Insomnia

That night, Harper sat in the thickly cushioned seat in front of the large bay windows of her room into the early hours of the morning. She watched slow falling snowflakes through the wavy, antique glass of the panes. She shivered and drew the down comforter tighter around her shoulders. After giving up trying to sleep about three a.m., she'd taken it off the four-poster mahogany bed and dragged it with her to the window seat.

She couldn’t remember ever being so tired. Her whole body and mind ached with fatigue but sleep still would not come. Images of her daddy’s face, always boisterous and smiling in life were overlaid with his visage gone grey and severe in the silk lining of his casket. She truly didn’t understand the point of seeing the dead before you buried them. It wasn’t peaceful. It gave her no closure and now that image was stuck in her head for the rest of her days. She rubbed her eyes in a vain attempt to wipe it away.

Close on the heels of the flashes of her daddy, wer