Seafoam //Completed//

Chapter 1

The funeral was a quiet affair. The late summer air was breezy and tugged at Lulu's dress. Her hand was warm, sweaty in Matty's hand. Around her were faces she barely recognized speaking words of condolences she hardly heard. Her mother's brown coffin lay suspended just above the six-foot deep hole in which it was to be forever buried. Her dad stood on the other side, burying his face into some stranger's shoulder. An aunt of his, or something.

For her, family meant strangers who shared her last name, and that was about the extent of it. She hadn't seen any of her family members since her mom got sick and her father moved them to this empty little beach town like it held some answers. Truth was, it only held debt and eventually this: her mother's final resting place. Their relatives flocked to the seaside like seagulls to pay their respects to the dearly departed. They hardly knew her but they were here for the show. Her mother's family was basically non-existent, with both her parents being long dead and her having been an only child. All that was left of her was Lulu, and that was a burden she didn't want to carry.

The grass around them tickled her feet through her sandals as she shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for her turn to place a white rose on her mother's casket. It was an ironic ritual. The flowers were grown specifically to go back into the ground, to be buried with the dead. Finally, the priest stopped talking and closed his bible. They weren't even Catholic. Her dad had just let the funeral home director take care of everything so he wouldn't have to deal. She didn't mind; she didn't want to have to deal with anything either. It was too tedious.

Back home, the same faceless creatures in black ate the food neighbors had provided for the funeral. They spoke in whispers, as if afraid to wake the dead, but they'd been left behind in their underground homes. They didn't care about the living now.

Her mother hadn't even cared while she was alive.

"Lulu," Mrs. Rivers, Matty's mom said, walking towards her with a small plastic plate of salad in her hands. "I'm so sorry honey. Anything we can do to help, we're here for you and your dad." She gave Lulu a tight smile that wasn't really a smile, more like a pursing of the lips.

Anything we can do to help. The universal promise at funerals. Usually a vacant, obligatory expression, but Lulu knew she meant it. Mrs. Rivers was a nurse at the hospital in which Lulu's mom had been a frequent resident.

"Thank you," Lulu replied and returned the un-smile.

People ate and people left until there was no more food and a lot more space in the house. The last to leave were the Rivers,' and Matty never went home. Her father vanished like the ghost he'd become, probably with a bottle in hand, and left her sitting on the porch with her best friend.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I'm fine."
"Lulu."

"I'm fine, Matty. Honestly."
"You haven't cried."
"What? Of course, I have."

But she hadn't. Lulu hadn't cried the day her mother died or any day after that. It felt like too much work; like her body couldn't physically handle the stress of forming tears and letting them fall.

At night, when Matty had finally left, she roamed the house cleaning up after the mourners and family members, being careful not to step inside the room which had been her mother's for so long. The door remained closed and would remain so until her father decided to clean it out, or hired someone to do so. Lulu wouldn't go inside. It had been months since she'd crossed that threshold, and tonight would be no different. Tonight she had somewhere else to be.