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Arina

My father always said he wanted a funeral big enough to bring Chicago to a standstill.

It turns out he wasn't joking.

Black cars line both sides of the road beyond the cemetery gates. Men in dark suits stand beneath black umbrellas despite the fact the rain stopped twenty minutes ago, and there are so many flowers surrounding the grave that I'm beginning to wonder whether there'll be enough room left to put my father in it.

Yaroslav Maximov never did anything quietly.

Dying is no exception.

“Do you think Papa would be annoyed that it's raining?” Milana whispers beside me.

I turn my head just enough to look at my youngest sister.

She's wearing enormous black sunglasses even though the sky is the color of dirty dishwater. Her blonde hair is pinned neatly at the back of her head, and her mouth has been trembling for the last half hour.

“Why would he be annoyed about rain?” I ask.

“He spent seventy thousand dollars on this funeral,” she gushes.

“Papa didn't spend anything,” I respond, my voice flat. “He's dead.”

Zhenya elbows me from my other side. Hard.

I look at her.

“Behave,” she whisper-shouts.

“I am behaving,” I whisper-shout right back.

“We're literally standing beside Papa's grave,” Evaria says, joining in on what is fast becoming a pile-on.

“I'm aware.”

“You just made Milana laugh,” Zhenya admonishes.

Milana makes a strangled noise that could easily be mistaken for a sob and presses a tissue beneath her sunglasses.

“See?” I murmur. “Grief.”

Zhenya stares at me for three more seconds before turning her attention back to the priest.

Papa would hate this.

Not the funeral. He'd love the funeral.

He'd love the cars and the flowers and the hundreds of people who have turned up to prove how important he was. He'd love the police watching from beyond the cemetery gates and the photographers who keep trying to get pictures through the iron railings. He'd especially love the fact half the men standing around his grave are pretending they aren't already wondering who gets what now he's gone.

But he'd hate us whispering. Which makes it slightly more difficult to stop.

I look along the line of my sisters.

Zhenya stands to my left, rigid enough to pass for one of the statues dotted around the cemetery. She hasn't cried once. Galana hasn't stopped. Her face is blotchy, her mascara is gone, and she's given up attempting to dab her eyes elegantly and is simply holding a tissue over half her face.

Evaria looks furious.

Although Evaria frequently looks furious, so that might have nothing to do with Papa being dead.