Not because it was ruined physically. It wasn’t. The fabric was intact. The crystals were all there. No stains. No tears. On paper, it was whole.
But some things, once worn into an act of disrespect, stop being yours in the same way. They become evidence.
I carried it upstairs anyway and laid it across the bed in the guest room while I finished packing the last of the house.
Six months had passed since the funeral.
The divorce papers were nearly final. Grant had stopped trying to contact me directly after his attorney advised him, in what I imagined was very tired language, that continued outreach was not helping. His firm had quietly asked for his resignation after questions arose about expense reports and client disclosures. He kept the ten-year-old BMW he’d bought before our marriage, a watch collection of debatable taste, and a talent for blaming other people for outcomes with his fingerprints on them. Everything else shook out exactly the way Blackwood predicted.
The house sold in late spring.