Chapter Two
The Funeral

Nearly everything in the Evans' front yard was covered in snow. Lily watched from the front porch as snow drifted silently to the ground from the grey clouds above. She shuffled her cold feet and buttoned the very top button of her tweed coat. Her hair blew in the freezing winter air. She shivered as she removed a crimson-coloured strand from her mouth with her gloved hand.

"Alright, Lily?" a voice asked from behind her. Lily turned around and peered inside at her Uncle Alwyn, who was half in shadow as he stood inside the house behind the front door, which he had opened a crack.

"I was just watching the snow," Lily answered. "Can we go?"

Uncle Alwyn opened the door and walked out onto the porch. He gazed out at the neighbourhood with his hands on his hips. His eyes strayed across the road from the big white house on the left that he knew Lily had always wished to live in, to the second last house on the right side of the street; the house his nieces and all the other neighbourhood children wouldn't go near because they were certain it was haunted. He pushed his round glasses up the length of his nose and without taking his eyes off the scene in front of him said, "as soon as your mother and sister are ready."

"When will that be?"

Uncle Alwyn tucked his grey scarf into the front of his coat. "I've been forbidden to ask that question anymore. In fact, they just banished me from the house." He sighed. "Give them a bit of time, Lily. This isn't very easy for any of us."

Lily chewed on the fingertip of her glove. She didn't want to give anyone more time. She felt like she had been waiting on the porch for hours. What was taking everyone so long?

"Where's Auntie Bee?" she asked.

"With your mum."

Lily sighed and shifted back and forth. She clicked the heels of her black satin shoes together and pulled on a strand of her long hair. She had never been to a funeral before. She had tried to ask questions about it in the past few days, but nobody seemed to want to talk much. Her Uncle Alwyn and Auntie Bee had arrived yesterday afternoon. Auntie Bee had burst into tears the moment she had entered the house and disappeared into the guestroom with Mrs. Evans. Lily hadn't seen her since. And the most she had got out of Uncle Alwyn, who normally had plenty to say and was really, very jolly, was, "this hasn't been very easy for any of us." Even Petunia, who never seemed to want to shut up, had been deathly quiet since the birthday party.

But what scared her more than her sister's quiet manner or her Uncle's lack of jokes and laughs, were her mother's tears. Lily had never seen her mother cry before. Parents weren't supposed to. Parents didn't get sad or hurt and they weren't afraid of checking for monsters under the bed. Lily's mother had always hugged her and kissed her and given her ice cream when Lily cried, but now, now Ishe/I was crying, and Lily didn't know how to react.

"Is Mummy crying again?" Lily asked suddenly; Uncle Alwyn looked slightly uncomfortable as he fidgeted with his glasses again.

"What's that? No… no. Not… no, she's not."

"I don't like when she cries," Lily mumbled. She felt her Uncle's arm slip around her shoulders. "Can we go?" she asked more insistently this time, her emerald eyes brighter than usual.

Her uncle sighed again. "Alright, Lily," he said, removing his arm from her shoulders and standing up. "Let me go get them." Lily heard his feet trudge slowly and heavily towards the door, as though all his emotions were weighing him down. The door squeaked open and then shut again. She listened as the stairs groaned and creaked under his weight as he made his way to the second floor of the house.

A stray, black cat cantered into sight from one of the neighbours' backyards. It slowed as it reached the Evans' front lawn and came to a halt in front of the snow-covered peony bush in the garden. It began to sniff at the bush. Lily, who had always wanted a cat of her own, ambled down the stairs and bounded over to the cat with her hand out, calling, "here, kitty… here, kitty." The cat's head shot up; its nose was daubed in snow from where it had stuck it in the depths of the frosty bush. It took one look at Lily and darted away in the opposite direction.

The funeral took place that afternoon, February 7, 1965.

It was freezing cold outside, the harsh February wind fierce and numbing against human flesh, penetrating Lily's skin and chilling her right to the bone. The weatherman on the news that morning had warned viewers to stay inside for the rest of the day, said it was far too nippy outside and that if you were in your right mind you wouldn't move from your couch until the current weather had ceased. Yet here everyone was, outdoors, in the bitter cold, in the middle of a graveyard.

Lily stood with her mother, sister, aunt and uncle in the midst of it all. She looked around at the many, many legs that surrounded her. It seemed as if the whole town had come out to pay their respects and bid their last farewell to Horace Evans.

The coffin lay beside a large, rectangular hole in the ground. There was a man standing by the coffin in a long black cloak. He was speaking. Lily was too cold to care about what he was saying. The wind drowned out most of his voice, anyway.

She looked up at her family who were all standing closer together than they normally would have done. Her Aunt Bee was crying openly; tears flooded down her blotchy scrunched up face and her shoulders shook with her sobs. She had one hand over her mouth and the other tightly wrapped around her sister-in-law. Mrs. Evans, herself, was also crying, though quietly so. She had her hand clamped around Petunia's. Petunia was standing next to Lily with absolutely no emotion detectable on her thin face. She stared straight ahead at the speaking man, though Lily wasn't entirely sure if her sister was actually seeing him.

