Someone, once upon a time, felt the urge the ensure that everyone who ever lost someone would have to sit through a final ritual where you praised the dead for their accomplishments, their ideals, and their hopes. You would look back upon their lives, and you would smile and laugh and reminisce about how wonderful it was for them to have blessed the lives of everyone present. But when it came to a man who was only twenty-four years old, it was hard not to feel the bitter remorse of the time that was stolen from the deceased.

Worse than looking back and pretending like everyone wasn’t bitterly angry at whatever divine orchestration was behind this loss was the assembly after you put them in the earth. Slowly lowering the one you love into the cold embrace of the earth wasn’t enough; then you had to go home and eat with other people who didn’t even come close to hurting like you did. In fact, they offered you their condolences and their sympathy while giving you the most pitying looks you’d ever experience.

When Leslie pulled up to her house, sitting in the back seat of her dad’s car with her mom and grandfather next to her, she couldn’t help but feel like the house was a giant’s head, mouth agape and waiting to swallow her whole. She didn’t want to go inside, even though it was her home. It was the house they had bought together. She couldn’t wait to sell it and get rid of the ghosts. Tears formed in her eyes again. She wanted to stay with the memories forever, but she couldn’t do it in the house they had made their home.

How could she live here anymore? How could she even try to live here, when it was full of the ghosts of aborted dreams lingering and languishing in every corner of that house? She looked up at the second-story window where her office was, where her desk looked out over the hill, trying so hard to glimpse the bay. She couldn’t see the bay, of course, but it was nice to think that she might, just beyond the rooftops. She’d like to think that if she stood on the tips of her toes, she might be able to see it.

She couldn’t even convince herself to sleep in the bed they’d bought together after an entire weekend of hunting for the best bed that they could find. Leslie had told Michael when he was still strong enough to have such conversations that she thought that she’d have to move when he finally passed. She told him that it was hard enough walking around San Francisco without him next to her. Whenever she went into her favorite places, she would be bombarded by the memories of him being with her, smiling and laughing. It hurt because there were so many good memories of him all across this city. When they were in college, they had insisted that they discover everything there was to know about the city they’d just moved to. They had explored every nook and cranny of the city, and now it was entirely soiled by the lingering ghosts of her mind.

“Where would you move to?” Michael had asked her between coughs.

“Grant lives in New York.” Leslie had shrugged. It would be nice to be near her agent. He was always trying to convince them to move out to New York, where she would be the spotlight of any party. Everyone wanted to meet the mysterious Evelyn Frock, but Michael wouldn’t hear of it. Leslie wouldn’t hear of it either. But ever since the news of his terminal diagnosis, it had been alluring to her.

“You’d like New York.” Michael had grinned, his beautiful brown eyes pulling her in so full of love.

“Maybe.” Leslie had shrugged, her eyes brimming with tears.

Her father pulled into the driveway and cut the engine.

“I don’t want to do this,” Leslie murmured as they sat in the car, staring at her house. “I don’t want to go in there and talk to people.”

“That’s fine, dear,” her mom said warmly. “We can tell everyone you’re not feeling well and that you want to be left alone.”

“No one’ll think twice about it, Sport.” Her grandfather smiled at her. It was the only smile that ever cut through the darkness, no matter what the situation was. It was the power that only her grandfather had. She offered him a weak smile in return. It was the hardest smile that she had ever had to force upon her face.

“No,” Leslie said after a moment. “I’ll go. This isn’t just about me.” She followed her mother out of the car and then led the way to the house, wiping the tears that just kept coming, reminding her that she was still alive and that this was really happening.

They opened the old gate that Michael had always wanted to fix because it screamed against the hinges. Over the cobblestone walkway that cut through their tiny yard and up the steps where Michael had sat on the porch in his rocking chair, watching the sunset with her until he was forced into the hospital. She unlocked the door and went inside, where her parents had already set up everything with the help of her brothers this morning. Everything was taken care of for her. No one wanted her to lift a finger. As far as they were concerned, she had lifted enough over the past month.

At the entrance, she looked at herself in the mirror and felt like everything she saw was a waste. Her entire life, Leslie had been terrified of being an ugly girl. It wasn’t that she was ugly, but rather she just had an overwhelming fear not to be the ugliest person in the room. Being a late bloomer had been mortifying for her, and during college she was delighted to see that she was going through the transformation from ugly duckling to beautiful swan. A fan of healthy eating and a beloved member of her gym, Leslie had sculpted her body with the singular motivation of making herself the best for Michael. Even as he wasted away in the hospital, she found solace in the gym, working out the aggression and rage that she felt washing over her all the time. She wanted to be beautiful for him. She wanted him to see her at her best before he passed. She wanted to be perfection that he could hold and touch before he left this world. Now, without him, all she saw was a hollow beauty devoid of purpose or the desire to keep going.

