The dining room felt different without Noel’s presence. The mahogany table that had hosted countless family dinners now seemed too large, too empty, despite the three of us sitting around it. I kept glancing at his chair, expecting to see him there with his gentle smile and calming presence.
It had been exactly one week since we buried my husband of thirty-two years. The grief still sat heavy in my chest, making every breath feel labored. I had not eaten properly in days.
I had not slept more than a few hours at a time. I had stood at his graveside beneath a gray Midwestern sky feeling as though half my soul had been torn away, and I had not found it since. “Pass the potatoes, Myrtle,” Romy said, her voice sharp enough to cut glass.
My daughter-in-law had never used a warm tone with me, but tonight there was something different in it, something colder and more deliberate. I reached for the serving bowl, my hands still trembling slightly. At seventy-one, I had thought I was prepared for loss.
Nothing could have prepared me for this particular hollow ache, or for what was about to follow it. Wade, my forty-three-year-old son, sat between us like a referee who had already chosen sides. He had barely looked at me all evening, his attention fixed entirely on his wife of fifteen years.
The son who used to crawl into my lap when he had nightmares now could not meet my eyes. “The service was beautiful, wasn’t it?” I offered, trying to fill the silence. “Your father would have loved seeing so many people there.”
Romy set down her fork with deliberate precision.
“Yes, well, that’s actually what we need to discuss with you, Myrtle.”
Something in her tone made my stomach clench. I looked between her and Wade, searching for any sign of the warmth that should exist between family members who had just shared a loss. Instead, I found cold calculation in Romy’s eyes and uncomfortable avoidance in my son’s.
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