Free Muse Unexpected by V. C. Birlidis

hand-in-hand through the best and worst of times. He always used to say, “What doesn’t kill us may take a few fingers and toes, but I’ve always believed toes and fingers were overrated anyway.” Angelo requested those who were comfortable doing so, come up and share a memory or two of him. He believed the best way to measure a person’s life is by the memories they’ve created. And if the sweet outweighed the bitter, then no matter how long he lived, his time on earth would have been worthwhile and filled with purpose.”
    Rejoined by her mother, Sophie attempted to hear what each person said, but couldn’t. It was too painful. She continued to look down at her hands, which she held clasped in her lap. Forty-five minutes later, her thoughts were interrupted by Georgia, who whispered it was time to go to the grave-site.
    “Okay. I’ll be there shortly. Give me a sec,” she replied.
    “Okay,” Georgia said, patting her shoulder. Her grandmother made the sign of the cross and exited the church with a loud click as the doors shut behind her.
    She was glad to be left alone in the quiet, the stillness bringing a small measure of relief to her raw nerves. Although it had been a little comforting to hear how her father meant the world to a lot of people, each story was like a dagger in her heart, reminding her that those stories were the last ones to be shared about him. She hated everything about the day. The service, the grave, it was all so final. All she wanted to do was rip off her outfit and soak in a hot bathtub until the stench of those horrible funeral lilies and suffocating carnations were forever erased from her skin.
    She didn’t understand why the whole mourning process had to be so endless.
    I want my life to be the way it was. It’s just so stupid, stupid, stupid.
    She couldn’t help blaming her father for ripping her life apart. Had her father been like normal dads, who worked closer to home, he wouldn’t have taken that trip, he wouldn’t have gotten into an accident on his way back from the airport and her life would be as it had been… Normal.
    Stop it. You’re being horrible and selfish. Dad would just laugh at you and say, “That’s the way it goes, baby.”
    She sighed and stood to smooth her dress, before going out and facing her new reality.
    She was reaching for the iron handle of the chapel’s heavy wooden door when she heard a noise on the opposite side of the room. A woman dressed in a black suit and large black hat with a veil was sitting in the front of the chapel.
    “Excuse me,” she said. “The graveside service is about to start.” The woman ignored her. Sophie frowned.
    Maybe she’s here for another service. She pushed the door open to join her mother and the rest of the group.
    It took everyone two minutes to reach the marker serving as a makeshift tombstone.
    She stood there, feeling helpless, frustrated and conflicted. Somewhere deep inside, she still held on to the hope that her father wasn’t gone.
    The monk stood in front of the group, droning on and on to the point she wanted to put her hands over her ears and scream for him to shut up.
    She turned away from the group, her head bowed down in thought, shoving hands into her sweater. Nestled into the front pocket among the clean tissues was a small folded item. Pulling it out, she glanced at it for a second until she recognized her father’s stationary, with his strange gold family crest at the top. She held it, unsure what to do.
    What the heck is this? She glanced at her mother and frowned, thinking her mother had put in some sort of note of support. She shouldn’t be using Daddy’s stationary.
    But she knew she was being a brat because her father was dead. He no longer had any use for stationary.
    She unfolded the paper. At first, her tired eyes were not able to focus on the ink blotches she assumed were words and for the briefest of seconds she thought she saw the ink on the paper swim across it, which she