Closets

Prologue

            Anthea peered down into the hollowed ground.  The improperly shored sides of the grave had already started to crumble and clumps of earth broke with the faintest breath of wind as they landed on the fresh body that lay twisted at the bottom.  Anthea knew a moment of paranoid panic for a few moments as reality set in.  As outraged as she had been, she hadn’t planned on this evening ending in anyone’s death, though she really couldn’t say she was sorry.  Anthea was glad that Ava was here beside her.  Their eyes met, but they did not speak.  Even with the clusters of dirt covering her, the woman in the hole was well-dressed.  Her cane had been forgotten beside the grave.  Anthea nudged the cane with the toe of her shoe until it slid, as if in slow motion, into the opening.  It landed with a dull thud on the dead woman.  Anthea knelt down on both knees and rested her palms on the moist earth so that she was on all fours.  She studied the face of the dead woman…a woman she’d barely known though she’d known her all of her life.

            The woman’s face, even in death, was haughty.  A diamond and sapphire necklace dangled from her wrinkled neck.  The hem of her emerald silk and lace nightgown had torn in the fall.  The perfectly coiffed hair had finally been disheveled.  This was the first time Anthea had ever seen her mother’s hair misplaced.  Those cold, dark eyes behind the closed eyelids would never violate Anthea’s face again.

            She inhaled deeply.  She felt as though she inhaled for hours, sucking in the moist Dominican breeze.  It felt like that breath went all the way through her.  Through every vein, through to her very toes, through the years of her life.  She closed her eyes and exhaled.  All of the stress that Anthea had held in for decades was released through her mouth as she let her lungs deflate. 

            “Are you ready?” Ava asked.

            “Yes,” answered Anthea.