I went to bu:ry my father… and found my husband’s mistress sitting in the front row, wearing my missing Versace like it belonged to her.

The microphone smelled faintly metallic, and I could hear the soft pop of the speakers when I adjusted it. Somebody in the back coughed. A baby fussed and got carried into the vestibule. The stained glass threw blue and gold patches over the stone floor at my feet, and my father’s casket gleamed under the lights like polished mahogany and goodbye.

I had planned to tell a story about sailing.

That was the safe version. The respectable version. The daughter at the funeral talks about the time her father taught her to read the wind off the water and laughed when she got sprayed in the face. The daughter says words like integrity and generous and impossible shoes to fill. Everybody cries, and then they eat finger sandwiches in the parish hall and remember him kindly.

But safe had already been dragged out into the aisle and humiliated in my dress.

So I looked at my father’s casket and chose honesty.