When the last tear had dried and the consolers had gone home, Kent wandered around in the gloom like a purposeless ghost. What had once been a home, now smothered in its desolate emptiness. Things were broken; he was no longer whole.

“-to love and cherish your whole life through, until death do you part . . . where two once stood, now is only one . . .”

Prompted by memory, Kent’s eyes turned toward the wedding pictures, still displayed on the mantle above the fireplace. He gently picked up the one with the two of them standing there, caught in the act of waving, smiles all around. That had always been her favorite. She’d liked how everyone looked so happy. It had been their finest moment.

Closing his eyes, he hugged the picture to his chest. His slow, mournful breathing changed to quick shuddering gasps but the tears didn’t come. A part of him felt guilty about that. A smaller, more reasonable part of him, reasoned that he had cried enough earlier, and was swallowed up in the rising tide of heartache.