part seven

"Well," Avery said as we pulled into an empty parking spot, coughing slightly as a puff of smoke rose from the tailpipe as I killed the engine. "Jess. Mackie. Zoe. You're a little late for Mass, aren't you?" She gave us a pitying smile, almost to proclaim to us and the world that she was better than us, and she and I both knew it.

I opened the car door, let myself out, and slammed it, smiling inwardly as my darling sister jumped from the sudden noise. "You know why we're here, Avery," I said behind clenched teeth, trying desperately to control my anger. God, this day had gotten this far, I had learned more than I ever had wanted to, and I did not want Avery to go and fuck the entire day up for me... "And I can't believe you told them."

Avery's jaw dropped open, feigning shock. "What? Me? Tell the congregation about today?" she said mockingly. My eyes narrowed instinctually. I did not like being mocked at. "I would never, Jess. How could you even think that?"

"Bullshit, Avery; I heard the people talking when they left. You reminded them about today. How could you?" I asked, feeling my trust betrayed. Though I never really did trust Avery... "Everything our family has done has been in the family. Do you even know what that means? That you don't tell all your churchie friends about it, and you sure as hell don't ask them to say a prayer with the whole congregation!" I was furious. I couldn't believe she did this. Didn't she understand what this day meant to me? That it was supposed to be private? "I don't even want to know you exist right now. Can that wish be granted?"

We stood there, in silence, for what was probably a few seconds but seemed like hours. Finally, someone spoke up.

"Um, guys, can we get through with this?" a small voice asked from behind me. I turned around, seeing Zoe, the voice of reason. When the hell did she become the voice of reason in this family? Since when did this family have a voice of reason?

I looked back at Avery, my stare cold enough to freeze hell, my darling and God-fearing sister returning the stare. She sighed, giving up on the eternal staring contest between us, that she and I both knew was never just a staring contest. "I was there before," she said, changing from whatever subject we were on. I didn't believe anyone was keeping track. "at about eight-thirty. God, you wouldn't believe how many flowers and gifts were there -"

"Damn fans." It was the first two words out of my mouth that weren't maliciously directed at my sister. Hey, maybe I could get through this day, after all. "When the hell will they learn to get lives?"

Avery, always quick to argue with me, spoke up. "They're grieving, Jess," she said. I looked away. I think if I looked at her a second longer, there would be a little more trouble than overwhelmed fans. "It's what people do when they lose someone they love. Maybe you should try it sometime."

I turned my back to her, and began walking. Oh, Lord, how I just wanted this to be over already... "Fuck you, Avery," I said over my shoulder. From the silence following, I knew she had not taken it well. Good. She wasn't supposed to. "Now let's just get this over with, okay?"

"John Lemmings, aged seventy-two years. Wilma Jenkins, aged eighty-four years. Erica Kramer -"

"That's enough, Zoe!" I tried not to raise my voice. I really did. But when you're walking through a cemetery, trying to find your dead brothers' tombstones, and all you hear are incessant announcements from a very annoying nine-year-old girl, it's very difficult to keep your composure. So sue me if I yell in a cemetery. It's not like I'm going to wake anybody up.

"...aged nineteen years. Hey, Jess, she was just as old as you!" Okay, so maybe she didn't listen to me. Like she ever did.

Mackenzie, always the jester nobody wants, butted in. "Maybe that means you're gonna die soon, Jess," he said as we all trudged along through the church's small, yet almost ancient, cemetery. Tombstones were dated back from the eighteenth century, and some are so old and weathered it was impossible to distinguish the name or the date. As a child, I used to roam through the graveyard and read the dates while my family visited the graves of dead relatives, much like Zoe was doing right now. Okay, so maybe we weren't all that different. I still say she's annoying.

"That's nice, Mack," I shouted back, nearly tripping over a sunken angel and flowers someone had left on the ground. "Keep that up and you'll be the one six feet under."

Zoe kept on with her graveyard name game. Oh, if only I had some masking tape... "Ada Bryon, aged 94 years. Wow, she was pretty damn old. Richard Button, aged 54 years. Han -" she stopped suddenly, noticing the familiar grave and the name. She should notice it. It's hers.

"Guys," she said, almost whispered, not wanting to disturb whatever was below her. Yelling and shouting in a cemetery is all well and good when you don't know anyone buried there, but we'd all be damned if a live Hanson ever disrespected a dead Hanson. That was at least a tradition we meant to keep. "It's over here. They're...over here."

They were closer to the church than I had remembered. I thought we had to go out at least another hundred feet to get even close to them. I guess I didn't know this place like I thought I had. I swallowed hard. This was always difficult, every year I had come here, every time I tried to step upon the dewy grass above my sleeping brothers... "So they are," I said, my voice gravely and harsh.

"Look at this." It was Avery's voice I had heard, and it surprised me, my mind momentarily, and perhaps purposely, forgetting that she was still here. She pointed to the small teddy bear laying atop Taylor's tombstone. Within a flash, she snatched up the bear and flung it two rows behind us. "Damn fans," she mumbled, a phrase she and I both admitted into our vocabulary before we were even Zoe's age. "and I had cleaned this up earlier, too."

