2018-02-08 - After The Funeral

The police hadn't let them bury Lucy until the investigation was complete. Not until they had determined that it was, in fact, an accident, that Logan or Emily hadn't thrown her down the stairs, bashed her head into the floor and left her there to die. Her body sat in the morgue for weeks, cold and gray and lifeless. Untouched. The house sat just the same. It had only just been weeks, but the impact of Lucy's death could be felt in every tense conversation, every argument, every sob hidden in the hotel bathtub to keep the mourning away from the others. They were all dealing with this some way, individually. After all, their connection had bled out on the rug.

But it had been weeks. The police closed the case, ripped the caution tape from the doors, and let Lucy's body be delivered unto the earth. Outside, the weather was uncommonly sunny - the clouds that so often dominated the sky had vanished just for today, leaving the sun to shine.

"Isn't it supposed to rain when you bury somebody?" Logan's voice was rough, like he hadn't slept for weeks - he hadn't, of course. He was standing by the window in the living room, still in his suit with his tie loosened, the jacket over the back of the sofa. It was only for a moment, so he can draw the curtains shut, darkening the room. "It should've rained today."

God, how those weeks dragged. Through the worst of it - the initial, horrible shock and then the bitter anger at the suggestion of an accusation, the unfairness that her sister's body, his wife's body was being treated like a fourth grader's science exhibit... through that, at least, they could be comrades-in-arms. This was a thing that couldn't be understood from the outside looking in, and - even if it was only to make sure the other hadn't jumped off a bridge - they were in the hardest part of it together.

But the worst was over now. Or, at least, that's what Emily kept telling herself. Get through telling the police what happened, and the worst will be over. Get through this investigation, and the worst will be over. Get through planning her sister's funeral - with her parents, with her sister's husband - and the worst will be over. Get through the funeral and...

What was left of her mother had just put the last of the food in Logan's refrigerator and left quietly. And what was left of Emily steps out of that kitchen a minute later, dressed for the funeral but frazzled after the day, apparently having decided she's taking these flowers right here, the ones she's holding against her side with one arm, home with her. Some nice neighbor had sent them, and they're sad white roses, and she's been guarding them all day.

"It's supposed to rain tomorrow." She crosses, stands next to him, looks at the closed curtains like she can still see the rain-less day on the other side of them. "We should have done it tomorrow."

Logan still has his hand gripping the curtains closed as she comes to stand beside him, frozen if but for a moment. The noise of her voice breaks the paralysis though - when he drops his hand, the curtains sag enough to let just a sliver of sunshine through. "I can never get these damn things never close right," he mutters, fussing with the shade again as he casts a look to her. "It always rains here. Every day, except today," he swallows a lump in his throat, looking back to the curtains that just. fucking. refused to close. "We should have done it tomorrow," he agrees, but his voice is choked as the next words leave him, "We shouldn't have had to do it at all."

Without thinking about it first, Emily says dully, "Sure, just left her body in one of those morgue refrigerators forever. It's not like she hadn't - " But something gets through. Maybe it's his tone. Maybe it's his obsession with this one small problem. Maybe it's the sound of her own nihilism in this quiet house. Whatever it is, she stops, shifting the flowers to hold them against one hip like you would a baby. With her free hand, she grabs the gap left in the curtains, and starts pulling on the one on her side of the window. Making it worse when she rips the cloth through the hook, her teeth set against the tearing fabric.

Fuck this curtain in particular.

"That's not what I --" It was a snap, that comment, and there was far more too it but silenced in the tear of the curtain through the hook as she pulls. His gray eyes lift, narrowing into a glare up at the hook, as though all of his life's problems could be solved if this curtain never existed in the first place. "I always hated these curtains," he speaks through gritted teeth, as he curls a piece of the other panel around in his fist. "I hate the fucking color, I hate the fucking pattern, I hate that they never. FUCKING. CLOSE!" And with that outburst, he jerks his hand, popping the curtain off several of the hooks until it hangs limp. Useless. The sunlight spills back into the house, practically glistening upon the hardwood floor.

Emily looks at him through the outburst, her eyes moving rather than her face. And she keeps dealing with her half of these curtains methodically. Rip - pop. Rip - pop. One hook. And another. And another. And the sound gets lost under Logan's tirade, but the curtain continues until it's just the one hook left, and his side is all askew. The light reflects off the floor, up and back into eyes that are already tear-tired, and now squinting against the hardwood-sun. She yanks the last hook loose, dragging the whole curtain down into a chaotic pile that covers up that glare. "It should have rained," she agrees quietly, nodding now that they've kind of solved a problem, here. I mean, really poorly, but whatever; baby steps.

It's an easy job to finish, the curtains. As she yanks the last hook loose on her side, he pulls his side down as well, tossing the panel into a pile along with her own. "Fuck these curtains," he chokes back a sob as he turns stiffly from her, from the window, and pushes his fingers in a frustrated motion through his hair as he staggers to the couch. He collapses into a heap onto the cushions and leans into his knees, glaring at the curtains that now line the floor instead of the window. "What am I gonna fucking do with this place, Em?"

Chekhov's flowers: she bends down, setting the vase of roses down into the middle of the ruined curtains, then straightens and steps back for a second, surveying the overall effect. Not quite maudlin enough. Emily turns them just a little, making the sun really hit those greenish-white petals, and then retreats, empty arms crossed, to half-lean/half-sit against the now exposed window sill, palms braced flat on the wood. It makes it easier for her to see him, anyway; probably less so in reverse, with the back-lighting. "Burn it down." No, but seriously. "To the ground."

