I.
The funeral snaked through the cemetery. Somber faces with laced veils above downcast eyes moving through the humid air. It slithered around gravestones, slowly zig-zagging behind mausoleums and trees. Looking down, there were flowers gathered loosely together in sadness, shriveled up from the cold, pressed against the rocks of the gravestones as if listening for something. A sign of life, perhaps. As the slow march came to a stop, the crunching of leaves under feet stopping, the quiet enveloped them. The humid air wrapped its big arms around the group, huddling them closer. The only color was the green grass beneath the fog, and the white flowers adoring the casket, a black casket so deep that Death himself would have trouble seeing anything. But the silence, the silence was something to talk about. Words on the tips of everyone’s tongues, all the same thought, all the same breath, but there were no words. Only hands clutching tissues and other hands, trying to hold on for stability perhaps, against the crippling sorrow. Hands on hands, hands on faces, covering up the tears if they were weak; hands on stomachs with stone stoic faces if they were strong. Hands over hearts, beating. Still alive and beating, beating and breaking, beaten and broken. And the fog, with arms stretched wire, it welcomed them; with arms outstretched, it consumed them.

II.
Jonathan walked into his living room, the stench of sorrow hung in the air, and circulated around each family member. His mother, eyes red and puffy, took long slow drags off a cigarette. His little sister Jean, sniffled softly, her head in her mother’s lap, and Jonathan almost found it funny because he had a sudden concern for secondhand smoke. Jean watched the ceiling fan as it slowly rotated, her mother’s smoke rising and disappearing as it ascended towards the ceiling. And his father, tie loosened around his neck, his face as white as a ghost. He stared out the window from behind his wife, a glad of scotch in his firm grip. Jonathan watched as his father lifted the glass to his lips and downed the liquor in one powerful grip. Jonathan watched his father repeat this three more times before moving. It was the family photos hanging proudly on the wall that caught his eye. Family photos from throughout the years, all smiles. A picture perfect family. His eyes focused on one, the most recent one and probably the last, he thought. He forced himself to look at his sister Jenny, his now dead sister Jenny. That moment seemed too surreal for him, seeing that snapshot of her, when her blood was still warm and her heart was still beating and her mind, always thinking and processing and seeing, really seeing. Jonathan stared into her dark brown eyes for as long as he could, but as much as he tried, he couldn’t recreate that moment.

III.
The matter of Jenny’s death spread quickly. Jonathan witnessed it being passed by word of mouth through the hallways at his school. It was in the papers, and he was constantly receiving condolences. He only wished, though, that it would be left alone. Every sincere apology, every bouquet of flowers added to the lump in his throat, the aching in his chest. He knew what a horrible tragedy it was. He knew that she should have taken someone hiking with her, and not so late in the day, and not so close to winter. He knew that she was adventurous, always putting herself in danger, always trying to see the world in a different way. He also knew that she fell, hurting her leg, and was left alone as night fell only to succumb to hypothermia. He knew this; the people in the halls who whispered as he passed knew this, and with each condolence he was reminded of it. All he wanted was for it to stop.

The only escape he could find from this reminder was to run to a bathroom, be it at school or at home. He found a bathroom was the only place to get any real privacy. He would lean his head against the wall; eyes closed, and listen to the sounds of his breathing. He made his mind go quiet and let himself fall into the rhythm of his breath. If he allowed himself to, he could stand there for stretches of time lasting hours, but he knew that if he was absent, it would cause some questioning. So he would allow himself forty breaths before leaving the bathroom, forty breaths where he was completely separated, from the grief and the condolences and the whispers. For those forty breaths, he was free.

IV.
Weeks later, when things began to quiet down and the whispering stopped, Jonathan noticed the talk throughout the halls became almost non-existent. His trips to the bathroom did as well. But what didn’t stop for Jonathan was the dull aching behind his eyes; it began every morning when his mind tricked him into believing she was still alive, still sleeping in the room next door. Every morning this headache started, and it would last ceaselessly through the entire day, and deep into the night when he wasn’t able to sleep. Most times, in the far reaches of the night, he would tip toe into her room, slowly opening the closed door. The air was stale, stagnant, smelling faintly of Jenny’s perfume. He would sit on her bed, just like he had so many times before, consoling her, laughing with her, being present with her. Subconsciously Jonathan would stroke the bedding, still whisperring secrets to his sister, praying for some kind of response. When none came, the only thing Jonathan could do was to get up and whisper a faint “good night, Jenny” before returning to his room, to lie awake, plagued by his thoughts. He would make himself imagine what hypothermia was like; the cold, the fear, everything Jenny had to endure before her death. He would shiver and curl up against the wall, his headache becoming almost unbearable. Then he would allow his mind to shut off, and he would fall into a dreamless, quiet sleep.

V.
Years later, Jonathan would wake in the night and hear his sister’s voice, often telling him that she was okay, that she loved him. But every now and then, Jonathan would wake in a cold sweat, hearing her weep within the walls of the house.