husband’s funeral

The commercial refrigerator in the basement of First Methodist had a new, metallic rattle that made the folding tables vibrate. On the edge of the nearest table, my mother’s silver-plated cake stand was slowly sliding toward the linoleum floor. I caught the stand by its fluted pedestal just before it tipped, then adjusted the paper […]

Standing beside the mound of freshly turned soil—forty-two years of my life about to be buried beneath it – my phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number sliced through my grief like a blade. I’m alive. I’m not the one in the coffin. My already-broken world dissolved completely. My hands shook so violently I […]