He's Still Smiling

I stand in the back of the room, fiddling with my tie and trying not to look at the box at the front of the room. I loosen my tie then tighten it and repeat.I keep my head down, my eyes on my shoes. Anything to keep from making eye contact. The last thing I want is to get into a reminiscing conversation with someone when I’m already fighting back tears.

I tip my head back and blink rapidly. I catch sight of a table of water bottles and walk over to grab one, purposely turning my head to the wall opposite the box. I weave through a group of people, murmuring apologies. Everyone is dressed in black, dresses, tuxes, his Mom is even wearing a black veil. She’s crying somewhere in the large room and she’s not the only one. I can’t blame her. I finally reach the table and grab one for myself, taking a deep drink.

“Austin?” I look over, squinting through blurry eyes.

“Nora?” She tucks a yellow strand of hair behind her ear, her eyes as watery as mine. She’s wearing a simple black dress that resembles a turtleneck and flows down to her black hightops. I haven’t seen her in years, not since…

I shove the memory aside and I have a feeling that she’s trying to do the same. “I didn't know you were coming,” she says quietly.

“Well, here I am,” I say, just as quiet. It feels like this somber blanket of silence has fallen over the crowd and everyone is afraid to break it. I can feel my throat tightening up when I try to say something more. She blinks a few times, her pale blue eyes shining in the electric lights. “Are you okay?” I don’t know why I say it, it just seems like something you're supposed to say when a close family member dies.

“I don’t know,” she answers. “Hey… do you wanna go outside for a minute?” I nod, loosening my tie. The doors of the funeral home are open, people flowing in and out, wandering into different rooms to view different bodies. I wonder how many of the rooms are in use. Nora and I sit down on a bench under a large oak tree in the front yard. A group of kids are playing with a bright red ball somewhere out of sight, but their screams can be heard from blocks away. The sun is bright overhead, cars zoom by as if nothing’s happened. I suppose people die every day but… but this was Clayton.

“Austin?”

“Hm?”

“The… the real reason I asked you to come out here…” She takes a breath. “I haven't been able to look at him. I noticed that you haven’t gone near the coffin either, so…”

“I get it. The last time I saw him, he couldn’t wipe that stupid grin off his face.” Just the thought of his grin makes me smile. He had an infectious smile and when he laughed, you wouldn’t have a clue what he was talking about but you’d just have to laugh with him. Ever since Clayton’s Mom called from the hospital, I just kept thinking about his laugh. He’s never going to light up a room ever again.

Austin… it's Clayton. There was an accident and… The car swerved but…

I glance over at Nora and watch the streaks ruin her makeup. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her against my side. When I was a kid, I used to hate Nora, with a passion that rivaled how much I hated Math. She’s Clayton’s older sister, and she always dragged him back to his house for lunch and bedtime and I used to hate her for that. Then… I don’t know. We grew up, I guess. I can’t remember when I stopped hating Nora, I’m just glad that I did. I look up at the sky. Not a cloud in sight.

“He was right,” I murmur. She just looks at me so I explain. “Clayton always said it would be sunny at his funeral. He wanted it to rain and-”

“And Mother Nature hates him,” Nora finishes for me. She sniffles and rubs at her eyes. “I still don’t know where he got that from.”

I count them off on my hand. “It rained on his sixth birthday when we were having cake in the park. Then it snowed in April-the day of his first job interview. He missed the interview ‘cause we had to trudge through that. There was that almost tornado the day we graduated high school. Then there was the-”

“Well, what do you expect?" she cuts in. "This is the midwest, Mother Nature hates all of us." I burst out laughing. I don’t mean to, but it’s just so true. She starts laughing, too. An older lady wearing a black dress gives us a look from the door so we both do our best to muffle it.

“What do you think Clayton would want on his gravestone?” I ask.

She giggles. “How should I know, you’re his best friend.”

“Well, you're his sister.” I poke Nora in her side, sparking another giggle and a rousing round of slap-fighting.

“If anything, Clayton would get his hands on some necromancer spell. Anytime anyone reads it, he would pop up and yell ‘Boo!’,” she laughs.

“There are plenty of spells in D&D,” I say, which makes her laugh again.

“I forgot you guys were into that.”

I feel the grin slip off my face and I murmur, “Well, we were.” She stops laughing and looks down at her shoes. She pokes her toe at the grass. “I can’t go back in there. I can’t look at him, not by myself.” I offer her my hand. After a moment, she takes it and we head back inside. It’s more suffocating than the last time but she grips my hand tight as we walk up to the coffin. Clayton’s hair was combed, which was a surprise in itself, and his pale skin looks vampire white in the electrical lighting. I heard stories about people looking like they’re just sleeping when they’re dead. Not Clayton. He doesn’t look like himself, not in that tux, not that still.

“Do you see it?” Nora murmurs beside me. I glance at her then back to Clayton. Then I see it, a phantom of his grin like his face couldn’t forget, even in death. I hear something and look up, turning my eyes to a large window that I hadn’t noticed before. I must have been standing right in front of it before Nora found me.

Grey puffy clouds are starting to roll in. Maybe Clayton will get his rain after all.

I grip Nora’s hand a little tighter. Maybe Mother Nature is giving him a break, just this once. Even though the clouds are quickly rolling in, things don’t look as dark as they did before.