So I stayed.
And kept adding numbers to my notebook.
The first sign that something was seriously wrong came when my grandmother died.
Avery was attending the funeral.
My mother told me I couldn’t attend the church service.
“You can come to the graveside afterward.”
Someone eventually handed me a copy of the obituary.
It listed my grandmother’s surviving daughter.
Her grandson, Mitch.
But not me.
I confronted Mom.
She said it was an unfortunate mistake and accused me of making an already difficult day worse.
I wanted to believe her.
Instead, I wrote another entry in my notebook.
A year later, Avery walked into the garden center where I worked.
I recognized her immediately.
She’d never seen me.
She wanted a flowering dogwood for her church’s memorial garden.
“My boyfriend’s family lost someone,” she explained. “His mother finds Easter particularly difficult.”
I assumed she meant my grandmother.
