Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash Page A

thought she’d
never
leave.”
    And, with those words, I feel myself pitching forward, sliding down as the room, Luke’s face, the night, fall away and I hit the floor.

SEVEN
    In the car, on the way to the funeral the next morning, my head still throbs. I rub the sore spot on my forehead, the skin underneath tender and smarting. When I woke up, the room was empty, but for the same strange floral smell mixed with burning leaves, and a wisp of sulfur, the remnants of a struck match.
    I’m wearing the shapeless black dress I got at the mall, my hair held away from my face by a long silver barrette. Dressing this morning, I stood in front of the mirror, unable to move, overcome with anxiety. Would people be outside the church? The cemetery? Because my hair was combed neatly, my clothes pressed and wrinkle-free, would they think,
Oh. She’s not really grieving. Look how carefully she’s combed her hair, how neatly she’s dressed.
Or would it be worse if I turned up disheveled, a run climbing up the leg of my stocking like a ladder going nowhere?
I can’t believe she’s dressed so sloppily at her brother’s funeral. They must not have been very close . . .
I held on to my dresser and tried to breathe, my eyes burning and gritty.
    â€œIt’s a closed service,” my mother says from the front seat, reaching over and pulling the visor down to smooth her hair, touch up the lipstick at the corner of her mouth. Seeing her wearing lipstick looks strange, like eye shadow on a small child. Usually when she’s working at the gallery, she’s barefaced, her artfulness reserved for her hair, pulled back in a French twist.
A closed service.
The words spin in my brain. We’re not religious, but my mother usually makes us go to church for the holidays—Christmas, Easter, all the big ones. Personally, I don’t see the point. “Just immediate family.”
    Immediate family. Which I guess means us. My grandparents are too old and sick to make the trip from Iowa on such short notice. My grandfather had a stroke last year, and now he pretty much lives in la-la land. Must be nice.
    In front of Saint Anne’s, reporters are parked at the curb, and they rush at our car the minute we exit, clutching their microphones, their notepads. The sun is shining brightly, but the day is cold and bitter, as it usually is in mid-March, the wind cutting through my dress and long wool coat. We push through the crowd, each individual voice blending together like the incessant chirping of birds. I try to pretend I’m at the zoo, that we’re passing through an aviary, rustling feathers in shades of turquoise and coral, somewhere lush and beautiful, but I can’t. I just can’t. My father stops at the stone steps. He’s wearing a black suit and his shoes are scuffed, in sharp contrast to their usual mirrored shine. He brings one hand to his chest as if he’s in pain, his wedding ring glinting in the sunlight in a flash of gold.
    â€œPaul?” My mother’s voice sounds frightened. “Paul? What is it?” She grabs his arm, pulls off her dark glasses. Beneath them her face is white, her eyes puffy.
    â€œI don’t think I can,” my father whispers. “I don’t think I can go in there.”
    He bends at the waist, still clutching his chest. The reporters swarm around us, hungry, wanting to be fed, and my mother turns to look at them, her face full of rage.
    â€œWe are
burying our son
today.
Please
let us have some privacy,” she shouts, her voice echoing in the cold air. The reporters take a step back, though reluctantly. My shoulders shake violently, and all I want is to go inside, to be warm again. Even if it means seeing Luke for the last time. My mother takes my father by the hand and pulls him close to her. “You can do this,” I hear her whisper. “We have to do it together.” She looks over at me, tears streaking