Light as a Feather, Silent as the Grave

Chapter 1

This is Book 3 in the Light as a Feather series.

Book 1: Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board (available on Amazon & iTunes)

Book 2: Light as a Feather, Cold as Marble

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Snow still blanketed on the ground in Willow even though it was early April, a rarity for Central Wisconsin. Some of it, surely, at the very bottom of the heaps created by snow plows that took the form of white, dirt-speckled walls along the roads in town that Mom and I had driven to arrive at St. Monica's, had been there since the blizzard that had debilitated the town over Christmas break. It gave me a chill to think that flakes of snow that had fallen from the sky on Christmas Eve, when I'd driven far outside town limits with Trey and Mischa to track down Bloody Heather from the local ghost story we'd all heard since elementary school, were still on the ground nestled between frozen blades of grass. Mischa had been eager to get home to celebrate Christmas with her family on that wintry night so many months ago. That had been when her father was still alive, still pushing her to practice for the Wisconsin Pan Am Gymnastics Finals that had been held in February.  

"Adam Portnoy was a steadfast man driven by his passions in life. His staff at the car dealership will tell you that he was the first person to arrive at the lot every morning, and the last person to leave at night. With his unwavering support and encouragement, his beautiful daughters, Amanda and Mischa, have each respectively made great achievements in gymnastics, and both are frontrunners for the Olympic trials this summer. We can expect great things from the Portnoy girls simply because Adam Portnoy was a great man, in mind and spirit."

I sat stone-faced next to Mom in the back of the church as Father Fahey delivered his sermon from the pulpit. It was a complete lark that I happened to be at home in Weeping Willow in time to attend the wake and funeral service for Mischa's father; it was three days before Easter, and I'd been granted permission to leave Florida and spend the holiday with my mother. Technically, I was not supposed to be in attendance at any public events, or in communication with any of my former classmates. But after all we'd been through together since the start of the school year, Mischa was probably my best friend in the world. She was close with both of her parents, even though at times she complained about how hard they drove her to excel at gymnastics. The mass program for Mr. Portnoy's funeral service with his smiling photograph on its cover (the same one that appeared on the website of his car dealership) seemed like a figment of my imagination even though I could feel the coarse grain of the paper on which it had been printed against my fingertips. I knew that Mischa had to be suffering terribly... especially because she and I both were well aware that her father's death was entirely our own fault.

 "We pray now, for Adam, as we prepare to lay him to eternal rest this morning. His daughters and lovely widow, Elena,knew the full extent of his kindness and love. He lived each day to the fullest, and let his example guide all of us in being present in our own lives and families."

Someone toward the front of the church loudly blew their nose into a handkerchief. Mom reached for my left hand and squeezed it, obviously moved by Father Fahey's words. Glenn, her relatively new-on-the-scene boyfriend, sat on the other side of her. My mother had yet to mention anything on the topic since she'd picked me up at the airport yesterday, but there were clues all over the house that Glenn was practically living there. Given the news about Mischa's father, I hadn't been in the mood to drill my mom with questions about the random toothbrush in the bathroom and enormous, the foreign bottle of sriracha hot sauce in the fridge. But it was odd to have Glenn present on such a somber occasion; he hadn't even known Mr. Portnoy.  I appreciated his attendance, but kind of wished he hadn't insisted on coming with us because the circumstances were so complicated. I hoped there would come a day when my life would return to such a state of normalcy that I could have a frank discussion with my mom about her new relationship with the town veterinarian, but now was not the time.