Chapter Two:The World No One Says
821 Words
The funeral home smelled like lilies and furniture polish.
Nora decided she didn’t like either.
The room was too quiet for how many people were in it. Adults stood in clusters, speaking in low voices that dipped even lower when she walked past. Every conversation seemed to end the same way — with someone looking at her like she was made of glass.
She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do.
Cry, maybe.
But she felt strangely still. Like if she moved too fast, something else might disappear.
Her father knelt in front of her before they went inside.
“You don’t have to go up there,” he said gently.
“Up where?”
“To the casket.”
The word meant nothing at first.
Then she saw it — the polished wood box at the front of the room.
She stared at it.
Her mother hated small spaces. She used to prop every window open in the apartment, even in winter.
Nora shook her head.
“I’m okay here.”
Her father nodded like that was the right answer.
He had been nodding a lot lately. Like he didn’t trust himself to say too much.
People kept touching her shoulders.
Patting her back.
Saying things like:
“She’s in a better place.”
“She’s at peace now.”
“Your mom loved you so much.”
Nora wanted to ask something simple.
If she loved me, why did she leave?
But every time she opened her mouth, the question felt too large.
So she said thank you instead.
Over and over.
She overheard pieces of conversations.
“It happened so fast.”
“Did anyone know she was that bad?”
“Poor Tom.”
That was her father’s name.
No one said her mother’s name very loudly.
No one said the word.
The real word.
Nora didn’t know it yet, but she could feel its absence.
It hung in the room like something heavy and unspoken.
At school the following week, her teacher crouched beside her desk.
“If you need to talk about anything,” she said softly, “I’m here.”
Nora nodded.
But she didn’t know what she would say.
I found her notebook.
She was tired.
There were sirens.
She didn’t come back.
Those didn’t feel like things you said out loud.
At recess, two girls whispered near the swings.
“I heard—”
“My mom said—”
When they noticed Nora watching, they stopped.
That was worse than if they had finished the sentence.
The apartment changed after the funeral.
Casserole dishes lined the kitchen counter for days.
Her father moved slower.
The blue notebook disappeared.
Nora looked for it once.
Not because she wanted to read it again.
But because it felt wrong that it was gone.
Like erasing it meant erasing her mother entirely.
One night, she woke up to the sound of her father crying.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just a quiet, breaking sound from behind the bathroom door.
She lay still in her bed, staring at the brick wall outside her window.
She thought about getting up.
About knocking.
About saying something comforting.
But she didn’t know how.
She was nine.
And she had already learned that strong feelings made rooms feel unstable.
So she stayed quiet.
That was when the belief began to root itself inside her:
If I don’t make things harder, maybe the people I love won’t fall apart.
A week later, a woman from church stopped by.
She hugged Nora tightly.
“Your mom was struggling,” she said gently.
Struggling.
Another word.
Another almost-explanation.
“With what?” Nora asked.
The woman hesitated.
Then smiled in that careful way adults do when they don’t want to tell the whole truth.
“Grown-up things.”
Grown-up things.
The phrase felt like a locked door.
Nora stopped asking after that.
That night, she stood in the kitchen alone.
The hallway light outside flickered again.
Five seconds.
Three.
Dark.
She whispered the question into the empty room.
“Why?”
The word didn’t echo.
It just disappeared.
Like everything else.
By the end of the month, neighbors had stopped bringing food.
The apartment returned to its usual sounds.
The laundromat machines.
The pipes.
The distant train horn at night.
Life kept moving.
Nora didn’t know how to.
So she did the only thing she could.
She became easier.
She stopped asking for help with homework.
Stopped mentioning when her shoes felt tight.
Stopped talking about the notebook.
If her mother had been tired from trying to hold everything together —
Nora would make sure no one ever had to hold her.
She didn’t know yet that silence can be inherited.
That unanswered questions can shape the way you love.
That one unspoken word can echo for years.
She only knew this:
Her mother was gone.
And no one would tell her why.
- Writer
