I spent 10 years bringing white roses to my wife’s grave every Sunday. Then, one rainy morning, I came home and found the same bouquet waiting on my kitchen table, and my daughter standing beside it. What she revealed about my late wife made me realize I had been mourning the wrong story all along.
That Sunday began the way all my Sundays had for 10 years. I stood by the front door with my keys in one hand and talked to my wife the way lonely men do when nobody is there to answer.
“Do I still look handsome, Evie?” I asked in the empty hallway. “You used to lie better than anyone.”
I even laughed a little.
Then Anna appeared at the top of the stairs. She was 23, all grown up, with paint on her fingers and her hair half pinned back. The second I saw her face, I knew something was wrong. Her skin had gone pale, and the brush in her hand slipped and clattered against the step.
“Dad,” she said softly, “maybe… don’t go today.”
Anna looked away too quickly. “Nothing. I just… don’t want you going there today.”
I kissed her forehead. “No, sweetheart. Your mother and I need to talk.”
Anna watched me leave as if she wanted to call me back and could not make herself do it.
I drove to the cemetery and, as always, stopped at the same flower shop on the way.
Mrs. Bell smiled the moment she saw me. “White roses, Tom?”
“With lilies and lavender, Mrs. Bell. Same as always!”
She tied them with cream ribbon. I had given Evelyn that exact bouquet the day I proposed, back when we still believed forever was something two people could keep safe if they loved each other hard enough.
“You never miss a Sunday,” Mrs. Bell said.
Then I drove off with one of Evelyn’s favorite songs playing softly through the Mustang’s speakers.
***
At the cemetery, I carried the flowers through a light gray drizzle. Her headstone was wet; her name darker in the rain. I touched the carved letters with two fingers.
I stood there longer than usual. Told Evelyn that Anna had been acting strange. That the gutters needed cleaning. And that I still couldn’t make decent coffee in the blue mug she liked because it always tasted worse in mine.
Then the rain picked up. I promised I’d be back next Sunday and stopped on the way home for Anna’s favorite donuts. That was the last ordinary Sunday I would ever have.
The driveway was slick when I pulled in.
The story doesn’t end here – it continues on the next page.
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