Free The Mourning After by Rochelle B. Weinstein

architecture and design was spot on, and the room that Levon has grown to love is tied intricately to his fondness for its creator.  During the six-month reformation, she practically lived with them, and her warm disposition always followed her around the house.  It was her idea to fill the room with state of the art appliances, throwing in an antique, leaf-laden chandelier.  And by bordering the space with floor to ceiling windows, she knew she was forever changing the landscape, pulling nature through the glass and allowing sunlight to kiss them each morning. 
    The focal point of the room was the butcher-block-topped island, adorned with mahogany wood drawers.  Three wooden stools stood adjacent to the island. No one dared sit in the lone seat reserved for David, choosing instead to have a seat at the custom-made banquette, which spanned the wall and held seating for ten. 
    Levon loves the bright view of their backyard from this vantage point, though today the blinds are drawn.  The Ralph Lauren tapestry green cabinets are darker than usual.  When Odalys and his mother chose them, they were intended to catch the light that came in through the windows.
    “How are you doing?” his father asks without looking up from the paper. 
    The table is too large, he thinks.  Maybe Odalys was wrong.  They would never sit there comfortably again.
    “Okay,” he lies.
    Levon glimpses the headlines—“Garbage Truck Slams into Hialeah House Killing Family of Four” and “Violent Death of UM Student a Mystery”—as he takes a bite of an apple from the bowl of fruit on the table.  Newspaper headlines, in general, used to appall him, and the Miami Herald , with its prolific accounts of the dicey, deplorable truths invading its city doors, is full of frightening captions. Nothing Levon would ever read in the paper would upend him again. Once a tragedy has pierced you, you’re numb to someone else’s pain.
    The silence this morning is louder than usual, and Levon studies his father’s fingers on the crisp paper, the stubs of his nails, and the gold band on the third finger of his left hand. 
    “Did Grandpa Sid sneeze this morning?” Levon asks.  It’s a private joke they hadn’t shared in over a week, and he hopes it will break the quiet. 
    At precisely 6:15 a.m. every morning, while Craig Keller sips his morning java and reads the paper, he has a succession of sneezes—three to be exact—and Levon blesses him, and they giggle at their theory that newspaper ink infiltrates noses and induces sneezing.  They have cited at least seven other people who have been prompted to do the same.
    “I haven’t seen him today,” he says, dropping the paper and clasping his hands together.  He waits for Levon to say something, and this only amplifies Levon’s edginess.
    Craig Keller has always been a handsome, youthful man with a strong face and clear, gray eyes.  Even though his thick ebony hair has patches of silver woven throughout, his smile and charm shave years off his age. One of the things that really gets his mother’s goat is when people assume they are the same age.  Ten years divide them. A week after David’s death it shows.  Today, Levon’s father is a ghost of what he was last week.  Deep, dark hollowed-out holes have taken the place of his vibrant eyes, and the golden hue of his cheeks and forehead is faded. Accompanying him at the overgrown table and going through the motions of normalcy has got to be the most excruciating task Levon’s father has ever undertaken.
    “Are you going to work today?” Levon asks.
    His father shakes his head no and throws him a sidelong glance.
    This is my fault, he tells himself. This is not my fault he counters.  The inner debate persists.  Even if David independently crashed the car while Levon slept innocently in his bed, there would be no making sense of the aftermath. Having someone to blame was much easier than allowing the crushing truth to sink in—he was