The past few days had been very hard for Lily, as she tried to wrap her five year-old brain around what was happening. Her father was dead, that she knew. She hadn't been told how he had died, and she didn't even entirely understand death in the first place, but it hardly mattered to her. What mattered was that he wasn't coming back. She would never see him again. That, she understood perfectly. She had cried, kicked, screamed, and thrown things, hoping that maybe it was enough to bring him back. All it had done, though, was cause much grief for her mother, whose eyes hadn't been properly dry since the police had shown up on their front porch to deliver the terrible news.

Lily felt someone tap her left shoulder. She looked up into her uncle's kind, round face. He had always been her favourite uncle. He was big and friendly with a warm smile. He was in his late fifties, had a bad back and needed regular medical attention to his right knee, but that had never stopped him from visiting regularly, and taking Lily on long walks in the park.

"Cold?" he asked.

"A bit," Lily said, shivering slightly as the cold wind swept up her skirt.

Uncle Alwyn nodded and patted her shoulder reassuringly. "It'll all be over soon," he said softly.

A few more aching minutes passed where Lily's teeth chattered painfully as she watched the people around her blow their noses, dab at their eyes, shuffle their feet and pull their coats tighter around them. Then, the speaking man in the black cloak stopped talking altogether. It was over.

Lily stood with her family and waited as one by one people made their way over to the coffin and then exited the graveyard towards the car park, stopping along the way to whisper words of comfort and sympathy to her mother and aunt. Several times, Lily was patted on the head, and a woman she had never seen before even reached out and squeezed her hand as she passed.

Soon, there were only a few people left standing around them. Lily watched as a particularly tired-looking man and his wife advanced forward. They stood by the coffin for almost a whole minute, before the woman pulled gently on her husband's sleeve. They turned and meandered towards Lily and her family.

"Alexandra," the woman said, embracing Mrs. Evans. She let go and turned towards Aunt Bee. "And you must be the sister..."

"Beatrice," Aunt Bee choked, holding out her hand.

"Lily, Petunia," Mrs. Evans said faintly.

Lily turned and looked past Petunia, at her mother's cheerless face.

"Girls, this is Mr. and Mrs. Winston. They were clients of daddy's..."

"A pleasure," Mr. Winston stated formally, taking Lily's hand and then Petunia's. "Charmed; so glad to finally meet you. Your father spoke so very much about the two of you..."

Lily nodded, not bothering to ask what a client was. She supposed it had something to with the bank, where her father had worked.

Mr. Winston turned back to Mrs. Evans.

"If there is ever anything... anything at all that you need—" he began.

"I will not hesitate to call you," Mrs. Evans finished. "Thank you Alban... Chelsea..." she nodded at Mrs. Winston, who took her hand and patted it.

They all stood there for a moment, twelve eyes directed towards the coffin that held the body of Mr. Evans. Then, Aunt Bee drew a great shuddering breath, and Uncle Alwyn suggested that it was time to head home. The Winstons nodded, said goodbye, and headed in the direction of the car park along with everyone else.

"Come along, girls," said Mrs Evans, ushering them after Mr. and Mrs. Winston. Uncle Alwyn put his arm around his wife's shoulders and led the way towards the car.

"How long will Auntie Bee and Uncle Alwyn stay with us?" Lily inquired.

"Oh," sighed her mother, looking grievously unsure, "as long as we require their assistance. They're a great help to me," she added sadly. "I don't know what I would do without them."

They walked along in silence, Lily glancing behind her every so often at the footprints she was leaving behind in the snow. It got suddenly very windy again and they hurried towards Uncle Alwyn's blue car. Lily was glad to get inside. It was warm, though it didn't feel as familiar as her own car, which her mother had told her had died with her father. Lily felt slightly comforted when she heard this, as she knew her father had loved that car, and would be happy to take it with him, wherever he had gone...

She climbed into the seat on the left-hand side of the car. Petunia got in the middle, and Mrs. Evans sat on Petunia's right side.

"Are we going home?" Petunia said, speaking at last.

"Yes, darling," Mrs. Evans said, patting her daughter's arm.

"When am I going back to school?" she asked sullenly.

"Oh, whenever you're ready," Mrs. Evans replied, looking apprehensively at Petunia's delicate features. "There's no rush, dear. You can go back whenever you want. You can stay home for as long as you want too. I was thinking a couple of weeks—"

"Oh, she'll need at least a month, Alexandra," Aunt Bee said from the front seat. She had finally stopped crying, but her face was very puffy, and she still sounded a little choked up. "I wouldn't be surprised if she wanted to take the rest of the year off. I'm sure the teachers would understand."

"I want to go back on Monday."

"Monday?" Mrs. Evans repeated disbelievingly. "But Petunia—"

"Monday," said Petunia firmly. And Lily knew that she was serious, and that if her mother argued, she would only be wasting her time.

