For a second, the airport disappeared around me.
Edmund was gone less than forty-eight hours, and our grandson was already claiming his truck.
I whispered, “I asked for a ride home.”
“You can take a taxi.”
Then he ended the call.
I stood there holding the phone against my ear long after the line went dead.
I called Corinne next.
Surely my daughter would understand.
She didn’t.
“Mom, you knew Dad was sick for a long time. I know this hurts, but this wasn’t exactly sudden.”
“I buried your father yesterday.”
“I know.”
“And you couldn’t drive forty minutes to pick me up?”
Her voice hardened.
“We’ve all put our lives on hold for months. At some point, things have to go back to normal.”
Normal.
I looked down at my empty hands.
“My suitcase is gone too.”
“Then the airline will deliver it.”
She sounded annoyed that I had mentioned it.
That was when something inside me became very quiet.
I thanked her and hung up.
I did not call anyone else.
Instead, I took a taxi.
During the ride home, I thought about Edmund.
He had noticed our children changing long before I was willing to admit it.
Wesley called when he needed money.
Corinne remembered our anniversary only when she needed someone to watch her children.
Every holiday had slowly become a discussion about what we should “eventually” do with the house, the cabin, the truck, the savings.
“They’re talking about our lives as though we’re already gone,” Edmund once told me.
“They’re our children,” I had answered.
He had looked at me for a long time.
“That doesn’t make them incapable of disappointing us.”
I had defended them anyway.
I always did.
When the taxi pulled into my driveway, every light in the house was on.
At first, relief washed over me.
Maybe they had decided to surprise me after all.
Then I stepped inside.
A strip of blue tape was stuck across Edmund’s old toolbox.
WESLEY.
Another label was attached to the rocking chair in the living room.
CORINNE.
A third was on the glass cabinet containing my jewelry.
MAYA.
My granddaughter.
I stopped breathing.
There were labels everywhere.
His fishing equipment.
The antique clock.
