Grief moved through the air, smothering all the bereaved within reach… all except Feke. Deciding she had to be experiencing delayed grief, she had taken to adopting what she considered to be sensible grieving cues from the internet and those around her.

The fear of getting caught in her trickery haunted Feke. Within her humongous family, one was not grieving unless they seemed visibly shaken. Nuances were simply not tolerated, instead, they were explained away with the worst possible reasons. What could her reason for not grieving her father possibly be? They would ask, had she hated the man and secretly wished him dead?

Feke sat on an ass-biting couch in full view of the tiny crowd her mother had managed to squeeze into her father’s library. Her mother had insisted on a eulogy session immediately after her father had been laid to rest. So far, all speeches had left few dry eyes. Dark sunglasses and the occasional handkerchief dab at the bottom of the sunglasses ensured her dry eyes remained a secret. She was yet to be called to give her eulogy. Her mother seemed to be keeping her as some type of grand finale… good grief.

She rubbed her now throbbing temples, the expectant gazes she was receiving did nothing to help the ache. She was the only child toeing her father’s academic path and so had received a steady stream of ‘he must be so proud of you’ all day. The comments had failed to stir any emotional reaction. Feke dabbed beneath her sunglasses again, she was not about to be branded some type of witch.

Feke winced at the pain in her stomach. She was starving, but she was yet to see a relative pick a thing to eat. Apparently, grief had no fondness for food, even when that food was spread out on a ridiculously long table. She considered escaping the couch and sneaking some food into her system, but rejected the idea. She doubted she could function properly at the moment, better to faint walking to give her speech than to get food… that seemed more ‘grievey.’

She fixed her face into deeper lines of grief when Uche, her brother’s best-friend, walked directly for her, plate of finger food in hand. He bit back a yelp when he sat next to her. Uche held the plate out to her, “Here, you’re bent out of shape.”
Afraid her hands might grab the plate of their own accord, Feke gripped her phone with both hands. “What?”
“You become Quasimodo when you’re hungry.”
Crap, she thought and straightened. “I’m fine, thank you.”
He studied her. “Okay.” He dropped the plate between them.
Feke rubbed her forehead. Anytime now, she would get politely ushered forward to speak.
“Hmm?” she said when Uche spoke.
“I asked if you wanted to go for a walk or something.”
Feke shook her head in refusal.

Was Uche some type of grief police? Why wasn’t the ‘grieving aloofness’ she had fought so hard to perfect driving him away? She had settled on this horrid couch to discourage company, and the guy was sitting on the detestable thing with her.
Uche said, “Can I read what you’ve written?”
“I… umm—”
“It’ll take the edge off if I read it first, I know you hate public speaking and humans.” He smiled, “Why did you choose to be a lecturer again?”
She blinked. “We’re… loaded?”
“Aren’t you guilt-tripping your family into getting you a car?”
“Shush,” Feke rolled her eyes and handed him her phone. “Swipe up.”
He read through her short speech. “Wow, that’s a lot of accolades.”
“Uh… yeah. His life was dedicated to the betterment of academia, it’s why they call him the academic warlord.” She took the phone when he handed it over.
“Everyone is talking about personal stories with him and stuff, I like how yours really focuses on just how accomplished he was.”
She frowned. “Thanks, I think.”
He looked up, “I’ll be right back, best-friend duty calls.”
“Sure.”

As Uche moved away, someone cleared their throat loudly. Feke turned her attention to where her aunt had begun speaking. She listened as her aunt spoke about her father, weaving in cute little stories about their time together as children. Feke frowned. She had no cute stories with her father, heck she barely had stories. Most of the time, he was on the road for some academic thing, and when he was in town, he was always in the office for the same academic thing. Whenever he managed to carve out time to be home, his focus had been on his children’s grades. The man was a stranger, it’s no wonder she felt no pain at his death.

She sought out her siblings in the crowd and carefully studied their faces. Lines of boredom were working their way onto their carefully plastered sombre expressions. So, they were all just pretending?

Feke grabbed the plate and began eating. She was certainly the clown of the family, at least her siblings had gone into fields they loved. She probably needed therapy to unpack the reasons she had seemingly patterned her life after a man she barely knew. She didn’t know if to laugh or cry at this epiphany, so she stuffed her face and thought of possible new life plans as people eulogised her father.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Mel Tiago on Unsplash