Chapter 1

My mother forced me to walk up to the lead-lined, mahogany casket just like she forced me to fly home for this funeral. It's not that I didn't love my grandmother, I did. It's the rest of my family I'm not so fond of.

I hate open-casket funerals. No matter how much preparation morticians do to dead bodies to make them look like they did when they were alive, the person is still dead. It's creepy to have to see them like that. My mother was cruel for making me look. It's like saying, 'Sure she looks like she's just asleep, but don't let appearances fool you, Lena. She's dead. Don't get your hopes up. She's not coming back. I shouldn't have looked. I should've just kept my eyes closed, but I knew if I did my mother would scold me for it. She was already giving me shit for not seeing Nana before she died. She'd complain if I didn't see her after she died either.

They had given Nana a permanent for the funeral. They had also put her in her favorite dress, a long, black, floral-print dress you'd expect a grandmother to own. It was her wedding gown. Not the one she wore for her first wedding, but the one she was wearing when she eloped with my step grandfather in Vegas after my real grandfather passed away.

She was so still and pale, nothing like the Nana I knew. She was always so lively and exciting. She was the only one in my family who was too wild for such a small town in Wisconsin. She always told us she should've been born the daughter of a big business man in New York or Boston and not the daughter of a pig farmer in The Middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin. She always regretted not staying in Vegas permanently when she eloped there. She applauded my when I finally got the chance to get out of here and go to college in California. I almost didn't go. I wasn't sure if the big city was my kind of place, but she encouraged me to go. She said there was nothing here for such a smart woman like me. She said I'd suffocate if I stayed here. I trusted her word. My grandmother was a wise woman.

I hadn't cried this whole time, but now seeing her physically dead it seemed somehow more real. My grandmother was the only person who never judged me or tried to change me into what she wanted me to be. It felt like she was the only one in my family who truly loved me for me.

My tears pleased my mother. I saw the way she was looking at me earlier like she thought I was cold and heartless.

She put her arms around me in a failed attempt to comfort me. Instead of gathering myself, I turned away from the coffin and cried into her shoulder. She led me back to our seats so as not to keep the rest of our family from seeing Nana, and so I wouldn't cause a scene. I had held all my feelings in until now, and I was crying hysterically. I couldn't keep myself from gasping and moaning from grief even though I wanted nothing more than to stop. I was ridiculously loud, and it was extremely embarrassing.

By the time they released us all to go to the cemetery plot, I had gotten control of myself. My face was red and tear-stained, and I was pretty sure my mascara was running, but at least I wasn't embarrassing myself any more.

I had driven with my mother in her car. She had gone to the bathroom and had taken the keys with her. Since I couldn't get in the car while I waited for her, I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. I needed one. My nerves were shot. I was halfway through it when my mother finally came out to the car. She saw me leaning against the passenger side door waiting for her smoking, and a look of disapproval washed over her face. She walked over, took the still good cigarette out of my mouth, threw it on the ground, and stepped on it to put the flame out. "Haven't you learned anything? Smoking's what killed your Nana. Do you want to end up like her?"

"No, ma'am."

I've been meaning to stop smoking, I really have. I wanted to even before we found out Nana had lung cancer. It's just that I have so much going on in my life. I want to stop smoking, but it feels like I still need to.

We drove to the cemetery plot in a straight line along with everyone else. Nana was to be buried side-by-side with her first husband. The headstone was there for her with her and Grandpa's names on it. Her death date hadn't been carved in yet.

I was able to keep form tearing up again for the rest of the time. I kept my eyes on the ground most of the time and tried to imagine who I was standing on top of.

I had wanted to go up and say something about her, but I couldn't work up the courage to say it at the funeral home, and I didn't want to say it now for fear that I would start crying again. I never got the chance to talk about her, but all that mattered was that she knew how I felt, and I knew that she did.

AN/ Don't expect me to update this one too often. I haven't been very focused on it and haven't written on it in months. But I do have 5 chapters done already so I didn't want to leave you guys out.