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The death had taken a hard hit on everyone in the family, besides his uncaring parents. The passing hadn’t been something that was completely unexpected, but when it’d happened, it had still stung a lot.
Coronary Heart Disease.
Despite the mostly healthy diet and the regular exercise, there was no way to beat the genetics. The disease had been inherited, which meant no matter how healthy he had attempted to be, in the end, that didn’t really matter.
It had happened on the 12th of October, a Wednesday morning.
Gwen had found out first, meaning she’d… Found him.
Everything had felt so awful , because to all of them, they felt like there was something they could’ve done. There had been an increasing amount of complaints lately, ones about telling the others to slow down a bit when they began to get out of breath on a slow-paced walk.
They feel like they should’ve noticed the signs. The way he would begin to get a lot more tired than usual, not having nearly enough energy as he used to. Or the way he could no longer give good, energetic demonstrations of the challenges they’d set up.
It felt like it could have so easily been prevented if they only hadn’t stressed out their father as much, maybe lessened the number of pranks they would play. Maybe not ask him to do as much.
Chef had taken the passing pretty hard, maybe even harder than the children. He suddenly seemed so different , his aggressive tough-love personality was gone, replaced with more of a constant looming silence. It was horrible , because the two would bounce their energy off-of each other. The two always being in a playful argument, for the thrill. F or fun.
But now Chris was gone, and Chef was alone. And now were the children.
Gwen, along with the rest of her siblings, had been understandably distraught through all of this, feeling a flooding unreasonable guilt. As if just existing had caused them the death of one of their parents.
The house had never been so tense.
It had already been a whole week , and they’d discovered that just dying peacefully wasn’t simple enough. Nobody could dare step outside without dealing with the waiting press, ready to interview them on the second. Letter, emails every notification flooding through their devices. So many messages that were wishing them well and apologizing for their loss, there was no space that they were able to mourn and escape to without being reminded that their Dad was dead.
The will had been organized by him months before, almost as if he could’ve predicted this would happen. They all collectively hated that fact.
The funeral had been hosted earlier that day, and it was currently now seeping into the late night. Funerals were all about saying goodbye, and celebrating their life. But it was so hard when it still felt like that person had never really left.
It was only one more day until Gwen's birthday, and she didn’t feel like celebrating.
The family were suddenly beginning to notice little things around the house, notes that they’d missed before. Old notes from before they would go to school, reminding them about snacks in the cabinet. Others telling them how he’d be back later in the night, the drawings on the fridge. Ones he’d helped doodle along with the kids, it stung bitterly knowing that he’d never be able to stick another one up there.
Gwen had spent so much of her time locking herself in her bedroom since her Father's passing, she hadn’t dared touch the clothes that sat on her desk. The ones that were folded for her by Chris just a day before she’d discovered it. And she couldn’t bare to move them.
She couldn’t bare to do anything.
Tomorrow would mark two weeks since he’d been gone.
Gwen had finally decided to clean up, the increasing amounts of rubbish that was starting to fill up her room, began to start getting extremely overwhelming. She hadn’t cleaned anything up in ages. Hell, she physically couldn’t clean it all even if she wanted too. Only allowing her to clean up the new mess, the mess that got there only after the passing.
Chef and her siblings had tried to come into her room to wish her a Happy Birthday, but today didn’t feel happy, no days did. They’d cried coaxing her out from behind the locked door to go and watch a movie, and she agreed. It had been nice, they’d all, ‘celebrated it’. But it just didn’t feel the same.
Was it guilty to admit that she hated it? The both of her Fathers usually came together in planning, going above and beyond to give the kids the greatest of parties. Ones where each and every sibling would have the time of their life. With how many of them there were, birthdays was something that ended up happening every few weeks , and every time it was so fun.
But it just wasn’t that anymore. She had to admit, she’d gotten so many lovely gifts. A walkman cassette player, along with all of her favorite songs that she could listen to right then and there. The latest of new spooky-themed dolls, the ones she loved . And so many outfits , ones that screamed Goth. And she was so thankful.
But it just didn’t feel the same.
So now, it was currently 11 PM, reaching closer to midnight, and she still felt like shit. But at least now, she was actually doing something. She hadn’t been doing anything before, which was another thing she added to her list of things to feel guilty about.
But how could she? How could she have possibly done anything, changing things felt horrible , she’d liked it how it was . When Chris and Chef would wake the kids up with a mountain of pancakes, looking into their lunchboxes and seeing hand-written notes.
She liked the way that she could wake up and her clothes would magically be clean, or that the overflowing bin in the corner of her room that she had zero motivation to clean, would suddenly be pure empty.
She’d been tidying for two hours now, she was moving at such a slow pace, and was getting distracted constantly every other second. But she was making progress , all that was left in her entire room to clean was that stupid pile of clothes that sat on her desk.
