The coffin was waiting in my living room before I had even taken off my uniform.
For a moment, I thought my mind had split under the weight of exhaustion. Eleven months overseas. Three flights. One delayed connection in Atlanta. A military transport seat that smelled of metal, sweat, and old fear. I had imagined this return a thousand times in the dark: Emily opening the front door barefoot, one hand on the curve of her belly, laughing and crying at once. I had imagined dropping my bag and kissing her until the whole war fell off my shoulders.
Instead, the house was silent except for the low hum of the refrigerator and the faint tick of the old grandfather clock in the hall.
And in the middle of the living room, where sunlight used to fall across Emily’s reading chair, there was a coffin.
My mother stood beside it in a black dress.
Not a funeral dress. Not really. It was too neat, too expensive, too chosen. Her silver hair was pinned at the back of her head, her pearls resting calmly against her throat. She did not look shattered. She did not look sleepless. She looked prepared.
My younger brother Caleb leaned near the fireplace with a glass of whiskey in his hand, one ankle crossed over the other, as if I had interrupted a business meeting.