Logan doesn't look up to her, he keeps his gaze firmly on the curtains and watches her shadow instead as she fusses to align the roses on the floor. There's a point though where he has to look away, somewhere in the midst of her adjustments to the vase, his focus traveling across the hardwood to the stairs. They took away the rug at the very bottom, but he was certain if he went to look now? He'd still find her blood, dried in the spaces between the wood panels. "I can't," he replies, his voice distant and unfocused. "She loves this house." Loves. Not loved. "We sunk everything we had into buying it," he swallows the lump in his throat. "I can't burn it down, Em, what if she's still.." He doesn't finish the thought. He just stares at the stairs.

"She's not." Cold, hard certainty gives Emily's voice an edge, as quietly as she pitches the words. He can look over there, where Lucy landed, but she won't. Or can't. Whichever, the end result is the same. Her eyes stay on poor Logan all this while, even when the tiniest... the smallest... just a little whisper of doubt manages to creep in and prompt her follow-up question. "...is she?" This is his Thing.

This is when the hairs need to rise on the back of his neck and the goosebumps and the floor should creak terribly. Because that's how scary movies work.

Alas! This wasn't a scary movie.

"No," the word left his lips in a whisper, before he sinks his face into his hands. There's a tremble to his shoulders as he sighs into his palms, dragging them down over his eyes and cheeks and then falling with a clap into his lap. "My dad was gone a month before he showed up though. A month. Maybe it's just.. Maybe it's just taking her time. Maybe that's how it works," he looks back to Emily finally, away from The Spot, his face drawn. "I can't burn this place down."

Was she hoping for a yes? A no? It's hard to tell. Emily's fingers move on the window-sill, and the shadows of her fingers move on the pile of ruined curtains, splaying when she flexes them. "Do you want me to burn it down for you?" She shouldn't sound like that's a legitimate offer, but she sure puts it out there like this is a thing she'd be willing to do. No, like this is a thing she'd be happy to do. Or, y'know, what passes for 'happy' these days. Because, "You can't try to live here."

The stare he levels upon her is one of utter disbelief at her offer, his jaw slack. He turns his head away and gives it a slow shake, slowly exhaling a breath. "No," he says quietly, with finality. "I don't want you to burn it down, Em. She loves this house," he says that firmly, resolutely. "And I don't have anywhere else to go."

There's a long, quiet moment. A long. Long. Long. Quiet moment. Emily doesn't say anything, and a clock tics away in the kitchen, minding the seconds before, "Loved." Someone's gonna have to set him straight about it; might as well be her. She pushes off the window sill, crosses the room in a few steps, and sits down next to him. Just to be there. "Past tense."

The word made him jolt, reeling away from her as though she'd slapped him. The instant her weight hit the cushions beside him, he was up on his feet, stalking across the room. "How can you say that?" he demands to know, turning on his heel to stare at her, back to the stairs. "How can you put her in the past already, Emily, how? She wasn't past tense last month, making her past tense now doesn't help it get fucking better! She loves this house. I'm not fucking burning it down." End of story. He twists, heavy feet leading him to the kitchen. "And I'm not fucking leaving."

Emily sits through all this. She just looks at him quietly, letting him, giving away nothing in the lusterless look that follows his steps and then the places his attention goes and then back to him. Just before he's in the kitchen, just before his steps cross the line from one room into the other, she says resolutely, "I am." Not, like, immediately. She doesn't get up and storm off or anything, but there's portent in the simple statement. In a minute, like it or not, she's going to wind up following him. If only to make sure he's not opening his throat over the sink or something.

"Well good for you," the words tumble out of his mouth in a heated rush. It was the kind of thing somebody says and regrets later, much later, when the house is empty and it's just you and the ghosts that live there now. But for the time being, there was nothing but the bitterness of his words left behind in the living room. At least he doesn't go slice his neck in the kitchen! Silver lining~ Instead, he just slams the refrigerator door open to start tossing all the shit that was now expired.

Emily makes herself stay sitting on that sofa for a solid two minutes. She counts it in her head, all one-hundred-and-twenty Mississippis. Then gets up and follows him as far as the kitchen doorway, looking through at his mundane occupation. "I couldn't save Lucy, and I can't save you either. And I think," she takes a small, steadying breath, "that we're going to lose each other. So I guess. Just try not to lose yourself, too."

Out goes the milk, the butter and the eggs. Into the trash went some half-rotted apples, molded-over blueberries, a bunch of sour grapes. But he comes to the left-overs that they ate that night just as she rounds herself into the kitchen, and he catches his breath. His hand lingers over the red top to the Tupperware, as he casts his gaze to her. Or, not fully onto her - he was staring at her shoes. "I have a phone, Em," he mumbles, drawing his hand out of the fridge empty. He shuts the door with a nudge of his hip. He wasn't going to argue about saving Lucy - that guilt was his own, too. "Use it. Call me. Then nothing gets lost." He moves to take the bag out of the trash, his lips curving into a deeper frown, and he breathes out a sigh as he lifts his gaze to her eyes this time. "You should go. Before the rain starts again."

Emily's laugh is brittle, but she tries. "Okay, Logan. I'll call you." It sounds too trite, like too small a thing. And also it's not true, anyway, and she lets him know that it's not true when, answering that look, she shakes her head a little, and shrugs, and goes back into the other room to pick up the flowers she's TAKING THE FUCK WITH HER, and leaves quietly.

And that's it. Radio silence. He's going to have to come to terms with this ghost on his own. And hopefully not slit his throat.