to what my life had just become.
A year.
My father had been dead for a year.
And I was finding out on a porch like a stranger.
I didn’t remember walking away.
I only remember the street tilting slightly, like the whole neighborhood had shifted on its foundation. I walked until my legs hurt, until my mind stopped trying to make the sentence “your father was buried a year ago” sound less final.
Eventually, I ended up at the only place that made sense.
The cemetery.
THE GRAVE THAT