Chapter 73: A Little Dead to the World

IT'S ONLY the first week of November, but there's an extra chill in the air as I'm the last to exit the car back at my parents' house for the post-funeral luncheon. The cold set into my bones as we stood outside at the gravesite and I worry I'll never be warm again. Of course I've been cold for more than the last month, so this might be my new condition. Cold. A little dead to the world.

The three of us are silent as we walk in the house we once shared, but never will again. My sister continues to the kitchen while my father and I stop in the living room to our right. He sits in the old green chair he's called his for more years than I remember, and I take a place on the matching couch. It doesn't actually match, but its close enough in color that when my mother found it a few years ago she bought it on sight. Then sent me pictures and text messages for the next week about how amazing it was to find a piece of furniture the exact hideous pea green color of Dad's favorite chair. She l