The End of Forever
Chapter Six: The Sun Will Be Back Out TomorrowThe morning of April nineteenth was crisp and cool. Penelope burrowed herself deeper beneath her blankets as the cool air wafting in from the open window skated over her exposed skin. Her nose was frozen, the rest of her body still and comfortable beneath the blanket, warm and toasty. She wanted to stay there forever, just like that. In that peaceful state between dreams and reality, when the dreams are real and reality is a dream.
It was her birthday; she was officially twenty years old and no longer a teenager. Her first official step into adulthood by the standards of the world, though she'd already seen and done more than many adults in their entire lifetimes. She didn't feel much different, didn't feel older or wiser or any closer to figuring out the meaning of life. She just felt…sad, empty, dreadful. She could tell, as soon as her mind was awake enough to register feelings and intuition, that something was wrong -- something didn't feel right -- and it didn't take her long to figure out what it was.
There was no hesitation in her chilled bones as she threw the blankets off of her body and passed through her room and the hallway to her parents' room. She raised her fist to the door and paused for a moment, sending a quick prayer up to God. She prayed she was wrong, prayed she could wake up from this nightmare and go back to this day two years ago. She wished she could change her mind that fateful morning of her eighteenth birthday and get back the past two years of her life she felt like she'd wasted, trudging through life in Los Angeles, searching for a dream that was never meant to be.
It did not do to dwell, however, and she swore to herself that she wouldn't. No matter what happened in the new few minutes and the next few years, she would not dwell on what was not and could never be. There is no turning of the clocks; the only way through is forward.
She braced herself for what was behind the door and rapped her knuckles against the wood. There was no call for her to come in, so she listened a little harder to the sounds from the other side, and what she heard made her stomach curl. It sounded like crying and Penelope teared up just at the sound.
"Mom?" She called, and then she heard sniffling from the other side of the door, but still no response. "Mom, I'm coming in," she warned, waiting a few seconds, and then as slowly as she could muster the courage, turned the knob and pushed the door open.
Her father was still in bed, his eyes closed. Sleeping, she tried to convince herself. He was still sleeping. But her mother was knelt down on the floor beside him, both of her hands holding one of his, tears streaming down her face. When Natalie heard Penelope enter, she dropped her chin to her chest, trying to hide her face, but her body was wracked with sobs, and Penelope could do nothing but stand in the door, watching in horror.
Her father couldn't be gone. It was her birthday. He said he'd see her in the morning. He'd said that he would see her in the morning. He couldn't just break that promise. She never would have left his side if she'd known that it would be the last time.
"Mom," she said, her voice cracking with emotion and piercing through the dead silence of reality. He was gone; she didn't even have to ask. She could lie to herself all she wanted, convince herself that he was just sleeping, but she knew he wasn't going to wake up. She knew he wasn't going to be able to wish her a happy birthday, or eat birthday cake, or watch her get married and have children of her own. There would be no more new memories of him; this was the last one. This, dead and cold while her mother shed thousands of tears, knelt down on the floor beside him.
With her head still hanging low, the salty tears flooding her face, Natalie shook her head and held out a hand to her daughter, urging her to come sit close by. Natalie couldn't look at Penny, though, and Penny found herself having a hard time looking back as she crossed the room and knelt down beside her father -- by her mother.
She wanted to have the courage to reach out and hold his hand, to stroke his cheek and push the hair out of his face, but she didn't dare. Hope could tell her anything she wanted, but acting on impulse would do nothing but tell her the truth.
"Why?" She asked, her gaze rolling to the ceiling, a flood of tears filling her eyes from the bottom up. "Why today?"
It wasn't a question for Natalie, but Natalie let go of Taylor's hand and wrapped her arms around Penelope and, together, they rocked back and forth and cried until there were no more tears to cry.
-----
The funeral plans came in a hurry, a blurry vision of caskets and flowers, songs and pallbearers. They were things Penelope never wanted to even think of, let alone have a hand in. And who did? Who wanted to think of death, of finality, the lack of invincibility? But there she was, sticking to her mother's side, deciding on caskets, and flowers, and songs, and pallbearers.
Less than a week later, she found herself standing at a podium in front of hundreds of gathered people, family and friends. A sea of black, and tissues, and running mascara. She'd dabbed at her own eyes on the way up the aisle -- past aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends, and distant relatives that she hardly knew -- and willed herself not to cry in front of everyone. For the next five minutes, she swore to herself, she would not tear up.
Nervously, she cleared her throat, though it was unnecessary. She had the attention of everyone in the room. "You can ask Ezra, River, and Viggo and they'll all tell you," she started, her voice soft and timid, but growing in confidence as she continued, "I'm a Daddy's girl."
