"THE ACCIDENT"

by Katherine Reinier

a vignette

    "Nooooo! Mommy, Nooooo!" With a jolt Kasey awoke. It was the middle of the night. Even though she was sweating, she started to shiver. Kasey began to cry. Her mother died in a horrible car accident and her funeral was tomorrow.

    Kasey was not told many details of the accident since she was onlyeight years old. She was not even allowed to watch a news broadcast that featured her mother’s accident in one of its stories.

    Kasey was an only child so she had no siblings to turn to in times of trouble. Her grandparents died before she was born. When Kasey was about five years old her Father died of a very rare disease of which she was told nothing about. Her dad’s death was very hard for her and her mother but at least they had each other.

    Now though, Kasey was all alone left to live the rest of her life with an aunt and an uncle on her father’s side she never knew she had. Kasey stopped talking as soon as she heard of the news of the accident. The doctor said it was just shock and it would pass once Kasey could accept her mother’s death.

    Kasey had lived all her life in a small town in Montana but her aunt and uncle lived in Michigan and could not move. Kasey was told she had to put all the things she could not live without in boxes in four days time. Her aunt and uncle could only stay three days after the funeral.

    Her mother’s death was enough for Kasey but having to be uprooted from the only place she knew was almost just as painful. Her uncle was a powerful business man while her aunt was a well respected lawyer. From what Kasey was told they were really rich and lived in a big house and could take care of whatever Kasey needed. That is why her mother and her father put her aunt and uncle in their Wills.

    Kasey always thought it would be neat to be rich but she never thought it would come this way. She was in her own house with two total strangers sleeping in her guest room. Kasey kept on trying to fall back asleep clutching her teddy bear tightly but all the memories kept her up.

    Kasey slowly got up with her teddy bear in hand and tiptoed to her mother’s room and got into her bed. She could still smell her mother’s scent in the room and in the sheets. Kasey smiled just a little and finally fell back asleep.

    "Kasey, time to wake up. Sweety, I made some breakfast," came Kasey’s aunt Meg’s voice as she opened Kasey’s bedroom door. Meg made a slight gasp as she found Kasey was not in her bed.

    "James! Is Kasey outside?" Meg shouted over her shoulder.

    "What, Hun..?" Kasey’s uncle said as he slowly walked into the bedroom. "Kasey is gone, have you seen her outside anywhere?"

    "No, I was just out there putting some things in the car and I did not see anyone. You don’t think she ran away....do you?"

    "I hope not! Come on, let’s search the rest of the house before we try outside."

    Kasey awoke slowly to the muddled sounds of her aunt and uncle calling her name. At first she did not recognise them but then remembered everything. She noticed that her pillow was very damp. She must have cried the whole night. She did not remember any dreams for the rest of the night though. Her aunt’s and uncle’s voices started getting louder.

    Meg and James bursted through the door which startled Kasey right out of bed. "There you are, honey!" Meg sighed, "What are you doing in here?" Kasey just looked at her aunt and uncle and crawled back into bed clutching her bear close. Meg looked at Kasey with sad eyes, "Oh, sweetheart, did you cry all night?" Kasey didn’t even look at her she just stared at a picture on the bedside table of herself, her mom, and her dad.

    James watching all of this, "Oh, Kasey, we are not going to hurry you. We both know you need time to heal and you need to do it your own way. Just, please help us out, just a little, okay?"

    Kasey looked up a little at James and gave him a slight look of understanding. He smiled at her and gave her a small light kiss on her forehead. Kasey cringed a little but welcomed the kiss.

    "Come on, hun, time for breakfast. After breakfast I will give you a bath and we can pick out something for you to wear for the funeral." Said Meg as she led Kasey off the bed and out of the room with James close behind.

    "Okay, here is your towel. Don’t you feel better now? Please go to your room and get dressed and I will be back in 20 minutes to help you with your hair." With that Meg went out of the bathroom and went into the guest room where James was getting ready.

    "Hunny, didn’t you see how little she ate? She hasn’t really eaten at all since we have been here. I am starting to worry."

    "Meg, what do you expect? She just lost her other parent. She has no one except for us and she doesn’t even know who we are. How would you be handling all this?"

