Two days later, I ran into Linda outside the grocery store. Rage doesn’t wait for invitations.
“Was it worth it?” I asked. “Selling Mom’s necklace?”
She met my eyes and laughed.
“Oh, that old thing? We needed funds for the honeymoon. It was just sitting there collecting dust.”
“It wasn’t just a thing. It was Mom’s. And it was supposed to be mine.”
“Sentimentality doesn’t pay for honeymoons, honey. Grow up!”
She glanced at her watch. “Paul and I leave in two hours for Maui, so I don’t have time for… bygone things.”
I stood frozen as she walked away. How could someone who once sat at our kitchen table and called my mother her best friend speak like that?
That was when Sara, a longtime family friend who worked at the hospital, gently touched my arm.
“I’ve been meaning to call you,” she said quietly. “But I didn’t know if I should.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Paul and Linda. They were involved before your mom passed. I saw them together in the hospital parking lot—holding hands, kissing. And I overheard things.”
My stomach dropped. “What kind of things?”
“Conversations about how much longer they’d have to keep up appearances. Paul saying he was tired of playing nurse. Once, I heard them laughing outside your mom’s room while she slept off her pain medication. They were talking about trips they’d take once things were ‘settled.’”
Bile rose in my throat.
“Your mom talked about them constantly,” Sara whispered. “She called them her angels. She had no idea.”
Grief hardened into something sharper.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t post anything online. Instead, I called Paul.
“I owe you an apology,” I said. “Grief made me irrational.”
He sounded relieved. “I appreciate you saying that.”
“Mom would want us to get along. She’d want me to be happy for you.”
“She really would,” he agreed.
“I’d like to bring you both a proper wedding gift when you return from Maui.”
He accepted immediately.
Leave a Comment