Her father’s funeral was at ten o’clock. She’d chosen eggs Benedict over goodbye.

Peter’s feed showed him on a golf course, mid-swing, his expensive clubs gleaming in autumn sunlight. “Perfect weather for closing deals,” he’d written, followed by three fire emojis.

I’d raised these people. Fed them, clothed them, stayed up through nightmares and first heartbreaks and college rejections. George had taught Peter to fish, had walked Celia down the aisle at her wedding, had been there for every piano recital and soccer game and tearful phone call.

And they couldn’t spare two hours to watch him be lowered into the ground.

The service ended with recorded hymns playing through tinny speakers. The pallbearers—strangers hired by the funeral home—carried George’s casket to the hearse while I followed alone, my heels clicking against the marble floor with a sound like breaking bones. Outside, the cemetery stretched gray and patient under a November sky that threatened rain but couldn’t commit.

I stood at the graveside while they lowered him down, the mechanical whir of the apparatus somehow more obscene than the act itself. The pastor said his final words. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes. All those clichés people use to make death sound poetic when really it’s just loss wearing a fancy dress.