“I know, Marcus.”
The picture on the easel was from a charity gala Vanessa had taken him to. His smile looked polite and tired.
I kept my hands folded in my lap and stared at the funeral program. Dad’s entire life had been reduced to a font Vanessa had chosen because it “looked expensive.”
Behind us, family friends whispered. I could feel their eyes moving from Marcus and me to Vanessa and back again, as if everyone sensed something was wrong but no one wanted to say it aloud.
Vanessa checked her phone.
Once.
Twice.
Then she looked toward the main doors.
Phone.
Doors.
Phone again.
Whoever she was waiting for wasn’t coming.
Marcus leaned closer.
“I swung by the house this morning to grab Dad’s good cufflinks. The code doesn’t work. She changed the locks yesterday.”
Something shifted inside my chest.
Not panic.
The opposite.
The pastor began talking about a man I barely recognized. Charitable. Devoted husband. A man who “found love again in his golden years.”
Vanessa dabbed at her dry tissue.
And I thought about Dad in the hospital.
“I fixed it, sweetheart. I fixed it in time.”
I wanted to understand those words more than ever.
Then I saw the funeral director enter through a side door with an envelope.
He moved down the aisle and bent beside Vanessa.
He whispered something.
I watched the color drain from her face.
Her jaw slackened. The hand holding the tissue fell into her lap.
“Diane,” Marcus breathed.
“I see it.”
NEXT PAGE
