“Shame on you. That poor child deserved more time to grieve her momma.”
**
Two days passed before my father said a word. He found me in the garage, packing up the last of my mom’s vintage dresses.
“That poor child deserved more time to grieve her momma.”
“You humiliated us, Tessa,” he said quietly. “Surely you can understand that?”
“No. I revealed what you buried. You could have divorced Mom if you weren’t happy. You could have let her keep her dignity. You could have respected her. Aunt Corrine has always been horrible. I thought you were better.”
“We were going to tell you,” he said, exhaling deeply.
“After, right?” I asked, zipping the suitcase shut. “After the wedding photos were released. After the cake was eaten. And after I’d clapped for you both. Right?”
“No. I revealed what you buried.”
Silence stretched between us.
“She knew, didn’t she?”
“We were separated,” my father said.
“You should have done better by her. My mother was the best part of you, Dad. Now that she’s gone, we have nothing.”
He didn’t say anything, and that was an answer in itself.
“We were separated.”
I walked past him, leaving the suitcase standing, and picked up my keys.
The flowerbeds Aunt Corrine had ripped were piled beside the shed like trash.
I sifted through them with shaking hands until I found a few good tulips, still clinging to dirt.
I drove to the cemetery and placed them at my mother’s headstone. It wasn’t perfect, but it was alive… and it belonged.
He didn’t say anything, and that was an answer in itself.
I didn’t realize it then, but Mason had followed me in Aunt Corrine’s car.
He found me at the cemetery, just as I was brushing dirt from my hands. I heard gravel crunch behind me and turned to see him standing a few feet away.
“I didn’t want you to find out later, Tess,” Mason said. “Not from them.”
“They really thought they’d won, huh?” I asked.
“But they didn’t,” Mason said quietly. “The reality of it will hit soon enough.”
“I didn’t want you to find out later, Tess.”
We didn’t talk about forgiveness. There was nothing neat about this. There was no lesson wrapped neatly in a bow.
