I Came Home From Nine Months at Sea to Find My Dying Stepfather Alone in a Cold House While My Family Spent His Care Fund on a Cruise

My mother was not there.

Garrett was not there.

Chloe was not there.

While we buried a good man, they went on posting photographs from the ship — one of the three of them raising champagne glasses against the blue of the ocean, captioned Final night in absolute paradise. I looked at it once.

I did not reply.

There was nothing left in me to say to them yet, and I was saving what I did have for when they were standing in front of me.