A week after my wedding ended with my sister gone, her coworker called and said Claire had left a phone for me at the office. I thought I was driving there to collect one last piece of my sister. I had no idea I was about to press play on something that would split my life in two.
Ryan leaned in that morning with a bakery box in one hand and my cheek in the other.
“I’ll be home early,” he said. “We’ll get through this, Alice.”
He had brought me flowers almost every day since the funeral. He spoke softly, touched my shoulder when I started staring too long into space, and kept telling me to eat and sleep and breathe.
He had brought me flowers almost every day since the funeral.
On paper, Ryan looked like the man every grieving wife should be grateful for. But grief sharpens some memories and fogs others, and the sharp ones kept leading me back to Claire.
