The day of her mother’s funeral felt wrong from the moment Elara opened her eyes.
The sky was too blue.
The birds were too loud.
The world kept moving, shamelessly, as if nothing sacred had been broken.
She sat at the edge of her bed, staring at the pair of flats her mother bought her just a week before. They sat exactly where her mother placed them—lined up neatly, toes touching, like they were waiting for some ordinary school day that would never come.
“Elara,” her father called softly from the hallway doorway. His voice was thin, stretched like paper. “It’s time to get ready.”
She didn’t move.
Samuel James took two steps into the room, then stopped, as though crossing her threshold was stepping into her pain. He had not shaved in days, and his eyes looked bruised from crying. But his face held a different grief from hers—shame, as if he believed somehow he had failed to keep their world intact.
“The car’s warm,” he whispered. “People will be arriving.”
Elara turned her head slowly toward him. “I don’t care.”
Her father exhaled shakily. “Honey… we need to go.”
“No,” she said, louder this time. “They’re going to stand there and say all the wrong things. They’re going to tell me she’s in a better place. But she’s not here. She’s not here with me.”
The last words cracked, and she hated how fragile they sounded.
Samuel didn’t try to hug her. He hadn’t touched her at all since the night her mother died. Instead, he stood as though any contact might break them both.
“Elara,” he said softly, “your mother loved you more than—”
“Don’t.” She snapped it like a blade. “Don’t say her name right now.”
The silence that followed was worse than fighting. It echoed.
Her father nodded slowly, grief tightening his jaw. “I’ll wait in the car.”
When he left, Elara pulled the flats into her lap. She held them the way children hold a toy—something that still smells like safety. She pressed them to her chest and let herself sob, the kind of raw, shaking cry that leaves the body exhausted and empty.
She didn’t pray.
She didn’t even try.
---
The church foyer smelled like lilies—too many lilies—and bitter coffee. People filled the space like shadows, drifting, whispering, hovering. Their black clothes didn’t match their bright voices.
“Oh, sweetheart, your mother was a saint.”
“She’s in a better place now.”
“She’s watching over you.”
Each word felt like a stone thrown into the hollow pit inside her.
Elara didn’t respond. She stared at the floor, the polished tiles blurring under her swimming vision. Her father shook hands, nodded stiffly, thanked people he’d never seen before, his face a ghost.
Then, someone she barely recognized—a woman from her mother’s Bible study—wrapped her arms around Elara without warning.
“You have to be strong,” the woman whispered into her hair.
Elara’s chest tightened.
Strong.
The word tasted like poison.
She pulled away abruptly, nearly stumbling. The woman blinked, startled, but Elara didn’t apologize. She couldn’t.
Not today.
---
When the service finally began, Elara sat in the front row beside her father, staring at the casket. The mahogany looked nothing like her mother. It felt like an insult. Something so alive and warm shouldn’t be trapped in something so cold and polished.
Pastor Rowan began to speak, but Elara only heard fragments:
“…a life of faith…”
“…a woman of light…”
“…with the Lord now…”
Her fingers curled into fists.
If God needed her so badly, why did He take her from us?
Why didn’t He save her?
Why didn’t He give us one more day? One more chance?
Her throat burned with anger she couldn’t swallow.
Her father’s hand slid toward hers.
For a moment, she wanted to take it.
To be held.
To not be alone.
But grief had drawn a wall around her, thick and unyielding. She pulled her hand into her lap and folded her arms tightly, staring straight ahead.
Her father’s fingers trembled, withdrawing.
---
After the service, people gathered in the church hall for food and murmured sorrow. Elara slipped out the side door and stood behind the church alone.
The wind was cool, carrying the smell of damp earth and early fall. She lifted her face toward the sky—too bright, too cheerful—and felt hatred simmer beneath her skin.
“You took her,” she whispered.
Nothing answered.
She waited anyway, as if challenging heaven to respond.
A butterfly flitted by.
A leaf fell.
Somewhere, a child laughed.
But God said nothing.
Her fists clenched.
“I needed her,” Elara said, louder this time. “Why didn’t you save her? Why didn’t You stop it? Why—” Her voice cracked. She pressed her hands against her face. “Why didn’t You do anything?”
Silence.
Total, devastating silence.
In that moment, Elara felt something inside her close like a door.
A quiet retreat.
A quiet breaking.
She didn’t scream or curse or collapse.
She just… stopped believing that Someone was listening.
---
Her father found her ten minutes later.
“Elara,” he breathed, relieved and panicked all at once. “Please don’t disappear like that.”
She looked at him — really looked — and saw how broken he was. The redness in his eyes. The trembling in his shoulders. He wasn’t strong either. He wasn’t holding her up. They were both falling, just at different speeds.
Her father opened his arms, just slightly, as if silently begging her to step into them.
Elara shook her head.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
Samuel lowered his arms. His face crumpled, just for a second, before he smoothed it over again.
“Let’s go home,” he said softly.
Home.
A house without her mother didn’t feel like home at all.
But she followed him anyway.
---
That night, Elara sat in her room staring at the flats her mother bought. She touched the soft fabric, the tiny bow on the front, and for the first time, understood what it meant for something to ache.
Not hurt.
Not sting.
But ache — deep and constant, like a bruise on her soul.
She whispered one last thing into the void, not even sure who she was talking to:
“I don’t think You’re real anymore.”
And with that, the last fragile strand of her childhood faith quietly snapped.
YOU ARE READING
✨ "When the Light Returns" ✨
Spiritual🌙 PROLOGUE At 17 years old, Elara James believed God lived in the space between her heartbeat and her breath. She felt Him when her mother hummed hymns in the kitchen, when sunlight broke through storm clouds, and when she whispered bedtime prayers...
