"Well, Mackenzie; have fun on your little drug trip?" Avery said, her voice dripping with disgust as Mackenzie and I trekked back to the gravesites, Mackenzie still holding onto my trenchcoat for dear life. His demeanor had changed considerably since our little talk away from Zoe and Avery. He now walked with his head to the ground, not meeting eye contact with anyone, and he seemed to be very shy all of a sudden. It was like he was scared...scared of what Avery might say to him...scared of going through the rest of the day with someone knowing his secret hatred. Mackenzie was scared of his life now, and I had forced him into it. "Let it go, Avery," I said, coming to my younger brother's rescue as I felt the not-so small hand tighten around my arm, and the barely audible breaths beside me quicken and become uneven. "He's been through hell today." Avery didn't let it go, however; she became even angrier by my remark. "No, I'm not letting it go," she said, raising her voice. Her face began to cloud over, and it looked like our deal to leave our pasts behind us was being left in the dust. "It's exactly like you said. I'm not going to just stand here and let him mess up this entire day -" "Avery." I interrupted her mini speech, my own voice taking a tone that I didn't want to use for that day. I wasn't going to allow my little sister to tell me what to do, and I sure wasn't going to allow her to take over this day. This day was mine; I had set it up, and it was going to be run my way. "Let it go. I mean it." The tension between us was even greater than before; Zoe was feeling it in her bones, and she took shelter standing behind Avery. That's how it was; Avery and Zoe versus Mackenzie and me. The pious ones, standing near the graves of their beloved innocents, versus the heathens; the drug dealer and the whore, the only one to talk to our brother, the murderer, in years. That's how it was then, and that was how I felt it was going to be forever. We were never going to be a family. We were always going to be at war with each other. Avery backed down from our fight; she simply frowned and turned to look at the graves. "Well," she said, changing the subject. "Should we start?" I opened my mouth to answer, but someone had spoken instead of me. "Jordan Taylor Hanson," Zoe said quietly, though her voice broke the tension between us, if only for the moment. "Born March fourteenth, nineteen eighty-three; died April eighth, two thousand. Aged seventeen years. 'Our Little Angel.'" I looked away from the little mortician reciting what she had spoken nearly every year of her life, taking in a muffled sob. April eighth: they had died April eighth. Oh, God; Taylor hadn't even been a month seventeen when it happened. And I could still remember the light blue streamers at his birthday party... Zoe continued on without noticing my emotional state, as she had always done every year. Zoe never let us down in her cemetery duties. If she was going to do something for her lost brothers, she was going to make sure she did it damn well. "Zachary Walker Hanson. Born October twenty-second, nineteen eighty-five; died April eighth, two thousand." I was listening intently to Zoe's voice, even though I was on the verge of tears just by hearing those numbers recited again. She wavered when she said the word "died" each time. She wasn't stone. She couldn't take this just as much as me. "Aged fourteen years. 'With Us In Our Dreams.'" I cringed at Zac's memorial, the words forever inscribed onto his tombstone. I couldn't believe our parents actually wanted that quote on Zac's grave; not only was it corny, but it wasn't who he was. He shouldn't have been known by all in this cemetery and forever in the eyes of God as Zac Hanson, superstar; he deserved to be known as just Zac, the young boy who died before his time. Bringing the music into his death was beyond disrespectful; my older brother deserved better than pop superstar. He deserved to be human. "Well, that's over with," Avery said with a pseudo cheerful tone, wiping away tears that were forming at the corners of her eyes. I think that the recital of the tombstones was the worst task of them all for those days, for all of us; not one of us could hold ourselves together throughout the entire reading. "What do we do now?" "The prayer," Zoe said in her monotone voice, her shyness around us being overcome only by her incredible fear of failing in front of her brothers. She could deal with never speaking to any of her live siblings ever again, but when it came to that one event every year, even the slightest mistake could set her off into a panic attack. Zoe felt an overwhelming compulsion to be perfect when it came to the ceremony, and we all knew it. Maybe forcing her to go wasn't the best of my ideas... "Now we say the prayer." "Why?" Mackenzie's question shocked Avery, and caused Zoe's heart to race, fearing that another outburst was about to erupt. "Why should we say a prayer for them when they're already dead?" His voice shot through our