I turned around and walked out of the funeral home without saying another word.
Searching for truth in the pages he left behind
After the burial service, walking into our house felt like entering a stranger’s home. His work shoes were still lined up neatly by the front door. His favorite coffee mug sat on the kitchen counter. His reading glasses rested on the nightstand where he’d left them that last morning.
I sat on the edge of our bed and stared up at the closet shelf.
Eleven journals arranged in a neat row. Greg’s precise handwriting marked on each spine with dates.
“Helps me think,” he used to say when I asked about his writing habit.
I’d never read them before. It had always felt like opening up his head and invading his privacy, even though we were married.
But Susan’s words were echoing relentlessly in my mind: “Two. A boy and a girl.”
I pulled down the first journal and opened it to the beginning.
The first entry was dated a week after our wedding. He’d written about our absolutely terrible honeymoon motel. The broken air conditioner that made the room unbearable. My laugh when we decided to sleep in the car instead.
I flipped through more pages, my eyes scanning his familiar handwriting.
He wrote about our first fertility appointment. About me crying in the car afterward, feeling broken and defective.
