Brighter.
Louder.
I thought perhaps I would feel vindicated.
Instead, I only missed him.
What good was the house if he wasn’t waiting inside it?
What good was the company if I couldn’t tell him I was terrified?
What good was knowing he had protected me when the one thing I wanted protection from—losing him—had already happened?
The months that followed were not glamorous.
They were lawyers.
Documents.
Company meetings.
Morning sickness.
Doctors.
Quiet bedrooms.
Marlene contacted me once through an attorney.
After that, nothing.
Her brothers accepted the provisions of their trusts and mostly kept their distance.
I did not blame them.
They had lost their father too.
Grief does not always make people kinder.
Sometimes it simply exposes everything already living underneath.
I placed the charity photograph on the dresser.
Not because I looked beautiful in it.
I didn’t.
My uniform was plain.
