The day I buried Emily, all I had left were our photos and memories.
But when something slipped from behind our engagement picture that night, my hands started shaking. What I discovered made me question if I’d ever really known my wife at all.
The funeral home had tied a black ribbon on our front door.
I stared at it, my key suspended in the lock, wondering who’d thought that was necessary.
As if the neighbors didn’t already know that I’d been at the cemetery all afternoon, watching them lower my wife into the ground while Rev. Matthews talked about angels and eternal rest.
My hands shook as I finally got the door open. The house smelled wrong — like leather polish and sympathy casseroles.
Emily’s sister Jane had “helped” by cleaning while I was at the hospital during those final days.
Now everything gleamed with an artificial brightness that made my teeth hurt.
“Home sweet home, right, Em?” I called out automatically, then caught myself. The silence that answered felt like a physical blow.
I loosened my tie, the blue one Emily had bought me last Christmas, and kicked off my dress shoes. They hit the wall with dull thuds.
Emily would have scolded me for that, pressing her lips together in the way she had, trying not to smile while she lectured me about scuff marks.
“Sorry, honey,” I muttered, but I left the shoes where they lay.
Our bedroom was worse than the rest of the house.
Jane had changed the sheets — probably trying to be kind — but the fresh linen smell just emphasized that Emily’s scent was gone.
The bed was made with hospital corners, every wrinkle smoothed away, erasing the casual mess that had been our life together.
“This isn’t real,” I said to the empty room. “This can’t be real.”
But it was. The sympathy cards on the dresser proved it, as did the pills on the nightstand that hadn’t been enough to save her in the end.
It had all happened so suddenly.
Em got sick last year, but she fought it. Chemotherapy took an immense toll on her, but I was there to support her every step of the way. The cancer eventually went into remission.
We thought we’d won.
Then a check-up showed it was back, and it was everywhere.
Em fought like a puma right up until the end, but… but it was a losing battle. I could see that now.
I fell onto her side of the bed, not bothering to change out of my funeral clothes. The mattress didn’t even hold her shape anymore.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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