I spent ten years bringing white roses to my wife’s grave every single Sunday. Then one rainy morning, I came home and found the exact same bouquet sitting on my kitchen table with my daughter standing beside it. What she told me about my late wife made me realize I had been mourning the wrong story the entire time. Flowers
That Sunday started the same way all my Sundays had started for ten years. I stood by the front door holding my keys and spoke to my wife the way lonely men do when nobody is there to answer back.
“Do I still look handsome, Evie?” I asked the empty hallway. “You always lied better than anybody.”
I even chuckled softly.
Then Anna appeared at the top of the stairs. She was twenty-three now, fully grown, with paint smudged across her fingers and her hair half pinned back. The second I looked at her face, I knew something was wrong. Her skin had gone pale, and the paintbrush in her hand slipped and clattered against the stair.
