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My husband simply holds me up and keeps walking while I lean into him. I’m grateful for the support because without him, I’m honestly not sure I could make this walk.

Reaching the front pew, Domenico guides me to my seat with the same steady hand, and when we sit, he keeps one arm around me while lacing our fingers together with his other hand. Through the veil, the world is slightly darker, slightly softer, and I’m grateful for the small mercy of being partially hidden.

Father Joseph moves to the altar as the organ plays. I don’t look at the coffin again. Can’t. Instead, I look at the stained-glass window above the altar while squeezing Domenico’s hand as hard as I can as I try to remember how to breathe.

Father Joseph’s voice fills the church, and I don’t hear most of what he says. The words become background noise—familiar rhythms, Latin phrases I’ve heard a thousand times, prayers for the dead that have never sounded so hollow as they do with Mom’s coffin twenty feet away.

“Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord…”

The congregation responds, and I try to as well. But no sound comes out when I move my lips. My free hand closes around the rosary in my lap, my thumb moving over one bead and then the next. I’m not even praying properly. I just need the familiar shape beneath my fingers.

Domenico’s hand is still wrapped around my other one, and I focus on the way his thumb traces slow, absent circles on my skin instead of what’s going on around me.

Someone reads from the Book of Wisdom. I desperately want to believe the words being spoken. I want to believe Mom is somewhere painless and bright, somewhere better than a hospital room.

But all I can see when I close my eyes is her hands folded on the sheet at Langford, cold and still, and the disconnect between that image and whatever paradise Father Joseph is describing is so vast it makes me dizzy.

So, I retreat behind the veil.

The gauzy black fabric turns the church into something softer, something I can look at without flinching. People’s faces blur. The stained glass becomes smears of color. Even Father Joseph, standing at the altar in his vestments, loses the sharp edges of his features.

It helps until it doesn’t. Until he looks directly at me during the homily and says Mom’s name. That cuts through the veil.

“Paige Adams was a woman of quiet faith,” he says, and his voice is gentle in a way that makes my chest ache. “She didn’t wear it loudly. She wore it in how she treated people. In the kindness she showed to strangers, in the patience she had for those who tested it, and in the fierce, unwavering love she had for her daughter.”

My breath catches.

“I baptized Kira in this church almost twenty-one years ago,” Father Joseph continues. “Paige stood here, holding her baby girl, and the look on her face… well. Those of you who are parents will understand. It was the look of someone who had just been given the very thing they would protect with their life.”

A sob builds in my throat. I swallow it down so hard that it hurts.

“Paige protected. She nurtured. She loved without reservation.”

The tears come then. Silent, hot, tracking down my cheeks beneath the veil, and I don’t wipe them away because if I move my hand, Domenico might let go, and I can’t bear the thought of losing his touch right now.

Needing a moment, I look behind me. Through the blur, I see Carly three pews back, her face streaked with tears, Gio’s arm around her shoulders. Meaning to check on Vinny, my gaze lands on someone else in the back.

A man sitting all alone, in a black suit that fits him so well. His eyes are on the altar, not me. Luckily. But then he looks up and my gaze collides with Paolo’s. Instead of holding the connection, I hurriedly look away and turn back to face the front.

Even though I should pay attention to Father Joseph, my mind keeps trailing off. It keeps pulling fragments and drawing comparisons to my wedding day.

This time, though, Domenico is beside me. And… I know I should thank him and tell him how much all his support means. I should tell him I heard him the other night. When he whispered, “I love you.” I heard every word.

I don’t know why I haven’t told him. Maybe it scares me a little since it made me think about how important he is to me now. He’s the reason that the difference between then and now is the difference between drowning and swimming. Between falling and being caught.

Knowing I can’t give voice to any of that, I squeeze his hand and rest my head against his shoulder.

As the service ends, people stand. The pallbearers—men from the parish who knew Mom well—move to the coffin, and the sight of them lifting it makes something in my chest crack open.

Domenico keeps me tucked against his side as we follow the coffin outside. Vinny has the car waiting behind the hearse, and once we’re inside, I climb into Domenico’s lap, resting my ear against his heart so the steady thump, thump, thump can soothe me.

The twenty-minute drive to the cemetery passes in a blur. By the time we arrive and the open grave comes into view, the finality of it all sends a wave of nausea through me so strong I sway on my feet.

“Look at me,” Domenico murmurs, low enough that only I can hear.

I don’t want to look at him. I want to look at the grave, because looking away feels like abandoning Mom, but his hand finds my chin and turns my face toward his.

“Look at me, Kira.”