Eulogy

I went to your funeral today. I was alone, as Mother and Leon didn’t wish to attend. There were more people than I thought there would be, most of them teary-eyed when I walked through the crowd. I could not imagine why, even as I sat through the priest’s speech.

Everyone was dressed in black, as per your request. Everyone in suits came with a white tie.

-

I remembered what you said that night, a few weeks before you were killed. You came into my room, rambling about the importance of purity. You rummaged through my closet and tore an off-white button-up off a hanger. It was cream, even. You disregarded this discrepancy in your perspective and threw it on the bed in front of me, demanding I put it on at once.

Before I could get a word out, you pushed me down on the bed and tugged my T-shirt off over my head. I was terrified that you had other plans, more than what you had said they would be. I was frozen beneath you, barely struggling, and then you sat me up and pulled the sleeves onto my arms. Calloused hands fumbling, you hurriedly buttoned the shirt up. I couldn’t remember the last time those hands were so gentle. They ran down my shoulders, straightening out every wrinkle and fold in the fabric.

It was one of the nights that you promised me everything would change. You would wake up tomorrow and somehow be a better man than you were today. I remembered it from the first night that we tried liquor together. You woke up the next day, with the same look in your eye as you had the other night.

There was a sorrowful glint as you said, “Things will be different now. I’ll be different,” and proceeded to remain the same.

Not only that, but you got worse over the years. You eventually stopped telling me that things would change, growing comfortable in your own hypocrisy as well as your cruelty. It’d been so long that I didn’t think it would happen again. I convinced myself that you weren’t going to get better, up until the day you buttoned those buttons on that cream-white top. You had to drag me out of bed because I was scared you would bring me to the basement instead, but you ended up taking me to the bathroom.

When I reached to pull off my shirt, you told me to hold still. You said that it’s not that kind of bath and helped me into the tub, cream-white button-up and all. The cold water seeped through my ankle socks and gray slacks, the white fabric of my shirt sticking to my skin as you lowered me. My back pressed against the floor of the tub and my vision went blurry when my head finally sank into the water.

“Breathe, James,” you told me. Your voice was trembling and I swear to God, for a moment I could see tears swell in those blue eyes. I could see brown hairs mixed in with your grays and your whites. My gaze met the same eyes that I share during summertime when the light hits them just right. Those golden-brown strands looked the same way my hair does under harsh moonlight. I thought, for a moment, that I even spotted a freckle. I imagined how an imperfection like one of mine could end up on your face—how little, nearly imperceptible dots could be hiding between your frown lines and the creases in your forehead.

“Breathe,” you repeated, my vision blurring as the back of my head finally hit the bottom of the tub. I didn’t breathe, knowing the water would fill my lungs. You stopped trying to get me to do so after a moment underwater.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been under, but by the time I came up, my lungs yearned so strongly for fresh air that I was convinced I was drowning before. You sat me up, my back pressed against the tub's edge. My wet hair hung in front of my eyes and I didn’t dare brush it out of my face, not with you sitting so close to me.

When I worked up the courage to glance over at you, I noticed your eyes were still watering. You were trying your best to hold in the tears that threatened to come out while you held my head underwater. Your trembling hands were gripping the side of the tub and you were leaning over, trying to gather your own courage. You laid your head on my shoulder and, for once, I didn’t feel the urge to push you away. I understood now that you were truly sorry for what you’d done to me, but I also knew that you didn’t know why. You couldn’t fathom the harm that you’d done to me. The violence, the brutality that I endured from those very same, very gentle hands. Those impossibly delicate hands that held my face when you finally pulled away, could somehow be capable of doing what you did to me.

For the first time in my life, you uttered an apology. Just days before this, you relayed to me how soft and pathetic it would be, to show such a vulnerability to your own family. You finally looked real. You felt real, and as soon as I saw that, I knew that it was fleeting. For the following days, you didn’t dare show me any more empathy. There was nothing but inhumanity and callousness—it was sadism that I struggle to put into words even now. I lost my ability to speak because of it. My ability to write went soon after, and I know that if Leon were here, she would’ve laughed at how terribly my hands shook, even when attempting to write silly things like this eulogy I’ll never say. Knowing this brings me a terrible, bittersweet sense of happiness, but understanding that neither of us will ever truly be okay diminishes that.

You didn’t notice a difference when I stopped speaking, because I could never talk back to you. It’d been impossible since that very first night you tried to “fix” me, and then you decided there is no “fixing” me, since you’ve seemed to come to terms with the fact that I am, somehow, just as broken as you…

Now that this is the case, I’ve come to realize that nobody wants me.

-

Grandmother’s eyes met mine, over your empty casket. It was that same, twisted look you always had, the very same one that manages to sully my entire being. It’s the same look that makes it so I can scrub my skin raw and never truly, never thoroughly be cleansed. It’s brought me corruption that couldn’t be baptized away, the holiest of waters rendered useless when it came to rinsing me.

Now that you’re gone, I realized she has those same, blue eyes as you, too. I don’t want to be like either of you. I’d rather be wanted by somebody who I want as well—someone who loves me properly.