Around me, murmurs rose; relatives and friends couldn’t hide their disappointment in Morgana.
She was my wife, my mother’s daughter-in-law. No matter how busy she claimed to be, she should’ve shown up. But she didn’t.
The light outside the operating room finally went out, and the doors slowly opened.
I looked up, hope surging in my chest, only to be met with the doctors’ solemn faces.
My hands trembled as I stepped forward.
The moment I saw my mother’s lifeless body, the dam inside me broke. Tears spilled uncontrollably.
Right then, I could no longer deceive myself.
There would never again be someone who loved me so completely, so selflessly.
I turned down the company of my in-laws and the well-meaning relatives and friends who had gathered. I asked them all to leave.
That night, I stayed in the hospital alone with my mother. Just the two of us. One final night.
At dawn, I called the funeral home to arrange her final grooming and prepare for the service.
I watched as they carried her body away. With trembling fingers, I pulled out my phone and typed a message to Morgana.
[Mom is gone.]
I stared at the screen, wishing, hoping, she would call at once, show up beside me, and wrap me in her arms.
But the message disappeared into the void like a stone sinking into the sea.
I let out a hollow laugh.
I had loved Morgana for ten years, from the moment I first laid eyes on her, love at first sight.
Five years of quiet companionship, three years of relentless pursuit, and two years of marriage.
I had gotten used to having her in my world.
But from this moment on, I had to learn how to live without her.
When we first met, she wore a white dress, her hair tied back in a simple ponytail, no trace of makeup, and her smile was the cleanest, purest thing I had ever seen.
The day she agreed to marry me, I was over the moon with joy. As I slid the ring onto her finger, I leaned in close and whispered, “For the rest of my life, it’ll all be you.”
Her smile in that moment was so sweet, so radiant, it carved itself into my memory.
Before marriage, I had cherished her like a treasure in my palm. And after marriage, nothing had changed. I still did.
She never liked showing affection in public, always saying, “Our life is between the two of us. What others envy or say doesn’t matter.”
But deep down, I knew, she had been lying.