My mother wasn’t even gone a month, the house still smelled like her perfume, and he was already planning another wedding. Her slippers were still by the bed, her mug untouched on the counter, and the ache in my chest hadn’t settled into anything bearable. Then my stepdad told me he was marrying her best friend just thirty-two days after the funeral, but,
Photos of their ceremony flooded social media—soft lighting, peonies in her bouquet, captions about “new beginnings” that felt like salt in an open wound. When I asked about my mother’s gold necklace—the one she promised would be mine—the silence that followed said more than any confession ever could, therefore,