Free Shattered by Melody Carlson Page A

blood sugar. She tries to get me to eat a peppermint, which I can’t stand, but to placate her, I do.
    Finally my dad joins us, and once again, we are on our way. Will this day never end?
    “That was a very nice service, Hugh.” Aunt Kellie makes this sweeping statement like we’re simply on our way home from church—not from burying a loved one.
    “Yes...” Dad sighs. “It seemed to go well.” But he peers curiously at me now. “Except for that little fainting bit. Cleo?”
    “What?”
    “Are you okay?”
    “Aunt Kellie said I had low blood sugar.” I look away, wondering if he suspects that I’ve been sneaking my mother’s old pain pills. But that’s absurd. How could he possibly know?
    When we arrive at home, it smells like a bad buffet and is crawling with people. All I want to do is escape to my room and crash, but before I get the chance, Aunt Kellie corners me in the kitchen, insisting I need to eat something.
    “But I’m not hungry.”
    “You don’t feel hungry,” she tells me, “but you still need to eat.”
    “And you need to visit with our guests.” My dad drops some used paper plates into a grocery bag that’s doubling as a garbage container by the back door.
    Aunt Kellie nods in agreement. “Your dad is right, Cleo. It’s your job to play hostess today. Your mom would expect that much of you.”
    So I eat some bites of a casserole that tastes like a combination of processed cheese and sawdust. I top that off with a piece of chocolate cake that’s so sweet it makes my teeth hurt. Then I ask to be excused for a few minutes. “Just to use the bathroom,” I explain as I take a can of soda from the ice chest.
    “Of course,” Aunt Kellie says sweetly. “Just don’t forget to come back.”
    I head to the hall bathroom, which is actually in use, so instead I go to my parents’ bathroom where I take my other pill, washing it down with soda. Then flushing the toilet for effect, I open their medicine cabinet, looking to see if the bottle of Vicodin is still where I left it. It seems to be in the same place. I empty the remaining pills into a tissue, which I wrap up like a minipackage, then slip into my bra. But before I leave, I pour a couple dozen aspirin tablets into the empty Vicodin bottle. Just in case my dad should check.
    Then I go out, trying to play the role of “hostess,” but everyone keeps talking about my mom, saying what a generous and kind person she was, how it was too soon to lose her... on and on. And I have no response to that.
    “Your mother was an absolute saint,” a woman named Maria tells me. “Do you know how she helped me when Julio was born?”
    I blink, trying to focus on this woman’s amazing eyes—they are black and shiny as glass. “No... I don’t recall.”
    “She was an angel. Three years ago, I was pregnant with Julio and my husband had left me with nothing. Your mother arranged a baby shower at church, and she helped me to find furniture at secondhand shops and...” On she goes, but the words are like colorful balloons floating off into the nether-sphere, over my head and far out of my reach.
    “And sh-she helped find me a place to live,” a middle-aged man with a serious lisp and stammer tells me. He seems to know Maria and I think I’ve seen him at church before, but I can’t remember his name. “I was homeless-ss and jobless-ss.” Like an impaired snake, he gets stuck on the s sound, but he nods over and over for emphasis. “That was about ss-six years ago. I’ve been working ever ss-since.”
    Feeling like a bobblehead doll, I mimic his nod. “That’s great. I’m so happy for you.”
    Maria continues talking about Julio and how much he loved “Aunt Karen” and how she sometimes babysat him. “Right here in this house.” She looks around with a sad smile.
    “Right here?” I glance about the family room, trying to imagine my mother caring for a toddler... and me not even knowing.
    As Maria and the lisp man continue to recall