EPILOGUE: The Photograph That Remained
Four days later, we buried Daniel.
Emma and Josh stood beside me while his coffin was lowered into the earth.
I hadn’t imagined I would cry so much.
But when Josh set a photograph of the four of us beside the flowers, I could no longer hold the tears back.
After the funeral, we went home to my house.
For the first time in five years, the three of us were able to speak about Daniel without anger.
We recalled his awful jokes, the pancakes he made on Sundays, and the way he always sang out of tune in the car.
That evening, once the children had gone, I set our old family photograph on the mantel.
I stayed there looking at it for a long while.
Then I whispered, "I wish you’d told me, Daniel."
Was the narrator right to remain angry with Daniel after discovering his illness, or should what he was facing have changed the way she understood his betrayal?
Another compelling read is only a click away. Discover this story: I gave ten years of my life to helping my paralyzed husband walk again, only for him to leave me for another woman. But when our eleven-year-old daughter passed him a red notebook, his response stunned me. Days afterward, I uncovered the heartbreaking secret she had been hiding.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction inspired by real-life themes. Names, characters, places and events are fictionalized, and any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. Images are for illustration purposes only.
