Forgetting how to cry

[Brenna Casey]

There was just something about the day that felt wrong. Nothing seemed to be wrong in reality, it was just an uneasy, unhappy, unsettling feeling that lingered and grew as the early morning hours ticked by into early afternoon as Brenna sat in the small room that served as her private school. Outside the room, the world moved on and hummed with the daily life of people who hurried here and there tending to errands and work. The only sign that today was any different was the uncharacteristic storms brewing and blowing in from the north. More unusual was how the worst of the storms seemed to part and go around the areas surrounding her home, instead dropping rain that was intermittent and... sad.

Rain at this time of year was usually a welcome relief from the heat. Today, it only added to the unsettling sadness that seemed to spring from nowhere and everywhere. It was light, but steady, barely making a whisper of a sound against the large bay windows of the room. More than once, Brenna found herself staring out the window in her distraction only to shake her head and return her mind and eyes to the studies in front of her. Frustration at her own lack of focus was mounting and there was no reason for it. Over and over, she started the school work only to find she was losing time to watching the rain start and stop and start again.

Larissa had come by to check on her several times, which was only serving to put her more on edge. It wasn't like the woman to check on her so often and Brenna became more and more cross with each visit until her frustration escaped her, snapping at the nanny. She'd gone so far as to ask the woman why she needed someone to 'babysit' her since she was now a teenager. It hadn't been fair to Larissa, but neither had Brenna expected the woman to break down in tears and leave the room in a rush. That had been enough for her to give up on her studies for the day. It was only a few minutes later that her father had shown up, looking as stern and angry as always. He wasn't due home for another week.

The words he spoke cut jagged tears into her heart and soul. 'Your mother has passed. I'm home to make funeral arrangements and will be returning to duty immediately after. You will mind Miss Larissa and cause her no more trouble.' And then he'd turned and walked away, all color in the world going with him. The room seemed larger and more empty, even colder and all she could do was stand there staring in the general direction of the door. She couldn't feel anything save for an acute hollowness that grew and expanded outwards from the center of her chest and across her entire body, working its way into every bit of muscle and bone, down to the smallest cell and atom of her being.

And all she could do was stare at nothing vacantly as her mind wavered between overcrowding thoughts, overwhelming silence and the chilled, echoing words of her father before he'd walked away.