The Dawn of Nia by Lauren Cherelle

Author:Lauren Cherelle [Cherelle, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Resolute Publishing via Indie Author Project
Published: 2016-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

27

I’M AWAKE IN BED alone with suffocating thoughts. Never in my life have 365 days passed by this quickly. I can’t believe I haven’t talked with Pat, vented with her, or broken bread with her in a year. She’s a missing slice of my pie that hasn’t been filled by my friends or Deidra. Thankfully, the anniversary of her death didn’t land on a workday. I have the refuge of the weekend to grieve.

I stare at the closet door reflecting on last Saturday. Deidra and I were weaving through a crowded music festival at the river when Pat’s voice caught my ear. I felt an urge to scan the faces around me and identify the source. Although the familiar, raspy voice emanated from a stranger, the experience was comforting.

I want to drift asleep and summon a dream that will bring her voice to me again. I wiggle into a comfortable position to slow my thoughts and compartmentalize my sorrow. I’m floating to celestial realms, seconds away from dreaming when Deidra bumps my leg. I flinch.

“You plan on sleeping all morning?” she asks.

“I want to,” I mumble.

“I want to go out for breakfast.”

Fully conscious and past the point of no return for sleep, I sit upright and kick my feet out the sheets. “Where?”

“Your choice.”

“I don’t care, as long as we go to the cemetery first.”

“Cemetery?”

Deidra is usually perceptive, though now she’s offensive and oblivious. I shake my head and sigh with disappointment, my reaction a clue to her omission.

There’s nothing she can say to take back the emotional jolt of her response. So she humbles herself and says, “I’m okay with that.” She grabs my hands and pulls me out of bed.

~ * ~

Deidra drives east, out the city, pass the suburbs and into the sticks until we reach the small, unincorporated community where Pat rests for eternity. A narrow road off the two-lane highway leads to a dilapidated one-room church. Next to the rotting wood structure is a metal fence protecting headstones of deceased Carters. I step outside the car, the warm morning breeze promising a hellishly hot day. The rustle of leaves from the brush and trees are the only sounds in the expansive, flat country land.

I look onward at the cemetery, waiting for Deidra to exit. Eventually, I turn around and poke my head through my open door. She hasn’t removed her hand from the steering wheel. “Are you coming?”

She gazes beyond the windshield. “This could quickly turn into an argument, so just let me be.”

I take my frustration out on the car door and walk away.

The quaint cemetery is a stroll through history. There’s a headstone for a male relative who died during the Great Depression, a headstone for a male relative born a year after the Civil War ended, and one for a female child who died during the polio years. Next to her is a slight hump in the earth where Pat is buried. The elements haven’t flattened her burial plot yet.

I kneel down,

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