His mother sipped it and said lightly, “Well, first your father and now your mother. At least that’s the end of it.”
I thought I had misheard.
Then his father added, “Funerals are expensive. People don’t realize what a burden this is on everyone.”
Everyone.
As if my parents had died to inconvenience them.
Later that evening I overheard Mark in the next room.
“It’s exhausting,” he told his parents. “Rachel always expects everyone to rearrange their lives around her emotions.”
Something inside me finally stopped trying to defend him.
That was the moment I understood the truth.
He wasn’t careless.
He was cruel.
A few weeks later he surprised me with travel vouchers for a spa in the mountains.
“You need a break,” he said.
I cried because I thought maybe grief had softened him. Maybe he felt guilty about the funeral.
My children were suspicious.
“Dad planned this?” Megan asked.
“Yes,” I said, defending him.
We went anyway. The trip was peaceful. Hot springs, mountain air, quiet conversations with my children. For the first time in months I felt a little lighter.
While I was away, Mark was making plans.
When I returned to my mother’s neighborhood, something felt wrong immediately.
The sky looked too wide.