hearts, intensified by his hatred and resentment for our two older brothers down in the ground. "Why don't we say a silent prayer," I suggested, trying to calm Zoe's nerves, stabilize Avery's cynicism, and get Mackenzie off the hook all at the same time. I didn't want Avery blowing up at the kid, nor did I want Zoe to start screaming that this wasn't how it was supposed to end up. "we can all say our own prayer, okay?" I looked towards Mackenzie, who, by the look on his face, was already regretting his interjection. "That way, we can say whatever we want; individually." We all bowed our heads, murmuring phrases we had been taught in Sunday school. I closed my eyes to try to think of something, but all that flashed through my head were the bright red neon numbers 12:00 that I had seen the first time I had heard of the Accident. I saw my brothers lying there at the wake in their wooden caskets, though I didn't dare to go near them. I remembered Zac's casket laid open, for the entire congregation to see; they had fixed up the cuts on his face and neck well. Taylor's casket was closed; no one was ever going to see his eyes again. I could say nothing biblical that day. I don't think I had it in me. My eyes opened, although the visions still came to me without my eyes having to be closed. I looked around to see the faces of my younger siblings, all engrossed in thought. Avery's mouth moved faintly to the Lord's Prayer, executing it flawlessly, word for word. It was a miracle I could even remember anything from my days as a God fearing young churchgoer. Zoe's eyes were still closed, her mouth unmoving. I think she was trying to remember what they were like; trying to gather up the tiniest memory of Zachary holding her when she was a child, or Taylor playing with her when she was a baby. A tear fell effortlessly down her cheek; I knew she would never be able to remember them. She was too young; she was told nothing. All of us were told nothing. I looked over to Mackenzie, and sighed heavily. His head was bowed, but he was surely not praying. Tears rolled down his face as he broke down in silent sobs. His long, greasy hair fell down in his face, though he didn't care to raise his hands to push them away. It was as if he didn't care anymore. Maybe he was right. Maybe he couldn't take this. I didn't know if I was right in forcing him to stay; if it would do him good to stay for the entire ceremony, or if this day would break him... "Well," I said, my throat hoarse from holding in so many tears that day, trying to continue on with the ceremony. "Are we all done?" "Now the hymn," Zoe whispered. She had memorized the procedure. She would always remember what to do. "now we sing." Avery looked at me, her innocent eyes wet with tears. "Why don't you start, Jess?" she said, even though she knew I would immediately protest. "You do have a beautiful voice, after all." What a comment; how talented would you have to be to have your voice considered "beautiful" in the Hanson family? For years, I didn't get that recognition. I had been singing just as long as my older brothers - perhaps even longer - in the Our Lord the Savior choir, and not once had my parents come to hear me sing. They had never missed one of Hanson's performances. They didn't even think it was a big deal when they took me out of the choir so my brothers could record in Los Angeles. All my life, I had never thought I had a beautiful voice. Not when my brothers were around to show me how worthless I was. I shook my head to object, but no one would stand for my protest. "Go ahead," Zoe said, her eyes pleading with me to begin a hymn for the day. There was nothing else I could really do. I cleared my throat, not knowing if I could be able to do the song justice after hours of crying and years of smoking. But when I first heard my voice pierce through the silence of the cemetery, I knew that it was the right thing to do. It did sound beautiful, after all. At this point, I had heard voices in the background, singing silently to themselves and to anyone who would listen. A tear silently fell from my eye. They were singing with me. We were all singing together. I cut off then, my voice cracking under my emotions. I sobbed, my head down in my hands, my eyes shut tight to what I thought was my disgrace. I couldn't even finish the song for them. I couldn't do it. It was too much, the pain was just coming back sevenfold... My tears immediately stopped as we all looked out towards the horizon, to where the voice had come from. None of us had to guess who the voice belonged to; we had all known long before the line was finished. Only one person could sing with that voice... "Oh my God," I whispered as the familiar head came over the horizon. I couldn't believe he had the nerve to come here, after all that had happened that day. He should have never stepped a foot back into our lives... "Isaac." mail. [email protected] � FTLOM
That saved a wretch, like me...""Once, I was lost, but now, I'm found..."
"Was blind, but now, I see."