Lily didn't know many other eight-year-olds, but if she did, she was certain that Petunia would be the most determined out of all of them. If Lily knew any ten or eleven-year-olds, she was willing to bet that Petunia would be more determined than any of them as well. Petunia's strong-will and stubbornness had aggravated Lily on many occasions, but it was also something that she had always admired.

"Well, if you're sure..." Mrs. Evans was saying. Aunt Bee chidingly clicked her tongue and Lily saw her disapproving glare in the rear-view mirror.

"I'm sure," said Petunia, crossing her arms and continuing to stare straight ahead, through the windshield in front of her.

They were silent for the rest of the ride; all of them lost in their own gloomy thoughts. Aunt Bee sniffed once or twice, and Petunia shifted restlessly in her seat, but otherwise nobody made any noise. The only sound that filled Lily's ears was the rumble of the car engine and crackle of snow and ice underneath the wheels of the car as they drove along the vacant streets. It seemed everyone had heeded the weatherman's warnings and stayed inside.

Finally, when they were turning the corner onto the street where the Evans' house resided, Mrs. Evans spoke.

"Did you, um... did you see Elena, Lily? Was she there?"

Lily shook her head a little to relieve herself of the stupor from which she had just awoken.

"Yes," she replied. "She was with her parents and her brother. She waved but I didn't talk to her."

"That was nice of them to come," Mrs. Evans said absent-mindedly. Lily had a feeling that her mother was talking more to herself than to anyone else. She had been doing that a lot in the past few days.

The car slowed as it wheeled into the driveway. Lily opened her door and hopped out before Uncle Alwyn had even turned off the ignition. She flinched as the warmth of the car left her and the piercing cold of the outside blew up around her. She scurried up the front porch and turned to wait for someone to open the door.

Mrs. Evans followed Lily. "Take your shoes off in the hall, and hang up your coat, please," she reminded Lily as she unlocked the front door and pushed it open.

Lily rushed inside, kicked off her shoes, threw her coat and her scarf over one of the hooks on the coat rack, and raced upstairs to her bedroom to change out of her dress.

Once she was upstairs, Lily threw open the door to her closet and changed quickly into warmer clothes. Then she stepped back and surveyed her room. Dozens of cards stood crowded around each other on the top of her wardrobe. There were several unwrapped presents lying around the bottom of it as well. For some reason, Lily didn't have any sort of urge to open them. She hardly cared what was inside of them. The bright colours and patterns of the wrapping paper only made her feel ill.

She gathered up all the cards and threw them into the back of her open closet. One by one, she chucked the gift-wrapped boxes in after them. She shut the closet door sharply and turned away from it. She didn't need reminding of her birthday.

Her eyes fell on a stray birthday card she had missed. As she reached out to pick it up, her hand slipped and she knocked over a silver picture frame. It fell to the hardwood floor with a clatter. She abandoned the card and picked up the frame, hoping it hadn't broken. Standing up again, she turned it over and looked into her father's face. It was a picture of him, herself, her mother, and Petunia. It had been taken that summer at the zoo, in front of the lion cage.

Lily traced her finger along the edge of the frame and gazed dolefully at the faces in the picture. They all looked so happy. Mrs. Evans was waving, her cheek pressed up against Petunia's. Petunia was missing a tooth and her grin looked charmingly goofy. Her father was in mid-laugh. He looked the happiest out of the four of them, so young and full of joy. And now he was gone.

Lily picked up the card and opened her closet door again. She put both the card and the picture into the back of it with everything else. The she threw a worn, ugly sweater that she had never liked overtop of it all.

The wind outside gave an exceptionally loud howl that sounded nothing short of ghostly. The windows rattled and Lily looked up to see that it had started to snow. She inched towards the window and looked out. The snow was falling thickly and heavily, almost obscuring the window completely.

Lily had always loved the snow. Not necessarily the cold; she could do without the cold, but she had always enjoyed frolicking around outside for hours on end making snow angels and snowmen, having snowball fights with the other children in the neighbourhood, and sticking her tongue out to try and catch snowflakes. Petunia had never joined her. She had always stiffly declined Lily's invitations to play in the snow with the other children. She had never appreciated the snow the way Lily did, saying it was cold and wet and that she'd rather stay inside. And now Lily understood why.

Lily scowled out the window. No longer did the scene outside look like a frosty wonderland. On the contrary, it looked very bleak and bitter and all around unattractive.

As the wind howled against the cold, glass panes of the window once more, Lily thought of her father and the way he used to drag her and Petunia around on their little wooden sled. They would stay outside until it got too cold and then the three of them would troop inside where Mrs. Evans was waiting with three steaming mugs full of hot chocolate. Lily's mind strayed from the warm living room of the Evans' house where they sat by the fire, sipping their hot chocolate to the cold, dark, and windy graveyard where her father now lay. He was alone now, surrounded by nothing but slabs of grey concrete inscribed with names and dates of the bereaved and a thick layer of fresh snow.

Lily stepped back and let the window curtain fall where it hung, hiding the outside world for the rest of the winter.