The Bright Ones

17 | To not be loved

I didn't care that the drizzle had soaked my suit through or that my eyes stung with tears or that these pants were probably ruined from the mud. I didn't care. Nanny was fuming behind me under her umbrella, I just knew it.

How could she leave me? A tear ran down my cheek; maybe it was the rain. How could she leave Dad and me? Dad said she wasn't coming back. But why? Had I done something so wrong to make her want to leave?

There was a weight on my shoulder and when I looked up it was my father. His light brown hair was a dark blob on his head. My red hair was from Mum. I felt my lip wobble and I fell into him, burying my face in his chest and holding him tight. I held onto me the same.

Placing a hand on my head he said, "Brodie, we have to go home." I shook my head, the silent sobs stopping my words from answering him properly. "Yes, son, look." I raised my head to find no one but us and Nanny and the driver left. The funeral was over and I'd never get to see my mum again.

"Dad," I choked, "we can't leave her. What if she gets lonely? What if she wants to come home and no one is here to help her?"

My father had to look away. He had always said I looked like her. "No, Brodie. She's not coming home . . . even if she wants to." He stood up with me in his arms and nodded to Nanny. Our driver opened the back door for the three of us. I was trying to be corporative for everyone like Nanny said I should be, but as we pulled away from the grave I couldn't help it.

I turned in the seat on my knees and placed my hands on the rear window. "Mummy," I said quietly, "Mummy," a little louder.

"Sit down, boy," Nanny reprimands sternly.

Her voice wasn't focused. The rain streamed down the window making it harder to see my mother.

"Mummy!" I scream. "No, Mummy! Come back! Come back!"

Nanny grabs me by the hips and sits me back down. "Now listen, child, your mother is dead. She's gone and she's not coming back. Now you can either whine about it all you want, or you can turn it off and move on."

I couldn't turn it off. What did that even mean to a seven-year-old boy who had just hurried his mother?

Camila Turner
1929-1956

~•~•~•~

"I do," My father and Esther said as one.

"I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Turner," Father Downing called.

The crowd rose to cheer, including Dylan who sat beside me. Lawrence sat on my other side. He wasn't any happier than I was.

"I guess we're brothers now," he said as our parents walked down the aisle.

"You're not my brother."

Dylan grabbed my hand and there it was. A warm feeling, like a blanket or a hug. It was also a feeling of dying. But if this was dying then I wasn't scared. Dylan pulled me up and down the aisle after my dad. This was what I needed. I didn't need anyone else or care about anything happening anymore. I just needed Dylan and only Dylan.

"Dyl, I have something to tell you. . . ."

"Brodie," my dad called, "you and Lawrence come here for a family picture."

Family, he called us. We weren't a family. I had a family and they died the day my mum did. Only Dylan.

Lawrence and I stepped up to stand with our parents. I wasn't ever tall and that was only made more apparent when Lawrence, who was two years younger than me, was almost as tall.