grandmother, Anastasia Angelica Beauregard"

Silena wanted to rip the invitation to pieces once she read it, first of all she couldn't understand it at first due to her dyslexia and her grandmother's horrible, cursive handwriting which pissed her off from the beginning, so she'd taken a long time to read it. But as she'd gone through every word, her anger just rose, her family was treating her father's funeral like another one of their dinner parties or fancy soirees which were like french fancy parties and dinners. The tip of the iceberg however, had been right at the start when her grandmother had addressed the letter to her, putting her name as, Silena Liliana. It was true, that was her middle name, Liliana but she hated it, her grandmother had given her that middle name shortly after she was born. It meant pure or innocent and also lilies were often associated with death which just made her think her grandmother had just given her that middle name out of spite, secretly praying on her downfall before she'd even said her first words yet.

"I do understand if you would find it too difficult to go-" Chiron began after the long silence, but Silena cut him off, "no, no actually I want to go, I want to say a proper goodbye to my dad." And start family drama she thought to herself, neatly folding the invitation up and putting it in her back pocket as she stood up and left the office without another word, leaving Chiron a bit confused by her determination to go to this funeral but he seemed understanding enough to just let her go.