I had noticed she had been here. The gladiolas and hyacinth bundles were already planted on either sides of the graves, the earth neatly packed with care below both of them. "Gladiolas are traditional...and Tay always loved hyacinths." Avery explained before I could even ask. Maybe we weren't as distant as we both thought.

As my eyes glanced past the flowers, I noticed a small photo album resting against Zac's stone. Damn fans, I thought again as I reached down to pick it up. Probably a fifty-page letter about how much she loved them -

"No," a hand grabbed hold of my wrist, taking it firmly while snatching up the book. I looked up, and straight into the eyes of Avery. She blushed slightly and gave the tiniest hint of a smile. "It's mine."

I looked at her in disbelief. "Yours?" I whispered, not understanding what the hell was in that book that was so important as to bring here...

Avery held the book in her arms, almost cradling it, and smiled genuinely as she looked down upon it. "Call me morbid," she said, never taking her eyes off the album. "but it's a scrapbook. I went on the Internet one day and printed out every single article about their deaths in the past seven years." She looked up at me then, eyes wide and innocent, reminding me of simpler times, of two best friends, of two loving sisters who once cared for each other. But that was all over. We couldn't get back to where we once were. "I thought it was a little appropriate."

I looked back at the graves, the entire world silent except for a few slow birds who didn't migrate to the south last winter. "I...I didn't bring...anything..." I whispered, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach crawling up on me as tears that I never knew existed threatened to erupt.

"It's amazing, isn't it," Avery said, ignoring my last comment. "How death can humble a person. At least we know they went to Heaven with merciful Jesus our Savior. Though I can't say all Hansons I know will be meeting them there..." she drifted off then, knowing that I would blow up at that accusation. God, she couldn't just be normal for once. She couldn't go five minutes without reminding me how pious she was, and how much of a heathen I would always be. I wasn't going to take it anymore. She wasn't going to get just a regular witty retort this time. This time, I was going to make sure she got the picture.

"Zoe, Mack, would you please leave for a second?" I asked nicely, trying to keep my temper low as to blow up in front of Avery instead. "Your sister and I need to have a little talk."

"Sure," Mackenzie said, eager to get away from his feuding sisters and the memories of ashes he never had. Slowly, as they were walking away, I overheard a bit of their conversation:

"So, what do you want to do?"

"Wanna turn over some headstones?"

"All right..."

What little angels those two were. I only hoped Zoe as smart enough not to try anything "candy" Mackenzie gave to her for free, "just 'cause she's his sister." But I had other problems on my hands; namely, a little pious bitch who didn't know when to keep her mouth shut.

"Who the hell do you think you are!" I yelled through clenched teeth. I didn't want to raise my voice in the cemetery; I didn't want to attract attention to the two little dead Hanson boys and their sisters. But then again, I wasn't going to let Avery say that about us - about me - and also let her live. "Where do you get off saying that shit...and here, today, no less!"

"Listen, Jess," she began, but I cut her off.

"You know, Avery, I didn't ask you to be here. I didn't invite you." Oh, listen to me. I sounded like a little girl again, shooing away my older brothers from our little playhouse, telling them they weren't "invited". I never knew how I'd miss those days until I lost them. Forever.

"I don't believe I need permission to come visit my own brothers' graves," she spat in my face. "I didn't know I had to earn the right -"

"You don't understand!" Again, she was belittling me. I wasn't going to take, it, I never did! This time wasn't going to be different. We had never fought right in front of the tombstones before; but then again, we had almost never been at the cemetery at the same time before. "This was my day. I planned everything, Avery! I dragged those two from the house to be here. I thought I deserved to have one day where I could get along with at least a couple members of my family." And, instead, I managed to have a fight with almost all of them. And I also managed to find out one was a murderer.

"You shouldn't have dragged them here," she said. "They should come on their own accord."

"They wouldn't. And it's important for them to be here." I looked up at my sister, truly looking at her face for the first time that day, really remembering why the hell I wanted to come here this year, as I had done every year for seven years. "They should know who they were."

Avery turned her head away from me, her eyes gazing upon the stones. "Yeah..." she said, drifting off. She was thinking of something else. Probably of what our brothers used to be like; how life used to be before the screaming fans and the jet lag and the tagging along. How life was like when we were still children. She'd be thinking of that if she had a heart.

She chuckled slightly, her eyes never leaving the two engraved names. Never forgetting the two old faces. "And they'd never come here on their own merit, would they." I didn't answer. I didn't really believe it was a question for me to answer, nor a question she was really asking me. But I wasn't going to say anything. Those two stones were the most important ears to me through my entire life - even after they couldn't answer back. Maybe Avery felt the same way. Maybe we weren't all that different, after all.

I calmed down a bit, making sure my blood pressure stayed at safe levels. "D...do you..." I didn't quite know how to get it out, but I had to. I wanted to know if I was the only one who felt it. "Do you ever miss them?"

Avery looked at me, shocked. "Of course I miss them," she replied, as if it was common knowledge. "They were our brothers; our blood. I loved them, and I will always miss them."

