At my husband’s funeral, no one came except me. Our children chose parties over their father’s final goodbye.

We were once a family. And maybe I had been too naïve to see how far that family had drifted.

Maybe love doesn’t erode in a storm. Maybe it fades like wallpaper in the sun—quietly, until one day you no longer recognize the pattern.

I picked up a photo of George and Peter fishing. Peter must have been twelve. George had his arm around him, pointing at something in the water, his smile full and soft.

That man deserved more than an empty chapel.

I put the photo down, then picked up the phone. It was nearly midnight, but I didn’t care. I called Thomas Fields, our lawyer. The call went to voicemail, as expected.

“Thomas, it’s May Holloway. I need to revise my will urgently. Call me in the morning.”

I ended the call and stood for a long moment by the window. Moonlight touched the tops of the rose bushes outside. They had withered since George passed, not from neglect, but as if in sympathy. I knew I should prune them, give them room to bloom again.

But not tonight.

Tonight, I would let the old petals fall. Tomorrow I would begin cutting out what no longer belonged.

The lawyer’s office smelled like old books and eucalyptus polish—the kind of place where time felt dense and silence had a particular weight. Thomas had known George and me for over thirty years. He had handled our first mortgage, George’s business license, the deed to the lake house, and eventually our estate plan.

Trustworthy. Precise. And like me, a little tired of people who smiled when they wanted something.

He looked up from his desk as I entered, rising from his chair with an expression of mild surprise.

“May,” he said, buttoning his jacket. “You’re here early.”

“It couldn’t wait,” I answered, settling into the leather chair opposite him.

My coat still smelled faintly of the garden. I’d clipped the dead roses that morning, early, before breakfast. Pruning always steadied me. There was something honest about cutting back what no longer served.

“I got your message,” Thomas said, sitting. “You said you want to revise your will?”

“Yes,” I said. “Peter and Celia are to be removed entirely.”

He paused, not out of shock, but out of care.

“Are you sure?”