The first slap landed beside my parents’ coffins, before the final prayer had even finished, and the sound of it moved through the gray cemetery like something sharp enough to cut through rain, silence, and every fragile piece of dignity I had tried to hold together that morning.
My aunt Marjorie Bellamy stood over me with her gold bracelet flashing beneath the dark umbrella, her face twisted with the kind of anger people show when they believe cruelty is their inheritance.
“You think you have the right to cry here?” she hissed. “After spending your whole life embarrassing this family?”
I tasted rainwater, soil, and the metallic sting at the corner of my mouth, while the muddy ground soaked through the knees of my black dress.
Around us, umbrellas tilted.
No one stepped forward.
Not my uncle.
Not my cousins.
Not the relatives who had arrived wearing expensive coats and solemn faces, pretending grief while studying the small cemetery service as if they were inspecting an auction item before bidding.
My parents, Samuel and Helena Voss, had passed away with worn shoes by the door, unpaid medical bills on the kitchen counter, and a small one-bedroom house that smelled of boiled rice, old books, and the herbal tea my mother made when she wanted to pretend everything was manageable.
That was what my relatives believed.
More importantly, that was what they wanted to believe.
My uncle Warren Bellamy stood near my father’s coffin and looked down at it with open contempt.
