After her father’s funeral, in a bright, green-carpeted reception hall, Kendra Brown, age fifteen, sat in a corner by herself, flipping quickly through the pages of Pet Sematary. She was at the part where Louis Creed, protagonist and ideal father, witnesses his child’s death-by-truck, noticing, sickeningly, that his son’s baseball cap is filled with blood. Filled with blood. That’s what it said. Filled with blood. Kendra shook her head, thought: How would a baseball cap, presumably cloth, fill with blood? Wouldn’t the blood just soak in? Wouldn’t the cap deflate? Wouldn’t there have to be a ton of blood for the cap to fill? If so: gross! She looked up.
In the center of the room, her extended family—most from the D.C. metro, but a few from elsewhere—mingled. They carried baked goods held upright by red and yellow napkins. Some nibbled; others devoured. Her cousin Iris, whom she hadn’t seen in five years, stuffed half a chocolate-chip cookie in her mouth, chewed vigorously. Her jaw dislocated left, then right, then left, then right. She slouched, her free arm reaching for the floor, her stomach flowing over her pants, her breasts free and pendulous against her rib cage. Kendra swallowed. Look at her, crying like that, she thought. Like she was close to him…
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