The hallway smelled of lemon polish—Albert’s favorite, the one he’d insisted on buying even when it cost twice as much—and silence, thick enough to chew. Gwen’s hand hovered over the oak console table, where his leather keychain still lay, its metal fob worn smooth from twenty years of his grip. The comfort she’d clung to just a week ago—Elizabeth’s perfunctory hugs at the hospital, her mumbled “I’m so sorry”—now curdled in her chest, fake as a plastic rose. Every word, every hesitant pat on the back, suddenly felt like lines from a script she’d been too grief-stricken to read.
She sank into the wingback chair, the one Albert had reupholstered for their tenth anniversary, and her skin prickled, as if she were wearing someone else’s clothes. Losing him had carved a hollow in her that no amount of tears could fill—his laugh, the way he hummed off-key while making coffee, the way he’d hold her hand during thunderstorms. But being tricked out of the home they’d built together? That was the knife twisted in the wound, merciless and final. Her chest burned with a scream, hot and sharp, and she curled her fingers into fists so tight her nails dug into her palms. But movement felt impossible, as if grief had poured concrete into her bones.
Trusting Elizabeth now made her stomach turn—naive, stupid, painfully so. Gwen let her head fall back against the chair, and tears spilled over, warm and salty and harsh，tracking down her cheeks. She didn’t hear the floorboard creak behind her, didn’t register the soft sigh, unaware that this heartbreak was just a prologue. Not the end. Not yet.
Three days later, the church office reeked of old hymnals and cinnamon from the secretary’s snack drawer. Gwen clutched a folder of funeral paperwork to her chest, her fingers white around the edges, when a voice behind her—Elizabeth’s voice—spoke, softer than she’d ever heard it. “Let me carry that.” Gwen turned, and there she was, in a navy dress that looked too formal for a planning meeting, her usual sharp features softened by a faint frown. She reached for the folder, her 指甲 —always neatly manicured, never chipped—brushing Gwen’s wrist.