Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash Page B

her cheeks, and puts the glasses back on as we begin to move forward, me trailing behind like a lost puppy, my heels clicking on stone.
    One female reporter stares at me as I pass. She’s young, maybe around twenty-five, tops, nervously twirling a pearl stud in one ear. As we pass, the look of sadness on her face almost stops me in my tracks, makes me want to sit right down on the stone steps of the church and never get up. At the same time, I’m furious at Luke for putting us in this situation, turning us into people who need to be pitied in the first place.
    The service is mostly a blur. I stare up at the long stained-glass windows or down at my hands folded neatly in my lap, looking anywhere but at the polished wooden box at the front of the altar, the crate holding what is left of my brother. His remains. Which is a strange expression because when you die, nothing really
remains.
Isn’t that the point? You lose it all. The altar is covered in white flowers, the blossoms cool and damp, and I wonder if my parents have paid for them. It’s hard to imagine that anyone else would’ve sent them, considering what Luke’s done. The minister drones on about love and forgiveness, and my ears close entirely. His mouth moves, but I hear nothing. The altar and pulpit are a glittering gold in the sun streaming through the windows, but I don’t feel the presence of God. I don’t feel anything at all. A numbness has set in, weighing down my limbs. I want to cry, to tear at my hair, my clothes, but I am strangely spent. Detached, almost. As if I’m watching these events unfold from somewhere far away. The choir box is empty this morning, and I long for some kind of melody, the crash of the organ, the flight of angelic voices. My fingers twitch against the fabric of my dress and I close my eyes, remembering the Debussy, the Brahms lullaby I played each night before bed, my face pressed to the pad beneath my chin, arms cutting the air around me. The fact that Luke doesn’t deserve music, the blissful lilt and salvation of it, makes me, for some reason, saddest of all.
    Outside, in the cemetery across from the parking lot, the reporters stand at a distance, their cameras snapping, my heels sticking into the soil. There is a terrible grinding sound as the coffin is lowered, and my mother turns away, a white handkerchief pressed to her nose, half of her face obscured. My father picks up a shovel and digs it into the hard ground, filling it with loamy earth as the day grows colder, the temperature dropping. He tosses dirt atop the coffin, and my nose runs wetly. I don’t want him in the ground. “We should’ve cremated him,” I mumble, my lips barely moving, but my parents just stare at the hole, their bodies tense. The sound of dirt hitting wood is louder than rain, rhythmic and unrelenting, and I close my eyes, unable to watch as the earth pelts the mahogany box, dulling its shine and covering him forever.
    After the burial, we head back toward the car, fighting our way through the reporters, our bodies moving on autopilot. I keep my head down, trying not to make eye contact, trying to ignore the clicking cameras, the words hurled through the air at our back. Usually after a funeral, there’s some kind of gathering. I haven’t been to any funerals before, but I’ve heard about them, seen them on TV, in the movies. People come dressed in black, bearing huge trays of food and soft words of comfort. But not for Luke. His actions don’t warrant this. Instead we will go home with our grief, alone. Maybe we will eat something late at night, scrounging around in the refrigerator like thieves, bellies aching and sore. But maybe not.
    There is a figure waiting by our car, slightly stooped with age, her oxfords sensible and brown against the pavement, her legs thin beneath her navy woolen coat, arms crossed at her chest, her wrinkled face tilted toward the sun. Grace. At the sight