“He passed late last night,” she says, her voice steady but stretched thin at the edges. “In his sleep. Just…gone when I woke up.”
I nod, careful not to press. “I’m very sorry.”
We move through the practicalities. Service preferences, burial arrangements, obituary details. She’s organized, listing off items like someone who’s used to making firm decisions. But her voice wavers, and her hands tremble slightly as she reaches for the tissue box.
I feel him before I see him. The air shifts, temperature ticking down, fragile as glass waiting to shatter. When I glance toward the corner near the doorway, Edmond Caldwell is faded at the edges, the way spirits often are. He sits in the seam between here and not, the outline of his presence stitched loosely into the fabric of this room. He looks much as he did in life…gray hair neat, mustache full, collar stiff. But there’s something different about him now, something I never noticed in the few times I saw him out and about town.
Love.
Etched into every line of his face, the way his gaze softens watching her, the way his shoulders tilt forward as if to bridge the impossible distance between them. In life, Edmond stood ramrodstraight, affection buried in civic duty. But death strips that away. There’s no pride left to protect. No ego. Just the truth of your heart.
Marjorie clears her throat. “I knew it was coming,” she says, the strength in her voice wavering. “You prepare; you plan. But knowing doesn’t make it easier, does it?”
Edmond remains standing vigil, his presence woven into the space between us. His gaze filled with so much unspoken tenderness it makes my chest ache. Grief lingers not in absence, but in the love with nowhere to go. I’ve stored other people’s loss and love but it’s still heavier than stone. His eyes track her every movement, the slight tremor in her hands, the way her breath hitches when she saysmy husbandlike it’s now a foreign phrase.
“No,” I murmur quietly, my voice softer than usual. “It doesn’t.”
We move through the rest of the arrangements methodically. Details are easier to manage than feelings. Marjorie barely reacts until I mention the floral arrangements.
“White lilies are traditional,” I offer out of habit.
Her face twists immediately. “Not lilies.”
I blink. It’s rare to get such a visceral response to flowers.
“My mother-in-law insisted on them for every occasion,” she mutters, her grief sharpening into resentment. “Said they were dignified. But all I see when I look at them are the pretend smiles she wore in public, then the way her nose would turn up the second no one was watching.”
Edmond shifts like he’s suppressing a chuckle, agreeing with his beloved. It’s so mundane, so human, this private little reaction to something as simple as lilies.
“No lilies,” I log, clearing my throat and writing it larger than necessary. Listening is the point.
When we finish, I walk her to the door. Edmond trails behind, not letting the space between them grow any wider. He doesn’treach for her, though. They never do. Maybe because they know they can’t. Maybe because that’s the hardest part.
Marjorie pauses at the door with a tired smile. “Thank you, Mr. Harlow. This…helps.”
I nod, my throat tighter than usual.
She steps out, the door clicking behind her. Edmond hovers in the doorway, his expression more intimate now. Not grief. Just the unbearable ache of loving someone so deeply with no way to show it anymore.
I stand there for a moment, my hand resting lightly on the back of the chair she occupied, staring at the spot where he remains.
“You loved her well,” I say, my voice barely more than a breath.
His gaze shifts toward me. He doesn’t nod. Love rarely performs on command.
And then he’s gone. No fanfare. Just gone.
I sit back down, staring at the empty chair, the air feeling heavier than before.
I think of Levi.
Of the way his laugh fills a room without trying. The way I felt when we kissed in that library and again last night. Like every version of me, every century I’ve lived, finally made sense in that brief moment.
And it terrifies me because wanting that means risking the one truth I’ve never outrun: that mortals leave. Whether by choice or by time, they always go. And I will always still be here.
I reach for my phone, my thumb hovering over Levi’s name.
Me:I need something that isn’t lilies.
