The days afterward didn’t feel real. There were casseroles no one ate, wilting flowers, and my aunt Corrine performing grief louder than anyone.
“We’ll get through this,” she kept saying. “Everything will be fine, Tessa. We’ll get through this, I promise.”
Apparently, she meant it — with my father.
Corrine sobbed the loudest at the funeral. She clutched my hands in the kitchen and repeated, “We’ll get through this, I promise.”
Three days after we buried my mother, her nails were glossy, pink, freshly done.
“I should probably redo these, Tess,” she said when she caught me staring. “I chipped one while hugging everyone.”
I wrapped my hands around a coffee mug I hadn’t touched and said nothing.
Grief dulled everything — except her.
Eight days after my mother died, Corrine married my father.
There was no dating, no warning, no explanation. Just white chairs in the backyard, formal vows, and an enormous cake.
“Is this real?” I asked my father. “Seriously?”
“It just happened quickly, Tessa. Let’s not dwell on the details.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
The ceremony took place in our backyard, where my mother planted tulips every spring. I watched from the window as Corrine instructed someone to pull them out.
“They’ll look messy in photos,” she said, brushing dirt from her hands.
