She put on a brave face for the funeral.
She had always been a good actress.
In their- her room that night she squeezed her eyes shut and tried desperately to believe that God had a plan for all of this, for her. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, and her silent weeping turned into body-wracking sobs muffled in the pillow that his head once laid on. His scent still lingered but for how long? Signs of him would be around the house; a newspaper laid on a table, his spectacles beside the bed, his shoes by the door. She couldn't keep it all as it was forever. Her dear John would disappear from the house he worked to buy for them.
And Josie...
Her crying was almost too much for her to bear anymore. Josie was so young. How long would the memory of her father remain clear in her mind?
When Amy complains about Laurie there is a small smile on her face. She knows they are trivial things, she only blows off steam with her sisters for amusement and they all laugh at Mr. Laurence's antics while they sew, and a traitorous feeling pricks at Meg's heart.
John used to tie his tie wrong in the mornings sometimes and she would scold him lightly and redo it, and he would watch her, tired and amused, knowing from the small smile on her face that she wasn't angry. She wishes to feel that again, her hands against his chest, against the fabric of the dear coat that he had worn for years, worn thin, hesitant to replace it not because of money this time but because of the sweet memories tied to it of scooping up his wife in his arms and his hands stroking her hair after that happy surprise.
Amy rolls her eyes at something her husband had done and the knife twists again.
Jo laughs loudly the way she tried not to in her teenage years, the kind of laugh that ended in a snort, in a way that would have made Aunt March scowl had the house still been hers, had she been there to witness Jo's husband snatch her up off the ladder in the library.
He's still holding her, her feet are still dangling above the ground as she turns to loop her arms around his neck and whispers something in his ear.
They steal kisses behind bookshelves, and in the orchard during picnics, and they aren't very discreet. It reminds Meg of the kiss she shared with John while preparing for their wedding. He was perched on the ladder and she stood on her toes, and she was so young then, the prospect of possibly being parted from him again was some absurd and far-off thing (the war was over, after all) and now it was here, it was here and it would never leave her it hung like a heavy fog.
Jo's husband is tangible. His chest is solid beneath her hands. They scrape by financially and the boys give them a heart attack apiece every week, but at the end of the day, Jo does not go to an empty bed, she has someone there to help undo her corset and to hold her.
It's impossible to feel angry about it, the injustice of one sister getting to keep her husband while the other gets him torn away.
There's only empty resignation.