She wanted to become a veterinarian and work with animals that couldn't speak for themselves.
“They can't tell you what's hurting them, Mom. I want to learn to listen to them anyway,” she always said.
The house was now silent. There was no laughter in the kitchen. No indie music coming from his room, nor the sound of his wheelchair scraping across the floor as he danced between tasks.
Only the eerie silence of a house that has lost its center.
David stood beside me, on the edge of the grave. His black suit was too neat, his posture too erect: every detail was meticulously studied. His face remained motionless: no twitch, no tear, not even the slightest crack in his mask. He was like a man reciting from memory a play for which he felt no emotion.
But it had been like this for a long time. The distance between us had grown slowly, without a thud, like a silent snap. And one day, there was nothing left: nothing but air between two strangers playing husband and wife.
On the way home from the cemetery, I leaned my forehead against the car window and watched the world pass by like a watercolor fading into gray. My throat hurt from hours of crying, but I had no more tears to shed.
I was just empty.
“Shay,” David said, clearing his throat, “we should go to the donation center. I want to check their schedule. Linda said she’d go to the house and deliver the food so people could help themselves. I told him to do it in the yard.”
“Why?” I turned to him, confused.
“I think we should start packing up Emily’s things, Shay. You know… while they’re still fresh. Otherwise, her business will remain untouched for years to come.”
“Are you serious, David?” I asked, blinking slowly as I felt a headache coming on.
“The more you hold on to the past, the harder it becomes to move on. It's like ripping off a bandage: you have to do it quickly. Think about it, Shay. This is the most sensible solution.”
“My son was just buried, David. Keep some.”
I didn't say anything else. I couldn't. I stared at him and wondered what kind of father was in such a hurry to forget.
As we pulled into the driveway, my heart sank at the thought that my daughter would never walk down the aisle again. She would never come home again, never take off her shoes again, or ask me what I'd made her for snack.
As I walked down the corridor, I noticed the boxes already neatly stacked against the wall. David's handwritten labels, in his precise handwriting, stared back at me.
Linda suggested that perhaps she could help him keep busy. Maybe he was thinking about household chores, like washing dishes and doing laundry, rather than ruining our daughter's life.
Come on. Throw. Hold.
He had already started.
“When did you do it?” I gasped.
“When you were at the funeral home this morning. You made the arrangements… I couldn't help it, Shay. This is my way of dealing with the situation.”
I stood in the hallway for a while, watching them. It was surreal, as if I'd entered someone else's home, a home where my daughter had never existed. The boxes felt like a transaction, as if the grief were a task to be completed by the following Tuesday.
I didn't say anything else; I simply turned on my heel and headed up the stairs. The bathroom door clicked silently behind me as I locked it. I sat on the edge of the tub, leaned forward, and buried my face in my hands.
The sobs that followed weren't loud. There was no need. They shook my ribs like a silent earthquake. The kind that comes without warning, that turns everything upside down and makes you wonder if things will ever be stable again.
I heard people downstairs eating the funeral meal Linda and I had ordered. I ignored the people knocking on the bathroom door. I ignored Linda asking if I was okay. I ignored everything.
