Home Is Where the Bodies Are

by Jeneva Rose

Death reminds us that life isn’t infinite and that one day, our time will come too.

It’s odd. Some people never see it coming, others have a countdown, and I don’t know which is worse.

She told me flowers reminded her of life—beautiful, delicate, and short-lived.

There’s not many things you can count on in life, but that . . . is one thing you can count on. It will rise and it will fall—no matter what. Don’t matter if you’re sick or sad. Don’t matter if there is war or there is peace. Don’t matter if you see it or you don’t. That sun. You can count on it.

“I love you, Mom. Thank you for having me, for raising me, for loving me, for being like the sun . . . the one thing I could always count on.”

When you shine brighter than the sun, it’s hard for others to look at you, so you have two choices: look and be blinded with resentment or look away.

His watch clinks against the table. Half red, half blue. A luminescent silver band and the word Rolex in the center of the face. I know it cost more than my car, but he wears it like it came out of a quarter machine.

I glance down at my chewed fingernails. I’ve bitten them since I was a child and no matter how many times I’ve tried to stop, they always find their way back to my mouth. Bad habits don’t die.

Money changes people the same way death does. If you don’t know how to manage every aspect of it, it’ll bring out the worst in you.

I’m taken back to when I was young, peering up at our mother, thinking she had the answers to all the questions in the world. We all look at our parents that way, until we don’t.

Beth’s eaten one slice but stopped short of the crust. She’s never liked the crust—the crunchiest, hardest part of the pizza that offers nothing more than cooked dough. I think that people dislike something for one of two reasons: we truly dislike it, or we dislike it because it gives us an opportunity to value something else more. And when you don’t have much in life, there isn’t much you’re able to detest before you run out of things to, well, detest. So, Beth chose crust. Michael chose this town. And I chose myself.

If you have to qualify right with a pronoun, then it’s not right.

I know they found Emma’s bicycle. I know that because I made sure they would.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, as the sun eventually sets on us all.

Resentment only poisons the person who consumes it, not the one it’s intended for.

We can only endure so much before we can’t anymore.

Sometimes you have to lose parts of yourself just to survive.

Sometimes you become the monster and sometimes the monster becomes you.

They were human, and they were flawed. Sometimes we do the wrong thing for all the right reasons.