“What’s up T?” Alice asked cautiously holding the mail as she had yet to close the door. The eerie and silent steel stare Tina had on the box had frozen her to one spot. She didn’t know how to move in this new world of Tina and mourning, she had to stay conscientious of her words and actions around her, so she always chose the road of caution and gentility.  

Tina finally shifted her gaze over to Alice as she had just now noticed her coming into her home. “This box.” she said as she threw her eyes back to it. “This box is always watching me, and today I wanted to watch it.”

Alice scrunched her brow at the simple and odd explanation “…Ok… You want to tell me why?”

“Trish and Aaron had the funeral home place Rick’s things in it.” Alice felt the sting of her Aunt and Uncle’s name before Tina could finish whatever she was saying.  Her mind immediately went to her cousin and the gravity of the funeral. The way the air sat that day was so heavy with confusion and grief that it instantly brought her back down. She thought surely she would be over this hurdle by now but every now and again, she would remember something about him and she’d be thrown into a tailspin again. Alice just took a seat on the couch next to Tina, keys and purse resting in her lap, and stared at the box as well. After a while she placed her head onto Tina’s shoulder, to which she responded by resting her head on Alice’s. Right when she felt the urge to cry and bury her face into Tina’s shoulder, she felt Tina grab her hand and rest it against her belly.  The simple move had pulled so much emotion from her, that she couldn’t find it in her to  cry today. Not today. They’d grown  accustomed to each other’s movements in this stage together. 

Early in the beginning Alice and Tasha would come over and she’d be in bed sobbing and wailing so strongly that it almost threw them into a panic on how to help her. In the end it all turned out to be a simple full body embrace from the both of them. Alice’s hand on her shoulder would bring Tina to a need to be held to which Alice obliged and Tasha would sit rubbing her back. But the clutch of Tina’s hand on hers would pull more emotion from her than she knew what to do with. Tasha would hold Tina tight and somewhere in the end they all ended up holding each other, allaying this pain momentarily.  Alice and Tasha would take her body into theirs and hold her long enough for her to cry herself to sleep. The feeling brought Tina back to reality and locked her down enough to accept that this family was all she had left. This little unit of two women who cared enough about her to see her through this pain of being alone again, together.