When everyone else left, I remained. My heels sank slightly into the soft earth, and I imagined roots growing from my feet, anchoring me there permanently. A groundskeeper watched from a distance, his weathered face kind but careful, as if he’d seen this particular grief before and knew better than to interrupt it.

“Goodbye, George,” I whispered. “I’m sorry they didn’t come. I’m sorry I couldn’t make them be better.”

The wind picked up, scattering dead leaves across the fresh-turned dirt, and for just a moment I could have sworn I heard his voice: Don’t apologize for other people’s choices, May. You taught them how. They chose not to learn.

Back home, the silence roared. His recliner sat in its usual spot by the window, the leather worn smooth where his head had rested. His reading glasses perched on the side table next to a half-finished crossword puzzle, his handwriting still visible in the squares: LOYALTY, HONOR, FAMILY.

I walked to the kitchen and opened the wine cabinet, pulling out a bottle we’d been saving for our fifty-fifth anniversary. George had died three months shy of it. I poured myself a generous glass and sat at the kitchen table where we’d shared forty thousand meals, give or take a few.

Then I opened my laptop and navigated to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—all the places my children lived more fully than they did in real life.
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