When he saw me, his body went rigid. Something shattered behind his eyes.
I looked past him to the banner stretched across the living room wall. A bitter smile twisted my lips, and I read it aloud, word by word.
"'To my beloved wife. Happy sixth anniversary.'"
"You've been doing just fine, haven't you, Anthony."
Anthony pulled Victoria behind him on instinct, shielding her. His expression tightened with something close to shame.
Everyone else stood frozen. The silence was suffocating.
Six years ago, Anthony had raced onto an overpass in a downpour to make it to my birthday before midnight. His car went off the bridge and into the ocean.
By the time I got there, he was nothing but an urn.
The guilt consumed me. The grief ate me alive. Over and over, I told myself: if I hadn't made such a fuss about his affair, he never would have been out there trying to make it up to me.
The day he was buried, I clung to his headstone and cried until I blacked out.
In the years that followed, I missed him so badly I couldn't sleep. I'd go to the cemetery alone and sit there until dawn.