The ones that for Two weeks and one day, hadn’t been moved.
There was nothing left else for her to tidy, she opened up her drawers and walked on over the pile of clothes, scooping them up gently into her arms. As she walked her way over to the mostly-empty dresser, she felt cruel , as if she was ruining something. She hadn’t placed down the clothes too neatly at first but felt a pang of guilt.
The clothes had been folded so lovingly , was it weird to say it felt sort of sickening if she didn’t put them in the right way? Maybe that was just the anxiety.
She began to organize, putting the clothes in the exact right places. Usually, she never bothered with any of this, but now it felt like a need . That her Dad would be disappointed in her if she didn’t do this right.
And lastly, it was time for the socks. She had never touched her sock drawer, one of the handles had broken on it around a year ago, and it had gotten so increasingly awkward to open that she’d usually just give up, throwing all the clothes into the top and hoping for the best.
It was a little bit difficult at first, as she tried to pull. The drawer wasn’t really budging, but eventually, the side cracked open, allowing her to slide it open. She grimaced as she glanced down to her own palm, a thin layer of dust coating it from where she hadn’t touched it in a while.
She let a thin smile fall onto her face as she looked down at a ridiculously small pair of socks, ones that definitely wouldn’t fit her now. Had it really been that long? She stared at the contents of the broken dresser. It was filled with a bunch of old toys, mostly little figurines. She began to realize that she must’ve stolen them from her siblings since she doesn’t remember willingly owning anything like that.
There were various types of makeup too, no doubt long expired by now. The contents made her smile as she recalled a certain memory, one where she’d snuck into both of her Dad’s room shortly after seeing one of her favorite rock stars with the coolest of makeup. She’d been too young to know what you were actually meant to use, so she’d just sprinted in there sneakily, grabbing an armful from the counter and bolting. She laughed to herself lightly, God she used to be such a little shit.
In the left corner of the dresser, something had caught her eyes.
There sat a bunch of DVD cases. She frowned, not recalling their casing, nor why she could have any in there. She reached her hand in, a pile of six cases, all in black plastic. Her eyes widened slightly as she saw the white paper which was glued to the top of all of them. She’d splayed apart the tapes on top of her desk as she looked, Oh wow. She hadn’t seen any of these in years.
‘Gwen’s Bedtime Story: Gruesome Tales’
‘Storytime! Scary Story’
‘I miss you! Halloween Stories'
‘Funny memories about you, Duncan and Heather'
‘How we adopted you!’
Her eyes focused on the last one. She didn’t remember this one.
‘Happy Birthday Gwen! Special Storytime’
The DVD, along with the others had a bunch of little drawings on it, this one had a messily drawn bunch of balloons, as well as a big pile of presents. In the corner, it said, ‘Love, Chris’ .
She looked over towards the digital clock on her desk, 11:42. She had eighteen minutes of her birthday left, and there was a sudden feeling of calm-urgency. She flipped on her television, quickly moving over to the DVD slot. Putting it in, she just stood there for a moment. Before feeling that she should move onto her bed, yeah. That felt familiar.
She clapped her hands softly twice as the light turned off, and her eyes could only drift towards the screen. Watching in curiosity and tenseness as she waited for what would appear.
“Hey, Gwen! I miss you so much already!” God, she began to feel her eyes well up with tears as she remembered what this was for. All of her siblings had been upset, Chris had been leaving for an important role, in one of his movies, which had meant he’d be away for a bit of a whilst filming it. She was given a DVD in case Chris had left before her birthday, but he’d delayed it, so she never watched it, until now.
“As I’m recording this, I’m not gone yet, but wow . You lot are making me wanna come back already, and If I haven’t made it in time, I just wanted to tell you…” She watched as her father leaned out of frame, she continued to stare.
“Happy Birthday, Gwen! I hope you had an absolutely amazing day, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for it.” He frowned genuinely, and Gwen copied.
“I hope you’re not planning on staying up too late, that you haven’t gone insane without me.” Chris beamed at the camera as he reached out of frame again, putting something on his head. “I made a party hat! I thought we’d need it for this story.”
Gwen’s eyes were watering so much as she felt herself crying, her bedsheets getting wet as she tried to calm herself a bit. She slipped herself under her covers, all without looking. She continued to stare at her father.
“Well, this tape is special . Because not only is it your Birthday! But It’s also story time . And I’m guessing I’m going to miss quite a few of them.” Oh, how right he’d been.
“Alright, I can see you, get under the covers.” He’d joke, she grinned. Burrowing herself deeper as she got comfier. “Okay, ready?”
She wiped the tears on her face as she spoke a quiet, “Ready.”
“Once upon a time…”