So even though we’d split more cleanly and amicably than most divorcing couples manage to do, a large, painful part of me felt like that chapter of my life remained unfinished, like I was reading a book with the last pages torn out.
The funeral where everything I thought I knew got turned upside down
Two years after our divorce was finalized, Troy died suddenly of a massive heart attack.
Our daughter Sarah called me from the hospital, her voice breaking into sobs on the phone, barely able to get the words out.
Our son Michael drove three hours from Boston and still got there too late to say goodbye.
I went to the funeral even though I genuinely wasn’t sure if I should, if I had the right to be there as his ex-wife. But Sarah insisted I come, said her father would have wanted me there despite everything.
The church was absolutely packed with people. The parking lot was full. People I hadn’t seen in years—Troy’s coworkers, old neighbors from houses we’d lived in decades ago, friends from high school—came up to me with sad smiles and said well-meaning things like, “He was such a good man” and “We’re so sorry for your loss.“
I nodded and thanked them and felt like a complete fraud, like I was pretending to grieve a man I wasn’t sure I’d ever really known.
Then, during the reception at the church hall, Troy’s eighty-one-year-old father Frank stumbled up to me, clearly drunk, reeking of whiskey even from several feet away.
His eyes were bloodshot and red. His voice was thick and slurred. His normally neat appearance was disheveled—tie loose, shirt partially untucked.
