My stomach growls and I want to laugh at it out loud but when I look to him for the shared amusement he hasn't looked up from the ground. He's sitting on the top step in front of his house and I am marching in small circles around the lawn, crunching leftover piles of snow under my black patent mary janes. My tights are wet up to the ankles and my coat is too short, leaving me to freeze in my Easter dress that is too thin for early spring in Nova Scotia but it's dark blue and that's better than a lighter color on a day like today.
Lochlan's grandfather (who practically raised him while his hippie parents came and went, travelling the world) died four days ago and the funeral was this morning. Now the cars line the streets since everyone came back to their house afterwards for a reception and the boys are wandering around the neighborhood in suits and ties. I take the pins out of my hair. It was in a ballerina bun which makes my head look tiny, baseball-sized. My mother said people with lighter hair should cover or pin it up because these are dark, dreary occasions and then she sighed and looked at my father and asked if I really was old enough to go to this, that maybe nine years old is too soon.
Too soon for what, Mom? I asked her.
Goodbyes. She smiled gently.
No, it's fine. Besides, I'm only going to be floral-support to Lochlan.
She snorted trying to hold a laugh in as she corrected me. That's moral support, Bridget.
What do morals have to do with it? I asked but she shooed me out because she had to get ready too.
They are inside with the rest of the grownups drinking coffee and eating church-squares and the boys are at the ball field throwing snow and I am keeping up sentry because I can't imagine being anywhere else. What if he needs me? What if he wants to talk?
You can go. He says abruptly.
Do you miss him? I mean...already?
Yes. Now go home, Bridgie.
You think he's still around somewhere? Like hiding?
No, he's gone.
Gone where?
To heaven.
You think there is one?
Now isn't the time, Bridgie. Go home.
But I am getting more and more hungry, exasperated and cold. Why can't you just explain what happens so I don't have to keep bugging you every time your grandparents die?
Because it's not my job! He shouts it and tells me again to go home. It's the first time he's ever scolded me. I don't know what to do with this. He's been a bit of a jerk since he turned fourteen and I don't like it one bit.
I c-can't. My parents are inside your house and I'm h-h-hungry! I start to sniff and my eyes are watering but at the same time I'm attempting to seem like I don't care about his outburst by stomping harder on the snow patches until my slick-bottomed shoes make me wipe out on the lawn. Now my tights have grass-stains, my bum is wet and I'm shivering for real.
He jumps down off the step and picks me up. Come and we'll get some food okay? Then maybe we can watch TV downstairs until everybody goes.
But the minute we got down to the basement, plates and glasses balanced carefully on a tray which he put on the coffee table, he fell apart. I threw my arms around him and told him I would hold him until he felt better.
That's the thing, Bridget. Death doesn't get better. It's just a hole that's there forever. And every time someone else dies it makes another hole, and another, until there's nothing left of you either.
I didn't sleep for a week after that. I had this vision of God swinging by and punching a hole in Lochlan with a big apple-corer-type device and I was determined to protect him and yet terrified it might take only one hole to kill him off, and I wondered if that happened if it would make a hole in me.
