Accurate Daughters

Elise visited Vivian's grave on the first day no one demanded a statement from her.

The headstone had been chosen by Martin, which meant it lied politely. Beloved wife. Devoted mother. Visionary founder. Elise stood over it with a paper cup of gas-station coffee and no flowers.

"You were devoted to control," she said. "Visionary about damage. Sometimes a mother by accident."

The cemetery did not object.

She took out the unsent message recovered from Vivian's phone, printed and folded until the crease was soft.

I should have loved you before I needed you.

Elise had read it so many times the words had stopped changing. That was mercy of a kind. At first, they were a wound. Then an indictment. Then a fact.

"Yes," Elise said to the stone. "You should have."

She placed the paper under a small rock, not as an offering. As evidence returned to source.

A car door closed behind her. Claire walked up the path carrying grocery-store daisies.

"I can leave," Claire said.

"You can stay."

Claire set the daisies beside the stone and winced. "She would hate these."

"That's why I like them."

They stood side by side, two daughters with different injuries from the same woman.

"June is having dinner with Ruby tonight," Claire said.

"How are you handling that?"

"Badly, but quietly."

"That is progress."

Claire smiled, then cried. "I thought if I kept June polished and safe, the past would behave."

"The past hates manners."

"So does June."

Elise laughed.

Claire touched the headstone. "I loved her."

"I know."

"I hated her."

"I know."

"Do you think that makes us awful?"

Elise looked at the grave, the daisies, the paper under the rock.

"No," she said. "It makes us accurate."

They left together before either of them softened the truth.