The day I buried Emily, all I had left were our pictures and memories. But when something slipped out from behind our engagement photo that evening, my hands shook. What I discovered made me question whether I had ever known my wife at all.
The funeral home had tied a black ribbon on our front door. I looked at it while holding the key in the lock and wondered who had thought it necessary.
As if the neighbours didn’t already know I’d been in the cemetery all day, watching my wife being lowered into the ground while Reverend Matthews talked about angels and eternal rest.
My hands were shaking when I finally opened the door. The house smelled of something not good – leather polish and condolence casseroles.
Emily’s sister Jane had ‘helped’ me with the cleaning while I was in the hospital those last few days. Now everything sparkled with an artificial brightness that made my teeth ache.
‘Home, sweet home, huh, Em?’ I exclaimed, but caught myself immediately. The silence that came in response felt like a physical blow.
I loosened my tie, the blue one Emily had bought me last Christmas, and kicked off my dress shoes. They hit the wall with a thud.
Emily would scold me for this, pressing her lips together the way she did, trying not to smile as she lectured me about scuff marks.
‘Sorry, darling,’ I muttered, but left my shoes where they were.
Our bedroom was even worse than the rest of the house. Jane had changed the bed linen – probably trying to be kind – but the smell of fresh linen only emphasised that Emily’s scent was gone.
The bed was made up in hospital corners, every wrinkle smoothed out, erasing the careless mess that was our life together.
‘This isn’t real,’ I said to the empty room. ‘This can’t be real.’
But it was. The condolence cards on the dresser proved it, as did the pills on the nightstand, which in the end weren’t enough to save her.
It had all happened so suddenly. Em had fallen ill last year, but she had fought the disease. The chemotherapy took a huge amount of effort on her part, but I was there for her and supported her every step of the way. Eventually the cancer went into remission.
We thought we had won. And then a checkup revealed that the cancer was back, and it was everywhere.
Em fought like a cougar to the very end, but… but it was a lost battle. I realised that now.
I collapsed onto her side of the bed, not bothering to change into my funeral clothes. The mattress no longer held her shape. Had Jane really turned it over? The thought made me irrationally angry.
‘Fifteen years,’ I whispered into Emily’s pillow. ‘Fifteen years, and this is how it ends? A ribbon on the door and a casserole in the fridge?’
My gaze fell on our silver-framed engagement photo, lit by the late evening light. Emily looked so alive in it, her yellow sundress standing out brightly against the summer sky, her laughter hushed as I spun her around.
I grabbed her, wanting to be closer to that moment and the joy we both felt then.
‘Do you remember that day, Em? You said the camera would capture our souls. Said that’s why you hated having your picture taken, because…’
My fingers caught on something behind the frame.
There was a bump under the backing that shouldn’t have been there.
I traced it again, frowning. Without thinking about what I was doing, I pulled the backing apart. Something slipped out, falling to the carpet like a fallen leaf.
My heart sank.
It was another photograph, old and slightly bent, as if it had been held in my hands often before being hidden.
In the picture, Emily (God, she looked so young) was sitting in a hospital bed, holding a newborn wrapped in a pink blanket.
Her face was like I had never seen it before: haggard, scared, but with a fierce love that took my breath away.
I couldn’t understand what I was looking at. Although we’d tried, Emily and I had never been able to have children, so whose baby was this?
With trembling fingers, I turned the photograph over. Emily’s handwriting, but shakier than I knew, ‘Mum will always love you.’
Below that was a phone number.
‘What?’ The word sounded like a scream. ‘Emily, what is it?’
There was only one way to find out.
The phone was heavy in my hand as I dialled the number, not caring that it was almost midnight. Each ring echoed in my head like a church bell.
‘Hello?’ A woman answered, her voice warm but cautious.
‘I’m sorry to call so late.’ My voice sounded strange to my ears. ‘My name is James. I… I just found a picture of my wife Emily with a baby, and this number…’
The silence lasted so long I thought she had hung up on me.
‘Finally,’ she said so quietly that I almost let it pass my ears. ‘Oh, James. I’ve been waiting for this call for years. It’s been forever since Emily got in touch.’
‘Emily’s dead.’ The words sounded like ashes. ‘The funeral was today.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Her voice cracked with genuine grief. ‘I’m Sarah. I…I adopted Emily’s daughter, Lily.’
The room tilted sideways. I gripped the edge of the bed. ‘Daughter?’
‘She was nineteen,’ Sarah explained softly. ‘She was in her first year of college. She knew she couldn’t give her child the life she deserved. It was the hardest decision of her life.’
‘We tried for years to have children,’ I said, and anger suddenly flared in my grief. ‘Years of treatments, specialists, disappointments. She never said a word about having a child before me. Never.’
‘She was terrified,’ Sarah said. ‘Afraid you’d judge her, afraid you’d leave. She loved you so much, James. Sometimes love makes us do impossible things.’
I closed my eyes, remembering her tears during fertility treatments and the way she squeezed my hand too tightly when we passed playgrounds.
I assumed it was because we both wanted a child so desperately, but now I wondered how much of it was due to longing for the daughter she’d given up.
‘Tell me about her,’ I heard myself say. ‘Tell me about Lily.’
Sarah’s voice grew brighter. ‘She’s already twenty-five. A kindergarten teacher, if you can believe it. She has Emily’s laugh, her ability to connect with people. She always knew she was adopted, and she knows about Emily. Would you… would you like to meet her?’
‘Of course!’ I replied.
The next morning I sat in a corner booth of the café, too nervous to touch my coffee. The bell above the door jingled and I looked up.
It was like being punched in the chest with a fist.
She had Emily’s eyes and her smile. She even tucked her hair behind her ear like Amy would have done when looking around the room. When our gazes met, we both realised each other.
‘James?’ Her voice trembled.
I stood up, nearly knocking over my chair. ‘Lily.’
She rushed forward, wrapping her arms around me like she’d been waiting for this her whole life. I pulled her against me, inhaling the scent of her shampoo – lavender, just like Emily’s.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ she whispered, snuggling against my shoulder. ‘When my mum called this morning… I always wondered about you, about the man my mum married.’
We talked for a few hours. She showed me pictures on her phone: her college graduation, her first grade class, and her cat. I told her stories about Emily, about our life together, and about the woman her mother had become.
‘She sent my mum a birthday card every year,’ Lily says, wiping tears from her eyes.
‘We never spoke, but my mum told me she would call from time to time to ask how I was doing.’
Looking at this beautiful, brilliant girl with Emily’s kindness shining in her eyes, I began to understand Emily’s secret in a different way.
It wasn’t just shame or fear that kept her silent. She was protecting Lily, allowing her to live in safety and stability with Sarah. It must have been very painful for Amy to keep this secret, but she was doing it out of love for her child.
‘I wish I’d known about this sooner,’ I said, holding out my hand to Lily. ‘But I think I understand why she didn’t tell me. I’m sorry you can’t get to know her better, but I want you to know that I’ll always be there for you, okay?’
Lily squeezed my fingers. ‘Do you think… maybe we could do it again? Get to know each other better?’
‘I’d like that,’ I said, feeling something warm blossom in my chest for the first time since Emily’s death. ‘I’d like that very much.’
That night, I put the hidden photo next to our engagement picture on my nightstand.
Emily smiled at me from both frames, young and old, before and after, always with love in her eyes. I touched her face through the glass.
‘You’re doing great, Em,’ I whispered. ‘You’re really good. And I promise you I’ll do right by her. With both of you.’
