Meadow: A Sopranos Fanfic

The Queen & I

Meadow sat by herself in the hospital. She was cried out.
Her brother, AJ, had been put on sedatives and taken to a the suicide watch ward where he could be observed for the next 48 hours.
His mother had taken the brunt of the horror as she had been right in front of her dad when the man shot him in the back of the head. She hadn't been hit but was being evaluated anyway.
Patrick Parisi arrived in the lobby and when Meadow saw him she ran and fell into his arms in a crying embrace that felt like it lasted for hours. He held her and told her it was going to be ok, but she knew things were not going to be ok. Nothing would ever be ok again.

***

Meadow woke up, her mother was downstairs doing something in the kitchen, she could hear her banging away at something.
Patrick had had the good sense to stay at his own place instead of accompanying her. She was in for some very hard work.

Downstairs Meadow caught the full effect of Carmela's damage. She was like a woman destroyed. Pale, eyes wide eyed and bloodshot to hell and back, and moving sluggishly, like a person devoid of any life or emotion.
"Mom?" Meadow asked. Carmela was surprised and turned to her in fear, but then it was gone as fast as it had appeared on her face.
"Oh hi Meadow. I'm making coffee... do you want some?"
Meadow looked at her preparing for a moment and then went up to her and gave her a hug from behind. Carmela looked out the kitchen window at the pool in front of her and stared and stared as her daughter held her from behind. And then suddenly, a few ducks came in through the bushes and Carmela tumbled to the floor in sobs. Meadow followed her, and they sat there, the coffee pot bubbling and screaming to be let off the fire, as the women of the house cried in their sorrow and pain.

***

The funeral was hard. It wasn't a closed casket, but the mortician had done a lot of work on her dad to make him look normal.
Patsy was there, Aunt Ro was being strong, holding her mom, AJ was being a bit of help as he sat at the front, he was on some slightly less powerful sedatives and was at least doing some greeting from his seated position.
Meadow was doing most of the heavy lifting of course, going around as people she didn't know came by and paid their respects saying how great her father had been.
A few men from New York that she couldn't recognize came by, asked if she had gotten their flowers, and sat or went to a corner to talk.
A man with a wired jaw suddenly stood before her and put a hand over hers and stopped her, looking her right in the eyes. She didn't know who he was at first and then she did; he was the man who had made the crack about her having whipped cream on her lip. The man named Coco.
She tried to recoil but he held her hand strongly and pulled once to make her meet eye to eye. Their eyes locked and Meadow was surprised to find sympathy there, not the asshole she had met all those weeks earlier.
Between closed lips he whispered to her, "I'm truly sorry for your loss. I mean that," and she stopped for a long moment to make a judgment call; ruling in the end that he was being sincere. She nodded and put her head down, and he touched her head and walked to the back of the room.
A few men from what she knew were from the Paglieri and Mangano families came by with envelopes which she took and gave to Hunter to hold on to.
When aunt Janice arrived she really believed she'd make a scene, but she didn't. She cried of course, but held her own and acted genuinely sad for her brother, fixing his tie when she stood over the body. Meadow was grateful, everyone was acting civil. It was the least they could do after contributing to all the chaos that had ruled over her father during his life as boss of the DiMeo family.

Artie Bucco cried hard, Uncle Paulie sat solemnly in the corner, his thoughts a mystery to the world, and her cousin Brian and others tried their best to help in all the ways that they could. Surprisingly, it was Patrick and his family that were acting strangely, especially his dad, and even left early in the night, which caused her anger to no end.