The sun is shining brightly on a temperate September day. The light begins to outstretch its soft rays through the blinds as I peel my eyelids out of their glued state. They sting—dry, burning pain wrapping its tendrils around my skull. For just a moment, I lay blankly, my head and knees almost magnetically drawn towards each other.

  Without another second, reality slams its fist into my chest. My brother is dead.

  Salt streams begin their flow once more. My stomach lurches itself into my throat, an ache clinging to the cords like papier-mâché. I lay unmoored until I hear my name called from down the stairs. The sound echoes up from the same place it’s been called my whole life, every day before school, for dinner, or chores, all from a whole place, unfractured.

  I place my hands beside my legs, preparing myself to place the heavy weight of the fibers now clinging to my new state of being atop my feet. The familiar creaks of the floor now have a new sound; they’re louder, their sounds echoing out for a body that will never again feel their note. As I arrive downstairs, I see flowers piled up in the worst way. Distant relatives have resigned themselves to duties in distress. My great aunt Pam timidly sweeps each stair, cousin Clint changes batteries in the smoke detector, Aunt Tracy washes dishes with frenzied hands. The house is filled with tear-stricken faces, unsure of what to say but sure of making themselves as busy, as if Grendel lies in wait, and at any stopped moment will wrap their throats in grief.

  I crack my mother’s door open to find her and her brother talking about how today will go. I worry to myself that this will be the easy part; whatever I ask for, there are a dozen people at the ready to retrieve it. What will become of me when the house empties? How will the weight of this unknown grief sit upon my shoulders? It's time to get ready, but I'm unsure which foot to place in front of the other. I shower in my mother's bathroom—usually she'd scold me, but today I'll be allowed. I stand, eyes open, letting the hot water drape itself over me. I use soaps and shampoos that my mother keeps reserved for special occasions.

  I am not sure I want to mark today as a special occasion, but I long for the scent of my first day of high school and my sixteenth birthday as if the soap could transport me, as if I could open the curtain and have showered this all down the drain.

  In the mirror, a puffed and splotchy version of someone I can only vaguely recognize is reflected back to me. I decide there is no need to diffuse my curls; they’ll just get crushed by my head later, reshaped by my tears. Hanging on the back of the door is a new black dress. I think it’s ugly, but today will mar it to stay unworn just as well. I thought that would make today easier when I picked it from the rack.

  Ugly black dress for an ugly black day. I pin a brooch with a sea-foam green stone surrounded by diamonds just left of my heart. I do not believe much in the dead having feelings, but just in case they do, I want to have his favorite color on. I hide myself in my mother’s room until someone comes to tell me that it's time to go. Their face looks nervous as if I’m a fragile thing to hold, but not fragile like a glass, fragile like a bomb.

  My mom and dad are in the front seat, and I try to remember the last time I saw them drive together, and I don’t think that I can. I don’t let my feet creep in the doorway of the kinds of people we would all be if they were still together. I long for not even a better life, just a different one. When we get there, I cannot stomach sitting in front of that cedar box for any longer than I have to. So, a rocking chair outside a non-denominational chapel becomes my confidant. I watch people trickle in, most tightening their lips into straight lines, nodding gently. I can see in their faces that they have no idea what to say to me. I silently thank them each for not trying.

  I rock back and forth, watching each car pass. I imagine the families inside them: a mother getting groceries, a dad carting kids to soccer, two teenagers heading to the mall. I consider all the times I've passed somewhere, blissfully unaware of a stranger's worst day. I think about each time I've remained utterly unchanged by a grief so strong that surely, surely it could be felt in the air for miles.

  I glare at the cloudless sky. It's too blue, too bright—offensive in its perfection. It feels like the universe is taunting me with what? A gift? A feeble imitation of a beautiful day? I can't quite make up my mind before I know that I must go. The front row. I never sit in the front row of anything. There's a slideshow of pictures projected onto a rollout screen, music I picked out is playing, and I remark how few photos there really are. There will be no more do-overs at Christmas or photobombs at birthdays. A life wrapped up into what? A two-song slideshow?

  My brother's friends sit in the pew next to us, most of them in ill-fitting suits. Their juvenility leaves them unprepared for such an occasion. I barely notice anymore when I'm crying versus when I'm not. A preacher hums on about eternal rest, or mercy, or something I can't absorb. I think about him up there, orating for a boy he did not know, to a family once again. I wonder about my mother. Her brother, my uncle Jason, died when they were about the same ages as Wesley and I are now.

  Is it just a cruel coincidence? Or perhaps some sort of prophecy that required fulfillment. Did she also feel paralyzed by it? Did her face remain unchanged like mine? Or did she collapse into a heap to be held?

  My mom gently places her hand on my leg and I know this is her signaling that it is now my turn to speak. Under my thigh are two pages of notebook paper folded into thirds. I think that this paper should have been used for algebra or crude doodles in the back of a history class, but it, too, has the unlucky fate of being here today.

  My feet are shaky when I stand, and once I’m behind the podium, I step my stocking-covered feet out of my plastic-feeling heels onto the carpet, my toes digging into its grain. I raise my chin, and my gaze is met by a sea of people. I am sure that my hair will begin to fall out. That their stares will burn my face. Their eyes, their looking at me, feel palpable. It is so silent as I unfold my paper. The crinkle sounds like a scream, like at any moment the bomb will explode, leaving my body, my pain, blown to bits, staining each one of them.

  I speak of Wesley as best as I know how. What do you say about a brother who will never see eighteen? I tell a story about us roaming through the forest behind our house as kids. The trees then seemed to stretch on forever. It held every unknown thing that either one of our young minds could dream of, the chivalrous adventures of two knights, all the clues two detectives needed to crack the case open, the track Olympians would race through, claiming their medals at the finish line. I watch the tears fall from people's eyes, and I know most of them aren’t crying for the life he did live; they're crying for the one he won't get to. They sit before me, watching me do the last thing I'll ever get to for my brother. I'm less of a sister now, less of a friend; I've now stepped into the robes of the eulogizer.

  I step back down the stairs, unsure. But, pallbearers all immediately stand up, and it feels like a performance that I missed the rehearsal for. Frank Sinatra's “My Way” blares from somewhere, far too loud. As the men in my life pick up the casket, I catch a glimpse of him inside—really him, the last time I'll ever see my brother's face-my face. This cedar box is where he'll stay forever. We will never get to fight over headphones again, or scare each other from closets, or fill rooms with laughter straight from our bellies. I, at that moment, feel more alone in the world than I ever have. Who will be next to me at the holidays? Or at graduations? Or as our parents grow old? Who could grow me a new brother now? Not even Antigone could demand that of the gods. I stand in that moment aware that the hurt inside me will not go away. Perhaps it will ebb and flow like a wave, but it will still crash back into me—where it belongs now.

  My knees give out. I collapse onto the carpet—the same carpet I just stood on, toes digging in for strength—and now it catches me as I break. As if there were a clock counting down above my head, my mother grabs me and carries me out, first in line. Each pew of faces I pass looks at us as if their furrowed brows, downturned mouths, and teary eyes will heal.

  The sun reaches out its arms from above, and I feel grateful for its silent embrace. I lean my forehead against the cool window. The sun follows us home, tracing its way along the glass, refusing to disappear. For a moment, I hate it for its persistence. And then, maybe, I don’t. The backseat of the car becomes a comforting bubble of isolation. I sit alone, then just as I will sit alone, the first of countless times. It is a palpably painful beginning to the rest of my life. I trace my fingers over the brooch, the green stone catching the last bit of light. It feels warm now. Maybe it always will.