Lost and Found - Chapter 8

 The funeral was a solemn event. There was one priest and only the parents of Simon and River, River, Juliet and Charity came. The big Remembrance Day for the 'great actor' was the day after, when all the fans would come in Bridgeport to remember the great Simon Suns.

 River looked away, her hair pulled into a tight ponytail at the back of her head and her perfectly applied mascara running in small lines down her face. The entire day she had cried and her eyes were bloodshot. River felt embarrassed towards her daughter and everybody else. For her entire life she had been strong and now here she was, crying her eyes out.

 Juliet looked beautiful for a day that was supposed to be a day of sadness and remembrance. However, just like her mother, her tears had ruined her mascara. The girl was also quite angry, cursing the bright weather and the priest who stood blabbering on about her father. Her only piece of dignity that was left was that there weren't a hundred other people there, crying their eyes out about someone they hadn't even known.

 Priest Macglenn felt stupid looking into the eyes of everybody gathered. Why had he been the one to do this funeral? He had been given strict instructions not to say anything to personal about Simon, and because of that nobody was listening. Instead they were either crying or fiddling with the grass, trying not to cry.

 When the official burial had finished, Juliet turned around to look at all the other graves in the graveyard. She wondered who the people were and how they had died. She felt selfish as she looked at the other graves, and once again cursed herself for not being nicer to her father while he was still alive.

 Charity sat down next to her crying sister and tried to utter a few words of comfort, which led to a subdued, awkward silence.

 For a few minutes, the only thing that could be heard was the rustling of the leaves as the wind blew through them.

   "Thanks for being here. I... I appreciate it, a lot," Juliet said, and smiled weakly.

  "I'll always be here," Charity replied, biting her lip at the cheesiness but smiling back.

  "Thanks," Juliet replied, and then the silence took over again.

 When they were back at the house, everyone was seated in the living room.

  "Today was a sad day for everybody," Simon's father started saying. "And today will be engraved in our minds for a long time to come. Through these forthcoming days, weeks, months and years, all the family will be here to help eachother, and I hope that time will heal the wounds that the death of a much loved son, husband, father, actor and much, much more."

  Then, River's father stood up and made a speech of his own.

  "Today, the man I always thought of as great and loving was buried. To see the body of a loved one put under the ground hurts, but it also states that the thing that has happened is in the past, and we must all know that the death of Simon is now in the past. I disagree that we must leave the past behind to go into the future, but we mustn't cling on to it. The memory of Simon is a good one, and I'm sure that more happy memories will fill up the space of suffering we are now in. A toast to Simon Suns, the greatest man there ever was," he said, and the cling of glasses filled the air.

   Through all this, River stared with an absent smile on her face, her mind already in the near future.

  That night, while standing infront of her mirror, River's plan was complete. Her life had been perfect until the day her husband died, and although the words of her father-in-law and her own father were engraved in her mind, River knew exactly what she had to do. She had already written the note for her daughter, the will was complete and everything was fixed.

  Now the rope hung loosely in her hand, ready to be used.

  And River smiled her last smile.

That was chapter 9 of Lost and Found! What will happen to River? What will become of the broken heart which lies in Juliet? How will they cope? And how does Charity feel about this? Find out in the next chapter!