Page 41 of Stolen Harmony

“Do what?”

“Any of it. Be here, talk about her, exist in the same space where she used to be happy.” My voice cracked completely. “I don't know how to be around you without feeling like I’m betraying her memory.”

Something moved in his expression, the anger melting into something softer but no less intense. “Why would being around me be betraying her?”

I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t tell him that every time he looked at me like that—steady, unflinching—I felt my pulse stumble, felt heat coil in places that had nothing to do with grief. Couldn’t admit that the thing clawing at me wasn’t just loss, but want. Want for him. Want that was dangerous and twisted and wrong in ways I couldn’t even say out loud.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

He turned, like he was going to leave, and panic jolted through me. Not because I couldn’t handle the silence, but because some reckless part of me didn’t want him to go.

“Elias—” The word slipped out before I could stop it, raw and pleading. He paused, glanced back, and for a second our eyes locked. Too long, too sharp. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff, dizzy with the urge to jump.

I didn’t say the rest. Couldn’t. So instead I let him leave, the door clicking softly behind him. The sound felt final, but my body betrayed me—the thud of my heartbeat still racing,the ache of wanting him to turn back even as I told myself I hated him.

Roxie wound around my ankles, purring like nothing had changed. But everything had. I’d just realized that the thing I feared most wasn’t losing Elias. It was wanting him.

The cemetery on Windhill was quiet. The grass was still damp from last night's rain, and the smell of earth and salt from the nearby sea mixed in the air like a blessing and a curse.

I stood at the entrance for a long moment, reading the names on the weathered sign. Harbor's End Memorial Cemetery, established 1847. Nearly two centuries of people who'd lived and died in this place, who'd found their final rest overlooking the water they'd spent their lives working.

But I didn't know where she was. Had never asked, had never wanted to know the specifics of where they'd put her body while I was too fucked up to function. The cemetery stretched out before me like a maze.

I started walking, reading names and dates, looking for something familiar. The older section was filled with elaborate Victorian monuments, angels with broken wings and quotes about eternal rest. The newer section was more modest, simple headstones marking more recent losses.

It took me twenty minutes to find her.

Elaine Margaret Grant. The name carved into white marble that was already beginning to weather at the edges.

Beloved wife and mother

The words felt inadequate, like trying to sum up the ocean with a teaspoon of salt water.

I knelt in the damp grass and set the lilies carefully at the base of her headstone. The white petals seemed to glow in the pale morning light, a splash of brightness against the somber gray of stone and earth.

My fingers traced her name carved into the marble, the grooves cold and unyielding under my touch.

She was really gone. Not traveling, not angry with me, not waiting for me to call and apologize. Gone in the most final way possible.

“Didn't think I'd come back, huh?” I said, my voice catching slightly before I forced it steady. The words felt strange spoken aloud in this place, too loud and too quiet at the same time.

The wind moved through the grass with a low hiss, rustling the new leaves on the oak trees. For a second it almost sounded like a response, like she was trying to tell me something I wasn't ready to hear.

I told her about Roxie, about how she'd appeared in the middle of the road like a gray and white ghost, about how she hid under the couch and only came out when she thought it was safe. About how taking care of something so small and fragile felt like the first meaningful thing I'd done in months.

“She's got your stubborn streak,” I said, surprised by the fondness in my own voice. “Won't eat unless I'm not looking, won't let me pet her unless she decides it's okay. Smart girl.”

I talked about Harbor's End, about how small it felt after New York, how the silence pressed down on me like a weight I couldn't shake. About how I'd forgotten that stars were visible at night, how the sound of the ocean was different here than it had been in my memories.

“I hate this place,” I admitted, the words scraping against my throat. “I hate how everyone knows everything about everyone, how they look at me like I'm some kind of tragedy theycan't stop watching. I hate how it smells like salt and sadness and all the things I left behind.”

My throat tightened, emotion rising like bile. I swallowed it down, pushing it aside before it could break me completely. Crying wouldn't bring her back, wouldn't fix the years of silence between us, wouldn't make any of this hurt less.

“I haven't written anything,” I said, the confession feeling like admitting to a crime. “Music used to be... it used to be everything. Now it just sounds like noise.”

The silence that followed was heavy, familiar.

“He's still here,” I said finally, almost under my breath. “Elias. Your husband. Feels weird seeing him, talking to him. Like I'm trespassing on something that was never mine to begin with.”