Not just survival.
Not just routine.
But a life that opens its doors every morning with someone humming softly in my kitchen.
I don’t know where we’re going.
I just know I want to go there with her.
And for the first time in years, maybe decades, I let myself imagine something more than loss.
Something good.
Something mine.
Something ours.
Epilogue
Stud
I don’t come out here often.
That’s the first thing I think as I step onto the soft ground of the cemetery, boots sinking slightly into the damp earth. The place is quiet—birds fluttering in the branches above, wind brushing through the row of evergreens like a long, steady sigh.
The air smells like rain and cut grass.
I shove my hands in my pockets and keep walking until I reach the familiar headstone near the back. White marble. Smooth edges. Her name carved deep, like it was meant to last a thousand years.
Tammy Sue Brocato.
Wife.
Mother.
Wild spirit.
I stare at the words for a long time before I crouch down.
“Hey, Tammy”
My voice sounds strange here. Rougher. Softer. Like the world muffles everything but the truth.
“I should’ve visited sooner. I know that.”
I let that guilt sit there. It’s earned.
I brush a few fallen pine needles from the top of the stone.
“I’ve been busy,” I say, then huff a humorless laugh. “That’s a shitty excuse. You’d call me out on it.”
Silence answers like she always did—patient, calm, waiting for me to get to the point.
“You were a good woman,” I say quietly. “Better than I deserved back then. I didn’t know how to be a husband. Didn’t know how to be soft. Didn’t know how to show up the way you needed. I was always halfway gone—military life, then club life, duty, everyone else’s problems.”
The wind shifts, lifting the side of my cut.
“I’m sorry for that,” I add. “I’m sorry for the hours I didn’t give you. For the nights you felt alone while I pretended being tough was the same as being strong. I didn’t realize until it was too damn late how much you carried.”
