Page 115 of Final Proposal

You broke her.

My eyes burn so much, but I have no more tears to cry.

What if I can never put her back together again?

I hate you for this, Daddy.

“I don’t hate you,” I murmur. “I just don’t understand though. Even all these years later. I don’t understand.”

The tears fall past my eyelashes, the hurt so strong. Even though it’s been two decades since I was forced to say goodbye.

No, I don’t hate my dad. How could I? But I’m pissed he robbed me and Mom of more years with him. Of more time. God, I’ve missed you, Dad.

The breeze picks up and a leaf tumbles across his plot until it lands on my mom’s.

I smile. It’s almost as if he’s telling me it’s okay to leave him for my mom. I press a kiss to my fingers and touch his headstone before shifting and looking at my mom’s headstone.

It’s more elaborate than his. Garland went all out on it. What was it like for him to bury the woman he loved next to her first love instead of somewhere the two of them could be together?

I never really thought about that. About what he gave up so he could give her this. About how he loved her even while knowing she’d always loved another man more.

The thought sits with me as I rearrange the flowers I brought for her in the permanent vase affixed to her headstone.

I don’t think I could do the same. I don’t think I could love someone like Fordham while knowing he loved another woman more.

Maybe I’ve been so jaded by grief for so long that I never stopped to consider the kind of man Garland is. The person he was for her when he probably needed and wanted so much more.

“He still thinks about you, Momma. Just like I do. Every minute of every day.”

I stop fussing with the flowers and shift to lean against the marble slab.

I hate this place.

I hate that it’s here that I learned all about true and utter loneliness. About devastation.

I hate that it’s peaceful here. Peaceful in a way that lulls you to sleep with a gentle breeze in your hair and the rustle of leaves overhead.

Because it shouldn’t be peaceful.

It’s the place where dreams are broken and hearts are shattered.

It’s where you realize more than anywhere else in the world just how dark and lonely death is. How permanent it is. How many scars it leaves behind. Every time.

I hate this place.

It makes every part of me riot inside—my heart, my soul, my being.

Garland stands beside me, his sunglasses on, with one hand resting on the mahogany coffin. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t speak. He just stares at his hand in silence before dipping his head ever so slightly in one last goodbye before taking a step back.

He pauses and squeezes my shoulder before walking away to give me time with her.

To let me do the one thing I’m not prepared to do—say goodbye.

I’ve tried to hold it together. I’ve tried to be the adult once again in a situation I should have never been in once, let alone twice.

But as I stand here and stare at the casket, all I can think is what I would give for one last hug. To listen to her whisper “I love you” in my ear as we did. To lean back and see the pride and love in eyes that are the same color as mine.

“Why did you leave me?” I whisper to the wind. “You were all I had left. What do I do now? How do I go on? How do I . . . live?”