She took the moment of soft chuckling throughout the room to compose herself. When she'd decided she wanted to say something at her father's funeral, the hardest part had been trying to figure out if she should talk in past tense -- he was gone, after all -- or present -- because maybe it was just too soon to put him behind them like that. In the end, present had won out. She'd never stop being a Daddy's girl, after all.
"We agreed on everything. The best flavor of ice cream, which team was going to win the Super Bowl, how long it was going to take for Mom to get sick of River and Viggo bickering and put them in separate rooms."
More sniffled chuckles resounded through the room, and Penelope took a deep breath, bracing herself for what was to come. The hard part. Saying goodbye to the one person who had never, ever doubted her.
"The only thing we didn't agree on was the weather," she stated. She looked down at her notes and shook her head as her eyes filled with the tears she swore she wouldn't cry. "I'm a warm and sunny kind of girl. Put me in shorts and a tank top with a little bit of sunscreen and I'm a happy camper. But him," she stopped herself and shook her head with a faint smile. "He loved the rain. It inspired him, he said. He always said it was the underdog of weather -- nobody is ever happy to see rain in the forecast, but he loved it. He lived for rainy days."
Penelope swallowed, looking over the crowd. It was amazing, she thought to herself, how many people were there in front of her because they had some sort of connection to her father. They had all loved him in their own ways.
"I remember on my sixteenth birthday," she recalled and felt a familiar pang of guilt. Only four years, but it felt like a lifetime. How much of herself had she given to that damn soul-sucking city? How much of her life had she stolen from her father? "I wanted a party, and being the Daddy's girl I am, he agreed to whatever it was that I wanted. I told him I wanted to turn the backyard into a dance hall. I wanted food, and music, and expensive little party favors for my guests that nobody even remembers getting the next week."
She paused as there was the sound of laughter and shuffling, sniffling and murmurs. She smiled softly as she continued.
"He gave me everything I wanted," she said wistfully with a shake of her head. "And the party still sucked. It would have been perfect but it rained. And I was so upset the whole night and after everyone left I was crying, and he came to me, his hair still wet from being the one to bring everything in out of the rain and he said…"
Penny swallowed around a forming lump in her throat, trying to keep her face from crumbling and defeating her composure. "He said, it's only rain, Penny girl, it won't last forever. The sun will be back out tomorrow."
The crowd was silent and somber as a tear trickled down her cheek.
"I thought it was ridiculous, then, and maybe it‘s still a little ridiculous now," she admitted sniffling, and there were a few chuckles amongst the crowd. She looked toward her brothers and her mother, eyeing each of them individually. "But he was right, as he only occasionally was."
From her seat, Natalie smiled up at her daughter, dark, wet mascara smearing down her cheeks.
"It's only rain. It's not forever. The sun will be back out tomorrow."
With her tightening throat, Penelope whispered a quick thank you and ducked herself off of the stage, her chin dropped to her chest to avoid the sad eyes of everyone around her. She slid back into her seat between River and Viggo and sniffled, trying her hardest not to cry anymore. She may have been a girl, but she was raised with a lot of boys. She was tougher, stronger than all the other girls.
She was surprised -- and relieved -- when Viggo made the first move to reach for her hand and squeeze it in his. She exhaled a ragged breath and wiped at her cheeks with her free hand.
It's only rain. It's not forever. The sun will be back out tomorrow.
-----
It was a hole, Penelope decided as she stood next to Ezra and gazed down into it. It wasn't a grave, or a tomb, or even a final resting place. It was a hole that had once been filled with dirt and was now filled with nothing. But, within a matter of minutes, that's where they were going to put her father. They were going to lower his casket into this...hole...and then they had to walk away as though everything was okay and life goes on.
It's only rain, she reminded herself and then bitterly added, "but it is forever."
Penelope saw her older brother gaze at her sideways and she realized that she'd only said half of her thought out loud. Ezra seemed to catch on quickly, though, and reached for her hand to squeeze. "This feeling won't last forever," he promised through a whisper, and then more people were gathering for another ceremony around the hole.
Penny only half listened as more words were said about her father, a prayer was prayed, hands were held, tears were shed. All the while, Penelope just stared at the hole into which her father was going to be buried in a matter of minutes.
As the prayers and words wrapped up, she knew what was coming next, and she found that she couldn't bring herself to watch. She couldn't look at her dad being lowered into a fucking dirtless hole for the rest of time. So, she turned around and walked away as inconspicuously as she could. She hoped everyone else was too preoccupied to watch her go.
