The day I buried my daughter, my sister hosted a housewarming party.

That sentence still feels unreal.

Grief has a way of hollowing you out, of making you feel like a shadow moving through rooms that used to hold laughter. But nothing prepared me for standing beside Nancy’s casket and realizing my own family had chosen balloons and champagne over burial soil and silence.

Nancy was seven.
The crash had happened eight days earlier.

Seven.

The pastor spoke her name softly, as if it might fracture under the weight of the church walls. I kept my hands folded tightly in front of me. If I touched the smooth wood of her casket again, I wasn’t sure I would ever let go.

Neighbors filled the pews. Her second-grade teacher sat in the front row, face swollen from crying. Two police officers stood quietly near the back, hats clutched to their chests. Nancy’s best friend held a trembling sunflower.

My family wasn’t there.

Not my mother.
Not my cousins.
Not my sister, Rosie.

I kept glancing toward the doors anyway, half-expecting Rosie to rush in late, breathless and ashamed.

She never did.

After the burial, I stayed by Nancy’s grave long after the last handful of dirt fell. The pastor left quietly. Mrs. Calder from next door pressed a warm casserole dish into my arms.

“You promise you’ll eat, Cassie?”

“I will,” I whispered.

Back home, Nancy’s rainbow magnets still clung to the refrigerator. Her sneakers sat by the door, toes pointed outward as if she might burst through at any moment.

I made tea and poured two cups before realizing what I’d done.

The phone rang.

For a foolish second, I hoped it was my mother, ready to break the silence.

It was Rosie.

Her voice was bright — unnaturally bright. It sounded wrong in my kitchen.