Around me, murmurs rose; relatives and friends couldn’t hide their disappointment in Morgana.
She was my wife, my mother’s daughter-in-law. No matter how busy she claimed to be, she should’ve shown up. But she didn’t.
The light outside the operating room finally went out, and the doors slowly opened.
I looked up, hope surging in my chest, only to be met with the doctors’ solemn faces.
My hands trembled as I stepped forward.
The moment I saw my mother’s lifeless body, the dam inside me broke. Tears spilled uncontrollably.
Right then, I could no longer deceive myself.
There would never again be someone who loved me so completely, so selflessly.
I turned down the company of my in-laws and the well-meaning relatives and friends who had gathered. I asked them all to leave.
That night, I stayed in the hospital alone with my mother. Just the two of us. One final night.
At dawn, I called the funeral home to arrange her final grooming and prepare for the service.
I watched as they carried her body away. With trembling fingers, I pulled out my phone and typed a message to Morgana.
[Mom is gone.]
I stared at the screen, wishing, hoping, she would call at once, show up beside me, and wrap me in her arms.