It wasn't until her feet stopped moving once she got to the car, that she heard the crunching of gravel behind her. Someone had followed her away. At first, she didn't know if she should feel guilty that she was taking them away from the ceremony, or irritated that she couldn't be alone. Then she turned and saw that it was her youngest brother -- all dressed up in a black suit with his hair slicked back -- who had followed her from the graveyard behind the church to the family car in front of it, and all she could feel was relief.
Silently, Viggo held a stick of gum out to his sister and she took it, unwrapping the foil and folding it accordion-like into her mouth. She chewed in silence until the texture was smooth and the flavor not quite as potent. "I couldn't watch," she gave her explanation, even though Viggo hadn't asked for one. He just leaned back against the side of the car next to her, and stared out at the church.
"Do you believe in God?" He finally asked, and the question chilled Penelope to the bone.
"Yes," she said firmly. Of course, she wanted to add, but thought it might come off a little condescending. "Why? Don't you?"
Viggo shook his head, his jaw moving as he chewed his own piece of gum in silence. "If there was a God, we wouldn't be standing here having this conversation," he said. "This whole thing is fucked up."
Viggo turned his head to look at his sister and she saw that his eyes were shimmering. She hoped he wouldn't cry, because then she would cry and she'd already done so much of that since she'd been back. Surely there would come a point where her eyes would dry up completely.
"He should have had so much more life to live. And I'm so pissed off at him…"
"God?" Penelope clarified as her brother trailed off, but Viggo quickly shook his head.
"Dad," he said, and a chill that had been forming at the base of Penelope's spine coursed up through her back. "I'm so mad at him for not going to the doctor sooner, for letting it get so bad that it was untreatable."
"He didn't know," Penelope frowned, her voice soft and timid, verging on the edge of tears. She wanted to defend her father, wanted to fight in his defense, but she knew now was not the time to argue with her brother.
"Exactly," he agreed and then spit his gum out, swapping it for a stick of nicotine, instead. They were silent for several minutes, leaning against the side of the car while the rest of the family watched Taylor's final moments above ground. "But at the same time," Viggo finally started back up, his voice calm and okay, at peace, "I can't really blame him. I don't think I'd want to know. I wouldn't want a house full of people saying goodbye to me, I wouldn't want people fussing over me twenty-four hours a day."
Penelope shook her head. She couldn't honestly say she'd want that for herself, either. "But I'm glad he found out when he did," she said, turning her eyes to Viggo. The acknowledgement flickered in his eyes, and he nodded.
"Me too," he agreed. "I'm glad you're back."
"For good," she swore, locking her eyes on his to relay all of the sincerity inside of her. She felt a chill in her bones that only dissipated when Viggo reached out for her, pulling her in close by the waist and bumping their hips together.
Across the lawn, they saw people starting to stagger their way, heading back to their cars. Overhead, the sky grew darker and Penelope watched it in wonderment. She hadn't heard anything about rain in the forecast, but there were the clouds rolling in.
"Looks like rain," Penelope heard and leveled her gaze back down and saw her oldest brother grinning at her with a twinkle in his eye. Behind him, River stood with a similar expression.
Penelope felt the first drop fall on her arm and she lifted it for inspection. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," she said, laughter bubbling through her voice. She looked sideways at Viggo who looked equally as amused. "I fucking hate rain," she reminded him, and then looked toward the sky. "I fucking hate rain, and you know it."
As the rain started pouring harder, people started dashing to their cars, and Penelope laughed, and then Viggo, and finally Ezra and River. Minutes later, Natalie found the four of them standing around the car in the pouring rain, not making a move to remove themselves from the rain, but just standing there laughing. Brief puzzlement crossed her face, and then she looked up toward the sky, too, and laughed heartily and from her belly, and her children laughed even harder.
"It's just like him," she said breathlessly, holding her arms out to become fully drenched.
Passersby, scrambling to make it to warm, dry safety, stared at them, laughing and smiling and getting drenched. They looked their way with pity, with curiosity, with befuddlement.
"You'll catch cold!" One older lady -- some distant relative -- shouted their way in kind warning, but Penelope only smiled back at her.
"It's only rain," she called back.
When you're young, forever seems so far away. When you're older, Penelope realized, forever ends as soon as you realize that nothing ever lasts that long.
"This is it," she said to herself, to her brothers, to her mother, standing in the pouring rain with a sad heart and a faint smile on her face. The rest of the sentiment -- this is the end of forever -- was unnecessary. They could all hear Taylor, still in their hearts, reminding them of the inconsistencies of the rain.
It's only rain; it won't last forever.