The Only Real Man in the Room

A thief takes money.

My father had taken the dead and made them work for him.

That bag was the moment the last of my daughterly loyalty, the reflexive part that had wanted to find some explanation, simply died in my chest.

There was no explanation.

There was only a man who would rob the fallen, and the daughter who had almost let him walk her down an aisle.

Ezekiel took my hand and pressed it.