Diagonal Lines

Trigger warning: suicide

Our night first began at the graveyard. It was about five o’clock, the time where most families would be laughing and clanking pans and talking about politics. But there we were, our feet sinking in the wet grass, the smiles gone from our faces. 

The daisies that Josie held were bending and hiding their creased faces. She clutched them in one hand, her fingernails making brown indents in their stems. “Do you know where they are?” she asked, her voice cracking through the silence. 

“No,” I replied, wiping a hand across my eyes. “But we’ll find them.” 

The lines of graves ran diagonal on the land. Josie brushed them with her knuckles, pausing occasionally to read the engraved names. 

There were flowers already laying on their elbows in front of some stones. They looked like they were having trouble breathing. I was too. The air was thick. 

Patches of sky were darkening and shadows stretched behind the graves. It was a clear day overall, but the kind of temperature that makes you want to close your eyes. Josie was sweating and I could see it on her shirt.

“Do normal people visit their family today?” she asked, sucking in her lips like a fish. 

I wanted to giggle but something held me back. “Normal people do.” 

Josie nodded to herself, “So we’re normal, then.” 

“Whatever you want to call it,” I told her. My lips almost curled, but then I saw them. 

A group of smooth stones over to the left. They sat up straight and had dead petals littered at their feet. The names, we knew, didn’t matter anymore. I read them, my hands in my pockets, while Josie set a single daisy before each of them in the dirt. She had just enough. 

I started with my brother, shifting my weight onto my knees and curling my fingers into a fist. Josie jumped towards her mother first. Together we whispered some poems and songs and things we didn’t mean. We left them with a kiss to their stones and moved on. I glanced at her mother’s grave, briefly, mouthing a ‘sorry’ for all the things I couldn’t say. 

Next for me was my grandmother. She was a sour old woman but I loved her and that was that. It was like I could hear her voice, tickling my ears, catching on the wind. I know she’d say something about dead daisies and how much she hated small talk about weather. 

Josie moved on to her and I inched to the right. A small grave, carved with hearts and unreadable words. I wasn’t ready to face her yet. So I averted my eyes and moved to the next one. 

My parents. The first ones to go, the last ones I wanted to talk to. Josie was busy laughing and touching Grandmother’s stone in a way that made me uncomfortable, so I decided I’d have to deal with it on my own. The pain. 

“Hi Mom, hi Dad,” I whispered, my throat aching and my eyes lingering on the daisy. “So how are you?” 

Silence. 

I sighed. “I’m taking care of Josie like you asked.” I peered at Josie, the apple-cheeked girl. I needed to tell them something, though. And I was so glad they couldn’t speak. “I’m not working at the firm like you asked.” It came out quick but not enough. Josie glanced in my direction. “I found a job at a local bakery. It’s nice and pays the bills—” Tears ran down my nose and dripped onto my sleeves. They caught in my mouth and I swallowed them while toying with a loose thread on my sweatshirt. The graveyard was more a home than than bakery but I didn’t want to worry them. 

I felt arms around me and saw that Josie had crawled over. She closed her eyes and let me rest my head on her shoulder. “I thought I could do it but I can’t.” Admitting it felt so much worse. 

In the car ride back to her apartment, my hands shook on the wheel and Josie hummed an overplayed song. She asked me, over and over, if I was okay. I reassured her I was fine every time but looked immediately out the window because I couldn’t bear to lie to my little cousin. 

Once we arrived at our apartment, Josie stripped herself bare and smoothed out her dress out on the bed. It had been her mother’s when she was a girl and it was black and embroidered and beautiful. 

I changed into my pajamas, already over with the night. Although it was only 6:30 pm, the time where normal families would be holding hands and eyeing the feasts before them and whispering turkey jokes until the walls vibrated with giggles. But there Josie and I were, in our bedroom, staring at our ripped pajamas and wondering why the balcony door was wide open. 

“Wind,” Josie said, “warm November wind.” 

But we both knew I had forgotten to shut the door. I led Josie out onto the balcony and pulled up a chair for myself to sit on. Before us was the city, grey and sparkling and tall. The world was big and we knew it, but we also knew we were safer in our apartment, eating day-old scones. 

Josie touched the rail and let the breeze ruffle her hair. Her eyes were closed and she stretched her arms to cradle the sunset clouds. 

“I come on this balcony a lot.” she muttered, opening her eyes. “And I always wonder, what if I jumped?” 

I shut my mouth and looked at her. Time revolved around this moment and I knew what was coming. “Don’t say that.” My lips curved like I was reciting a script. 

“I am causing you trouble and pain. If I just jumped—” Josie began, leaning on her toes and glimpsing what lied below. Sidewalk and graffiti and smashed windows of cars. 

“No!” I stood in a flash, grasped Josie’s arm and yanked it back inside. I threw myself onto the couch, glancing up only to realize the balcony doors were still open. And Josie was gone. 

Screams echoed in my ears. The memory flooded back so often it was hard to live reality when Josie was tiptoeing around my apartment. I thought instantly of that small grave at the graveyard. With the hearts and scribbles in her handwriting. I said the names didn’t matter but they did. That one read ‘Josephine.’ 

My whole family was dead and that was that.