ice

005

People laughed in disbelief. No one could believe that a grown man, an ex veteran, a man with 2 children would kill himself by eating an entire canister of peanuts while soaking in bath water full of glitter and rose petals. So when I said that at his public funeral people thought that I was joking. I stared at them with hard eyes as they laughed. Why did everyone laugh when there was nothing funny going on?

Besides the conditions about my father's death there were a lot of questions rolling around the circuit of our neighborhood, including but not limited to the following:

-Where was Corinth when this was happening?

-Corinth should've been there, where was she?

-Wherefore are thou Corinth?

-Where was Corinth?

-WHERE THE HELL WAS MY SISTER WHEN OUR DAD WAS DYING?

The answer? She was fast asleep. That girl slept like a rock when my world was melting and burning in my hands.

And now I had to live with her.

We were moving out of our big cozy house. Our grandmother had plans to sell our big cozy house since she was convinced that it was cursed. She constantly muttered, "That's the only explanation to why something so horrible happened to you sweet little girls." Of course her superstition wasn't well founded. Bad things happened to good people all the time and this was the first time it hit her close to home. She had never liked her daughter in law, so mom's death didn't affect her. But Daddy's death? She treated his death with the same care she treated Corinth's high school graduation with she was careful and precise and made sure to get all the details right.

First the girls had to get out of that scrapbook that held the memories of the deaths of their parents and then they had to move somewhere nice! No foster care system for us, since we're too good for it!

Spoiler alert: We weren't too good for it, we were too old for it. I was eighteen and Corinthia was twenty five. We were both too old for the system, even I didn't need a legal guardian anymore.

And with that, my grandmother had us pack our bags and take the best of the furniture and move into a 2 bedroom apartment in the big city. She was in charge of decorating of course, who else would be. At times I questioned if she even felt bad for the lost of her son and once in response to that accusation she said with tears clouding her vision, "Young lady, my son died in the war. That timid mess that came back was not and could never be him. Your father used to be strong."

"The man that came back was strong." I replied harshly. "My father was one of the strongest people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing." We were both crying then, only Corinth was silent.

That was the second time that Corinth had been silent when her family needed her. At least she wasn't asleep this time.