I shook my head. She just didn't get it... "No," I said, trying to clarify. "I mean, do you ever really miss them? Do you miss all the little things they used to do?" I didn't want to get like this. I really didn't. But somehow, I knew it was going to happen anyway. I, Jessica Hanson, was getting nostalgic. "Like...remember when Zac used to rip all the heads off of our Barbies?"

Avery thought for a second, and then smiled. "That was really annoying," she said. "But...I don't know. I do miss it."

"And do you remember when Tay always left no milk in the carton after he had his early breakfast, but he still left the carton in the refrigerator?" I continued. I couldn't believe this. I was actually reminiscing with my sister. Wait, has hell frozen over yet?

"Hey, that really bugged me!" She said. "We never had any milk...and Mom made Ike go out and get some more..." She smiled again, remembering fond memories. "Good times, eh, Jess?"

I inwardly shuddered at the sound of my only living older brother's name. Why did he have to be a part of the conversation? As far as I was concerned, he wasn't part of the family anymore. Or, at least what was left of the family. After he killed it all. "Yeah, Avery," I said, ignoring the anger boiling inside of me about Isaac, the reason we were all there that day. "good times."

A silence passed between us. Twenty minutes before, I would have relished a silence between Avery and me; it meant that we weren't trying to cut each others' throats out. But now, it just felt...unsettling. As if something was wrong with it. Something was wrong with the silence. I thought about it for a second, rolling it over in my mind. We both sure had changed over the years...but could we just be sisters, once again?

"I..." I began to speak, but so did Avery at the same time. We both stopped what we were saying to let the other speak. The odd silence again. How endearing.

"You first," I said, allowing her to speak.

Avery looked down at the grass, poking around a pebble with her shoe. "Well, I was just wondering...why the hell did we start fighting, anyway? We used to be so close, Jess - what changed that?"

I thought about it, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember. Well, it wasn't that I couldn't remember why we had started fighting�it was more like I couldn't pinpoint one instance that started the whole feud. Made me smile bitterly just thinking about it. But then, an image appeared in my mind - a very clear one, I might add. It was of Avery and I, fighting...again. But this time was different. My stomach was large. Words like "killer" and "hell" flashed through my mind. I was pregnant. I didn't have my abortion yet. That was it...

"I remember," I said, calmly. Remember, Jess, no killing anyone in the cemetery... "I was about to have my abortion, I told you what I was going to do...and you spit in my face."

"Oh, God, that was it..." Avery said, but I wasn't listening much. My anger was high above the sanity mark, and I wasn't paying much attention to anything that was going on around us at that time.

"Yeah, that was it!" I yelled, forgetting my cemetery manners. Lord knows we had enough time to memorize them. "You told me I was a baby killer, Avery. You said I didn't deserve to live. Do you know how the hell that made me feel?"

"Listen, Jess, you know how I feel about abortion. It's just not right -"

"I wasn't asking you if it was right!" I shouted, interrupting my sister. I didn't care what she had to say. She brought it up, anyway. "I just wanted your support, as my sister. I just wanted you to be there and say that I was doing the right thing for me."

"But that wasn't how I felt!" This turn around, it was Avery who was doing the shouting. "I wasn't going to support you in doing something I think is morally wrong!" She stopped herself for a moment, trying to calm her nerves. I think we both needed a little calming of the nerves right about then. Where was Mackie and his "candy" when we needed him? "What do you want me to say, Jess? What do you really want me to say about something that's over and done with?"

"Well, you could start by telling me I'm not going to hell! Look, I just wanted a little support. Not for what I was doing, but for the fact that I was doing it. I was your sister, Avery. Was there supposed to be conditional support between us, or were we supposed to stand up for each other no matter what?" I was angry. But I wasn't angry at her behavior, nor her beliefs. I was angry that she didn't understand why she was wrong. She didn't know what she did, and how she acted, wasn't the right thing to do. That was what broke up our friendship. We might have been blood, but we stopped being sisters a long time ago.

I spun around, my back facing her. I didn't want to really look at her right then, nor did I want her to see the tears threatening to flee from my eyes. "You don't get it, Avery," I said, my voice choked with inner sobs. "You don't get what being a sister was supposed to be. I don't think we can change this. I don't think -"

"I'm sorry." Wait, did I just hear those two words come out of my sister's mouth? My sister, of the stubborn Hanson women, saying she was sorry she had done something against me, the one she's called the "heathen" for years? Was she finally trying to make amends?

I turned around slowly, my eyes still wet from tears. "You're...what?" I asked, making sure what she said was true.

"I'm sorry." She said it again, and the pained expression on her face led me to believe her. "I'm sorry about what I said to you then. I shouldn't have said those things...even if I believe in them. I should've been supportive of you, Jess...as a sister. Seems like both of us have some growing to do in the caring department." See; what did I tell you. She's a cornball and a half. "Can you forgive me?"

I smiled weakly. I just wanted everything to work out today...even if I knew it hadn't. "Of course," I said meekly. "What are sisters for?"

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