The funeral director looked uncomfortable, his eyes flicking between the empty seats and my face. He cleared his throat once, then again.

“Would you like us to wait a few more minutes, Mrs. Holloway?”

“No,” I said. “Start. George would have hated a delay.”

He had been punctual even in his last days, taking his pills by the clock, watching the evening news at six sharp, folding his slippers side by side before bed. A man of habit. A man of dignity. And now, a man laid to rest alone.

I sat in the front row, all five chairs around me empty. The pastor recited scripture without conviction. The flowers were too bright, the casket too polished. I couldn’t stop thinking how George would have laughed at the fuss, then glanced around, frowning, asking where the hell the kids were.

Where were they?