    "I guess you are right but it is just worrying me and scaring me also. Isn’t she hungry?"

    "Well, hopefully by tonight she will be hungry enough to eat more then just a forkful. I am sure that hunger will eventually make her start eating. We just have to have a little more patience."

    "Yeah, I hope you are right James but will her body have the patience?"

    James gave her a worried look and contemplated what she said. "If it goes on after tomorrow we will call the doctor. Okay?"

    Meg gave him a nod.

    Kasey was looking through all her clothes trying to find a dress to wear. She wanted to wear the black dress she wore to her daddy’s funeral but she was probably way too big for it now. She came across the last dress her mother bought for her and stared at it. The dress was a light pink but she was going to wear it anyway. She was hoping her mom and dad were together again watching over her, waiting for her.

    Meg came into Kasey’s room while she was trying to brush her hair. "Here, let me help you. Light pink? Do you have any dark dresses?"

    Kasey just stared at her.

    "I guess we should have bought you one yesterday. Well, this will have to do. Hmm....I love your long blond beautiful hair. I wish I had the patience to grow mine but I get so tired of it. I don’t think I have ever been able to get it below my shoulders before I cut it off. Maybe I can curl your hair, would you like that?"

    Kasey showed no response at all and just kept looking at the mirror at her reflection trying to picture her mom in Meg’s place.

    "I’ll be back, I am going to go get my curling iron."

    While Meg was getting the iron Kasey ran into her mother’s bathroom and looked through her hair supply drawer and pulled out a pretty light blue ribbon she used to wear. Kasey loved how her mother looked in it and wanted to feel her at the funeral. She ran back to her room while Meg was plugging in the iron.

    Meg started brushing her hair while they were waiting for the iron to heat up. "What is that in your hand?"

    Kasey moved her hand slightly to show the ribbon.

    "Oh, that is so beautiful, do you want me to put that in your hair?"

    Kasey looked up at Meg’s reflection and gave a pleading look.

    "This will look gorgeous in your hair!"

    Meg brushed the top layers of Kasey’s hair into a pony tail and held it with a pony tail holder. She then preceded to curl Kasey’s hair which went all the way to her waist. After 20 minutes her hair was filled with beautiful bouncy curls. She sprayed a light layer of holding spray and took the ribbon lightly from Kasey’s hands and tied it beautifully around her pony tail.

    "You look so beautiful! Do you have any earrings? Or any holes in your ears for that matter?"

    She looked at Kasey’s ears. She saw that there were tiny little holes. Kasey went into one of her jewelry drawers and brought out the earrings that her mom bought for the dress.

    "Those will do just fine, here, let me help you put them in."

    The funeral seemed to drag on and every time someone looked at Kasey they would cry. Kasey didn’t feel like crying at all because she felt her mom all around her and for the first time almost since his death she felt her dad too. It was getting to the part of the ceremony where they said some things before they started shoveling dirt onto the coffin. The pall bearers had already lowered the coffin into the six-foot deep hole at the beginning of the ceremony. She was now laying right next to her husband in the plots they had picked out for themselves awhile back. There was also a plot for Kasey.

    Kasey just stared at her mother’s coffin in the dark hole and then moved her eyes over to her dad’s headstone. She didn’t need to read it, she had it memorised from all the times she came with her mom to put flowers down. Her mother’s head stone was still being finished but they would put it at her grave sight the next day.

    They started shoveling dirt on her mother’s coffin and Kasey kept on staring hoping that maybe the doctors made a mistake and she would pop out. She hoped her dad would do that, too, during his funeral. Kasey got up from her chair and walked to her mother’s coffin. She reached to the back of her hair and untied the ribbon. She took the ribbon in her hands and held it out towards the coffin and let it fall. It fell slowly and landed lightly on the hard wood. Kasey just stared into the hole while the men shoveled dirt on her mother. She kept an eye on the ribbon until it disappeared under the dirt.

    One of her mother’s closest friends started bawling and had to walk away from the ceremony for a little bit. Almost everyone started crying as they watched Kasey dropping her ribbon into the grave and then standing there as if waiting for something that was not going to happen. No one understood how much pain Kasey was in, no one.