When He Was Gone Part3

She stood there with their daughter, together facing person after person. Shaking hand after hand and reciving hug after hug. Everyone was a blur, the words seemed muffled and unimportant. She tried her best not to glance to the left too often. He was lying there in an unfamiliar way, looking different and still the same. Unmoving, he was so still.

His mother stood on her right, pursing her lips and looking as though she was holding back tears. Taking in all the sympathy the widows and old family friends brought with them. She didn't know. She could never know. His last birthday had been streamers and ballons. Party hats and presents, close friends and his family. She hadn't been there. "Too busy" she had said. Glancing past to the little girl she snaps, "Stand up straight. Have you no manners?!"

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Rufus was clutched in her small fist and she hugged him to her shast as she leaned against the wall. Standing all day had made her tired. People told her they would miss him too. She thought they would have to. He was good. Her grandmother was mean and yelled at her. This woman who never came to visit. She couldn't have been his mother. He was good. She looked at her mother and sat on the ground, waiting for a small sign of support. It came in a thin smile with soft eyes. Her mother had always said she looked like him when she was being hardheaded.
She leaned her head against the cool wall and drifted off, to a dreamless sleep.