After I died, Sean kept thinking about the day I signed the donation papers.
What had I been thinking?
Was I trying to punish him one last time?
Or was I simply too disappointed to leave anything behind?
He never got his answer.
The day he dragged Chloe out of the hospital turned out to be the last time he ever saw me alive.
He would replay that moment over and over.
The way I had watched them struggle.
The way I had looked almost calm.
As if by then, my heart had truly died.
He regretted not telling me the whole truth right then.
Yes, Chloe was pregnant.
But the baby wasn’t his.
At the bar, he had gotten drunk and things had gone wrong before he arrived.
Chloe was very good at crying.
Very good at making herself look helpless.
She said she wouldn’t have gone drinking if Sean hadn’t hurt her.
She said if he hadn’t made her sad, none of it would have happened.
Sean knew she was emotionally blackmailing him.
He knew it.
But every time she cried, he thought of me.
Back when I was younger.
Back when I still cried for him.
So he helped her.
Sent the man responsible to prison.
Gave Chloe money to end the pregnancy.
And after that, he gave her nothing else.
He had thought she was a harmless girl.
Spoiled, maybe.
But obedient.
Instead, he had kept a snake at his side.
One that finally bit him when he wasn’t looking.
After my death, Sean started dreaming.
In the dream, he kept asking me, Why did you leave me back then?
You loved me, didn’t you?
And every time, before I could answer, Lily would step in front of me and curse him out.
You didn’t listen when she was alive.
Now that she’s dead, what are you asking for?
Then he would wake up.
He wasn’t afraid of Lily.
He was afraid of hearing my answer.
Afraid I might say—
I stopped loving you a long time ago.
His heart started having problems after that.
The doctor told him not to sink too deeply into grief.
Sean said he was fine.
Calm, even.
Then he began keeping plants.
Succulents.
There had once been several pots of them on the balcony—the ones I used to care for.
By the time he noticed them, they were all dead.
He heard succulents were hard to bring back once they were gone.
Still, he tried.
Every evening, when he got home, he would crouch in front of them and talk quietly.
He remembered that once, on a sunny afternoon long ago, he had seen me doing the same thing.
Curled up on the balcony.
Talking to the little plants as if they could hear.
In the memory, I turned and saw him walking in with another woman on his arm.
At that thought, Sean slapped himself hard.
He began rewriting his own memories after that.
In his head, all the lonely versions of me now had him beside them.
Holding me.
Kissing me.
Staying.
Always staying.
Later, at some gathering, one of his old friends cheated on his wife and bragged about it.
Sean beat him bloody.
The others cursed at him.
“Are you insane? You used to be even worse than us.”
“If men like us should die, why don’t you go first?”
Sean lost control.
Smashed half the private room apart.
He shouted that they were all lying.
That he loved his wife most.
That he always had.
Then somebody pulled up old photos of him kissing Chloe.
He froze.
Left immediately.
On the way home, he kept thinking the same thing—
I need to explain this to Megan.
I can’t let my wife get angry.
Anger is bad for her health.
He was already beyond reason by then.
When he stepped out of the elevator, there was a pregnant woman waiting outside his apartment.
For a moment, he didn’t recognize her.
Then he did.
It was Chloe.
The same woman from the photo.
The same woman from every disaster.
Fear flooded him.
Had she already come before?
Had she said something to me back then?
Had she made me sad?
He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into the stairwell.
“What did you say to my wife?”
“What did you do?”
He kept shoving her backward.
Step by step.
Until she missed one.
Until she tumbled down.
He stood there staring at the blood spreading across the stairs.
And smiled.
“Good,” he said. “Now no one can ruin us anymore.”
Two weeks later, Sean York was committed to a psychiatric hospital.
On the surface, he seemed normal enough.
Spoke clearly.
Ate on time.
Slept occasionally.
There was only one strange thing.
He talked to a broken blessing doll.
The same little ceramic girl, painstakingly glued back together.
Cracked all over.
Missing a piece at the chest, as if someone had removed its heart.
He kept it by his bed.
Looked at it and smiled.
“Wife,” he would say softly, “why haven’t you come to see me yet?”
“I miss you so much.”
“Do you miss me too?”
Then, after a pause, his eyes would redden and he’d murmur to himself—
“That’s right.”
“People without hearts don’t know how to miss anyone.”
Only later did he remember.
A very long time ago, he had already lost mine.