Chapter 2

By the time the last mourners reached the Hale house, I had carried my mother’s flowers in from three cars and placed them along the dining table.

Celeste stood at the front door receiving condolences. She held each visitor’s hands between hers and spoke in the soft voice she used when she wanted an audience to lean closer.

“Mara has been so generous,” she told an elderly neighbour. “She insisted I should have the place beside her mother. Family belongs together.”

I pulled a white lily from its crushed wrapping. The stem had split during the drive, and cold sap coated my fingers.

“I never gave it to you.”

The neighbour studied the carpet. Celeste released her and reached for the next mourner.

“She doesn’t mean that,” Daniel said. He took the lily from me and laid it across the other flowers, hiding the break beneath a ribbon. “Today has been hard on her.”

I took the lily back and snapped the damaged end clean.

The last guests moved toward the kitchen, where untouched food covered every counter. Their lowered voices followed us, close enough to hear but far enough to pretend they could not.

Daniel waited until Celeste had accepted another embrace before speaking. “The transfer was practical. Celeste is elderly. She deserves somewhere distinguished, and your mother’s section is the best part of the cemetery.”

“My mother chose that plot for me.”

“She bought it because you were upset about losing her.” Daniel brushed a grain of cemetery dirt from his cuff onto my mother’s rug. “Grief made you possessive. It still is.”

I wrapped the broken lily stem in a funeral napkin before its sap could stain the table.

“You gave away something with my name on it.”

“It was never really yours alone.” His voice stayed calm for the people listening from the kitchen. “You’re my wife. One day, you can be buried beside me.”

Celeste touched the black veil pinned over her silver hair. “Daniel is trying to give you a future, Mara. You keep choosing death.”

I carried the ruined lily through the hall and opened the front door. Rain had begun to tap against the stone steps. Daniel’s car sat in the drive with its trunk raised, forgotten after the flowers had been unloaded.

My brass faceplate lay inside.

Mud covered one edge. A crushed wreath rested partly over MARA, leaving HALE exposed beside a wet coil of rope. The workers had removed the plate after fastening Celeste’s over mine, then tossed it among the things no one wanted in the house.

I walked into the rain.

Daniel followed with my mother’s rug dirt still clinging to his sleeve. “Leave it there. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

I lifted the wreath and took the plaque. Its weight pulled at my arms, heavier than it had been when I chose it with my mother.

Celeste called from the doorway, loud enough for the remaining mourners. “Please don’t upset yourself over a piece of metal.”

I used the edge of a condolence card to scrape mud from the oval rim. The card bent, and the printed prayer smeared blue across the brass.

“This piece of metal was bolted beneath your name.”

“You embarrassed us at the cemetery,” Daniel said. Rain darkened his shoulders while he stayed beneath the trunk lid. “You ordered those men around during your own mother’s burial.”

“They were drilling through my plaque.”

“You forced them to finish in front of everyone.”

I slid the muddy card into his coat pocket. “You forced them to start.”

His calm expression slipped. He pulled the card out, saw the mud across his fingers, and dropped it into the trunk.

Celeste came down one step, holding her skirt above the rain. “I accepted the plot because Daniel told me you wanted me to have it.”

“Then he lied to both of us.”

Her skirt fell from her hand.

Daniel caught the trunk lid before the wind could slam it. “Enough. Bring the plaque inside, clean yourself up, and stop turning my mother’s future into a punishment.”

“She isn’t your mother.”

The mourners in the hall went silent. Celeste’s face changed before she covered it with a small cough.

I carried the plaque past Daniel and placed it on the stone wall beside the drive, where every person leaving the house would see what had been thrown away.

Rain washed the mud from the brass, but it could not wash my name out of the metal.

I watched rainwater gather inside the engraved letters of my own discarded name.