She was certain that the gym was going to play a huge part in her process of getting her life back together, of working out her rage and frustration. She’d taken up boxing three months ago and found that it was most helpful to pummel her trainer when Michael had a particularly bad day. She knew she’d be back there often.

Truthfully, men hit on her all the time. When she’d had Michael around, he would always fire some sarcastic comment or barb at anyone who hit on her and they’d vanish, but now she was all alone. Whenever someone tried to compliment her or was less than chivalrous about their advances, it made her want to cry. Her protector and champion was gone.

Looking away from the mirror, she walked past the framed letter of acceptance she’d received from Grant when she was eighteen years old. It was the letter that told her that he wanted to read more about a female detective named Tiffany Black. When you’re eighteen and trying very hard to pursue a career in being a novelist, and in a last ditch effort send out the right query letter to the right agent, it’s overwhelming. When she was picking her classes for her junior year of college, she signed a deal with a publisher for six figures. She had paid for both her college tuition and Michael’s. She’d paid for this house and their cars. She had enough money in the bank that if she wanted to; she could move anywhere in the world and never work again.

She was twenty-four and one of the wealthiest, most enigmatic authors in America, but without Michael it seemed worthless.

She passed the bookshelf where her Tiffany Black series sat in pristine condition, her crowning achievement. When they had friends over, they had no clue that she was the author, that she was the mysterious Evelyn Frock. They would come into their home and they would always assume that one of them came from money and that was where they got all of their wealth, how they afforded a townhouse in San Francisco, and why Leslie only worked part time at a library. No one ever considered she could be an international bestseller. After all, how many people actually stopped and read the letter mounted on her wall? She took the framed letter down and slid it between the books on the shelf.

When people started to arrive, Leslie felt like she was doing right by her husband. She smiled and tried her hardest to make sure she wasn’t a disappointment to everyone or rude to them. Everything that she said to them, everything that she felt like she was supposed to say to them felt like it was a lie. It felt like she was nothing more than just a shade standing in this house, a remnant of a life that had been ruined and flushed down the toilet. It was hard to feel anything other than overwhelmed with grief and despair. In the end, this was all that she had left. This was all that she was going to ever have from the life that she had wanted to start with Michael. She was alone, and for the first time in her life she didn’t have her best friend to be there with her.

Friend, family, and people who had been part of Michael’s life streamed into the house one after another. Leslie found herself talking to all of them, smiling and nodding her head as she accepted everything they had to say to her. She found that there was relatively nothing that anyone could say to her today that she wouldn’t just offer a sweet smile and nod to. What else was she supposed to say? What was she supposed to do in this situation?

Time felt like it had frozen entirely around her and everything was going so slowly that it all felt so surreal and so nauseating. She didn’t touch the food or anything to drink. She hadn’t been able to keep anything down outside of the bare minimum since Michael finally died. She closed her eyes and kept moving, kept standing and listening to the stories and the compliments people would give her about how well she’s holding up or how amazing Michael was and how lucky they all were to have him in their lives. It made Leslie want to throw up, but eventually people began to leave and the last stragglers were herded out by her family and her in-laws, who were strangely somber and dry-eyed at this point in the misery that had taken over.

From what they had said, it was a blessing that Michael had finally been freed and released. They thought of his final days and his final hours as something horrible and painful, like fiery bonds keeping him locked in his mortal coil. It was too bad that he was in a coma at that point, completely unaware of what was happening, unaware that death was creeping up.

Upstairs, Leslie took off her heels and looked at their bedroom, the room that they had decorated together and that they had poured their hopes and dreams into. They were going to live in this house for a very long time. They wanted to make sure that Michael’s career got started on the right foot and San Francisco was where they planned to be for the first ten years of their marriage. It was why they’d bought a house instead of rented. It was why they’d built everything that they had.

She could hear her family downstairs, talking with Michael’s family. They were all staying here, all suffering the misery of a slow demise. She could tell they were talking about her, about the future that was waiting for her. Everything in her life had evaporated into a smoky question mark. This was her life now, a huge mystery where she was alone, carrying the weight of a life that might have been.

For the first time since he was hospitalized, Leslie crawled into their bed and curled up. She felt herself weeping uncontrollably.