Sorrow
Perhaps that was when the numbness subsided and the pain set in.
"Oh, God," she heard her mind whisper, homing in on the horrifying fact that her mother had died. "Ohgodohgodohgodshe'sdeaddeaddeadDEAD."
The car slowed to a stop and the door opened. Hannah hid behind her hair, her eyes burning and threatening to spill over. She bit her lip hard, feeling a stinging swelling into her lower jaw, a large, hard lump in her throat. She tasted coppery blood. She'd bitten through her lip.
"She's in here," the woman said tenderly, opening a door. When had they gotten inside?
And, almost dumb with shock and sadness, she stepped in.
Her mother was laying out on what appeared more like a table than a bed, an uncomfortable looking table. She had a sheet covered over her and many chemicals brewed in cauldrons around her. It looked like a mad scientist's laboratory from a book she'd read once. She reminded herself to burn that book.
The door shut behind her with a loud metal clang that resounded off the walls then died into silence. Most in that moment would say they were alone with their mother, but her mother was no longer there. She was just alone.
She padded across the floor and grasped the sheet. She knew in her heart that it had to be done. She had to see for herself. She had to make sure.
And so she lifted it from her mother's body, just enough to see her face.
She dropped the sheet as her hands flew to her mouth. That was her mother. That was her mother! Before she knew it, a large lump had formed in her throat and was cutting off her oxygen. A choking sob escaped her, a sort of switch that brought on the collapse to the floor and the loud, raucous crying. She could feel every sob racking her body to a point where it hurt. She could feel the salty tears and snot making her face sticky. She could feel the heat within her face that was building up. She collapsed to the floor and broke into sobs. There was nothing that could make this pain go away. Nothing.
She sat in that room for seconds… minutes… hours… she wasn't counting. In fact, she wasn't really sure that it mattered. She didn't care how long she was there. So much time had been wasted. She'd spent so much time with friends - young people, people that wouldn't grow old and die soon. Her mother… she was aging. Her mother would die before them. And she ran off with them and left her mother alone. It destroyed her inside, a large gaping hole replacing whatever she had left in her heart. She cried and cried and cried and cried. She wasn't sure how many tears she had, but she knew that if she let them drip, she could have flooded the room.
She leaned back against the wall, feeling her face grow cold with the air upon the tears and she let out a long breath. The pain was overwhelming. No physical pain could compare. Suddenly, Hannah understood those that wanted to commit suicide, and yet she still hated them because it was selfish to leave someone to miss them when it wasn't their time. She couldn't seem to get angry though. It was getting harder and harder to feel anything. She was crying it all away. Every tiny little tear held such massive significance to everything she was. She was draining herself of everything.
She looked back to her mother's face. People always said that the dead looked like they were sleeping. Every funeral, that's what she heard. She looks like she's sleeping. That wasn't true. That wasn't even close. They didn't look asleep. They looked dead. They always looked dead. They were pale and frozen and silent. There was no warmth - no soul. No, they were most definitely dead. And her mother looked dead too. Just like the rest. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, the only support she had. It left her questioning why no one else had come. Was she the only one crying over all this? Where was her father? What was going on in the world outside her sadness and why couldn't she get up and go look? Why couldn't she move? Had she really been weighed down so much by her depression that she couldn't move?
She broke down again for another few minutes, letting out the stragglers of her emotions. By the time those tears stopped her lip was quivering. She reached up and tenderly touched her scalp where she'd ripped her pigtails loose. It was a bit painful, but healing. She wiped away the tears and stared at her mother's form once again. The tears were stopping, drying up. Maybe she'd just run out of tears to cry. And for the first time in awhile, she wanted to see Ernie. She knew he would be a comfort to her that no one else could be, and she missed him deeply. But she knew that this agonizing pain was needed to make it through this. She knew it. Still, it didn't make it any easier. She folded her arms across her chest and made her way to the door, feeling chilly suddenly as the rest of her sorrow dripped away. She opened the door and stood there for a moment, feeling a bit overwhelmed again. She was afraid the tears would come back, but they didn't. She continued to stand there and stare out at the empty hallway that led her away from her mother's body.