Chapter 2 - The Empty Side of the Aisle
The day of the funeral was mercilessly sunny.
It felt wrong for the sun to shine while my entire world was being lowered into the earth.
At the church, I stood between three closed caskets.
Ethan’s casket was in the middle, flanked by the smaller ones holding my babies.
Ethan’s parents stood on either side of me, holding me upright because my legs had forgotten how to bear weight.
His mother, Margaret, cried so hard she had to be given oxygen by a paramedic who stayed on standby at the back of the church.
His father kept one hand firmly on my shoulder, his grip tight, as if he feared I might fall into the open grave with them.
I looked out at the pews.
Ethan’s side of the church was overflowing.
Friends, coworkers, neighbors, and even people who only vaguely knew him were packed into the rows, weeping.
My side of the church was a ghost town.
My parents were not there.
Melissa was not there.
None of my cousins, aunts, or uncles who lived just a few towns over came.
The wooden pews sat perfectly empty, polished and mocking.
Only Aunt Ruth showed up.
She was my father's estranged sister, the "black sheep" of the family who never cared about keeping up appearances.
She had driven six hours through the night after hearing about the crash from a neighbor.
No one in my immediate family had even bothered to call her.
When she walked through the church doors and saw the empty rows behind me, her face hardened into a mask of pure fury.
She didn't say a word.
She just walked up to me, wrapped me in her arms, and stood right behind me for the rest of the agonizing service.
When they lowered the caskets into the ground, I didn't scream.
I just stared into the dirt, feeling like I was already buried with them.
Three days later, I was sitting on my living room floor, staring at a wall, when my phone buzzed.
It was a text from my mother.
I opened it, expecting an apology. Expecting a breakdown. Expecting love.
The message read:
Hope you’re managing. Melissa felt really hurt that you didn’t call her to wish her a happy birthday on Friday. We had to cancel the cake because she was so upset. Call us when you're feeling less dramatic.
I read the text again and again until the words blurred into meaningless shapes.
I didn't cry.
I didn't throw the phone.
Something inside me just went incredibly quiet.
It wasn't peaceful.
It wasn't numb.
May you like
It was just final.
A heavy, iron door slammed shut in my heart, locking them all outside forever.
