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The congregation was a sea of mourning, filled with the many lives Emily had touched with her quiet kindness. But for me, the silence was haunted by a memory from just a month prior. We had sat at my kitchen table, the steam rising from her tea, while she rested a protective hand on the swell of her pregnant belly. When her sleeve had slipped, revealing the sickly yellow shadow of a bruise on her wrist, she had simply pulled the fabric back and offered me that same practiced smile. She told me she was clumsy. She told me Ethan was just under pressure at work. She told me that when the baby came, everything would change. Looking back at her portrait now—the one where she was smiling just to make everyone else feel okay—I realized that everything had indeed changed, but in a way that left my heart in ruins.
