A faded rectangle beside my mother’s front door showed exactly where the brass house numbers had once been.
Three weeks after we buried her, my father announced he was marrying her sister.
I attended their reception carrying a small white gift box.
Neither of them realized that the missing numbers from Mom’s house were about to explain why the future they had quietly planned together would never happen.
I heard Aunt Lisa laughing before I even saw her.
It was a soft, airy laugh I had known since childhood—the same one she used whenever she let me stay up late while Mom pretended not to notice.
But hearing it that afternoon made my stomach tighten.
Lisa stood beneath an arch covered in white roses, wearing a lace wedding dress and smiling beside my father.
My mother’s younger sister.
My father’s new bride.