1985
The pitter-patter of the rain soaks into her clothes.
"Hey," a voice said. She refuses to her head. "Rose. Let's go."
Rose continues to stare at the gravestone in front of her. Rose had always thought there was a cruel irony in gravestones. It stood in the ground, so full of youth and rigidity - read to last a lifetime. Yet, underneath it, the bodies had already perished and begun the inevitable decay. Piece by piece will fall and ultimately impossible to puzzle back together.
Rose remembers the first time she went to a funeral. She would tug her mother's black dress and ask: "Why are they doing that?"
At the time, her mother couldn't respond.
She was too busy crying.
Then, when it was just them, her mother would say: "It's something permanent to mark something that's no longer present."
Rose didn't understand her meaning, until now.
The gravestone is something for the living, a place they can visit when they can no longer beat the separation. It's something tangible, something present.
"Why?" The volume of Rose's voice faded out with the rain. "Why would she do this to us?" Rose blink away the water, but only more came. Some salty and others fresh. Her head tilted towards the grey sky.
She had always loved the rain, always. The silver puddles used to be an obstacle course for her to battle, but she didn't mind it. However, today was different.
There is intense anxiety about the rains as if it will wash away everything.
"Rose." The voice beside her got more and more desperate with time.
She tilts her head, the wet hair slick across her red cheeks, "Why would cousin do this to us?" She grabbed his shirt, "Eric. Why would cousin Marcelina do this to us?!"
"Stop it!" Eric shouted. "Stop calling her our cousin! She isn't family!" That was it. That was his breaking point. "Family wouldn't do that to us." His legs gave up, and he slumps into the mud. Eric buried his face above the gravestones, "Family wouldn't do this to us."
Things weren't always so grey - so lifeless.
Rose sat there and stared at her older brother as he continued his cries, desperate to revert into a time that had passed.
Back into a time when there were only four of them.
But, the more Eric drowned himself into the memories, the harder it gets to breathe. He clutches his chest and gasps for air. And as his heart tightens, his mind falls deeper into the illusion.
The happiness.
But does it matter?
Do what they think matters?
No.
After the suspense of the story, no one remembers the background characters.
And, that's all Roseanne and Eric ever were.
The background characters.
They were Marcelina Macias's cousin.
Marcelina Macia, the soon to be beheaded, villain of the story.
Rose wrapped her arms around her trembling older brother. Never once did she imagine such a day to arrive when her brother was the one who needs her comfort. Then again, she never expected that she would lose her parents to treason.
Rose buried her head into Eric's back. The sound of the rain sounds soothing to some, but enough to drown out everything. At that moment, Rose wishes it would block out everything, so the embarrassment that comes after would disappear.
Eric hates showing his weakness.
Strong.
Dependable.
Potent.
That's Eric Liu.
Not today.
Today, he is merely a son mourning for his parents.
And when Rose closes her eyes, she wonders: When did it all begin?