Prologue
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”
I stopped listening to the priest. The sound of blood rushing through my veins and arteries was too loud. My mother was on my right side, holding me up. My father was on my left, looking stoic and in control. I was blubbering like a baby—my wife. I was burying my wife of only ten years.
Madeline and I had been so in love. We met in college, got married soon after, and had ten amazing and wonderful years together.
Everyone loved Maddy. She was graceful, poised, polite - but she would let you know when you were out of line. My parents adored her. Our neighbours adored her. I worshipped her. I couldn’t imagine my life without her. How was I going to move on? How was I going to live without the other half of my heart?
After Maddy’s casket was lowered into her grave - something I couldn’t bear to witness - I left the cemetery. I returned to my parent’s house, where we’d be receiving the guests who would come to offer their empty condolences.
“She was such a beautiful woman,” one of my mother’s friends said, hugging me. Her cloying perfume nearly made me throw up. Although I always felt on the verge of throwing up these days.
“We’re going to miss her around the office,” one of her colleagues said as if I wasn’t going to miss her in every aspect of my life.
“Heaven has gained another angel,” some old biddy of my mom’s group of friends said. I don’t want Heaven to have another angel. I want my angel here with me, to grow old with me.
“You’re going to be okay, Dylan,” my friend said. I won’t be. I will never be ‘okay’ again. Not without my Maddy..
“Take all the time you need. Work can wait,” my father said. Dad and I ran Watkins Group, one of the foremost development companies in the city. But I don’t think he meant to take the rest of my life because it won’t be until the end of my life, when I can see my angel again, that I’ll be able to get over our loss.
“Everything has a purpose. Everything happens for a reason,” another mourner said. What purpose could there possibly be for me to lose the love of my life? What possible reason could there be for her to be gone?
“God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle,” someone else said. Lies. Because I can’t handle this. I can’t handle the thought of a future without Maddy in it.
I had to stand there and listen to people telling me things I already knew about Maddy. I had to listen to platitudes about how I’ll be okay, how time will pass, and how I’ll learn to cope. Crap I didn’t need or want to hear. I wanted my wife back. I wanted my family back. I didn’t want to live without them. I didn’t want to live anymore in a world where my Maddy would never again walk.
My home would always feel empty without Maddy’s smile. Without her voice, without her warmth. She would always have music playing in the house, and she would often sing along to whatever was playing.
Maddy loved to cook, and even though we had a housekeeper and a cook, Maddy cooked at least once a week, sometimes twice. She made the work of our household staff easier because she was always willing to pitch in and lend a hand. She cleaned up after herself. She made sure not to leave big messes around for the staff. She helped clean up after parties.
Through all of that, she maintained an air of grace and poise, always acting as the wife of an industrialist. She grew up in humble surroundings. Her family wasn’t known; they weren’t rich. They were middle class. She worked hard for everything she had.
Maddy and I met in college. We had a few classes together, and she outshone most of our classmates. Maddy’s name was always among the top in the class. I envied that of her. Because every time grades were posted and people celebrated their achievements, Maddy looked at the list, saw her grade, smiled and walked away. She didn’t say a word; she didn’t flaunt her grade, she didn’t make anyone feel bad.
I asked her out when we were sophomores, and we moved in together in our senior year. My parents weren’t impressed at first. They had all sorts of visions as to what my future was going to look like. Who should I marry, who would be able to move within our social circles, who was familiar with how our ‘kind’ live? But as soon as they met Maddy, and saw how sweet and intelligent she was, how unimpressed she was by my parents’ imposing house, and how sweet and polite she was and how she was able to move within our circles as though she had grown up in high society, they fell in love with her, too. Maddy made herself fit in. She adapted so easily to my world. She didn’t have to push to be accepted. She just… was accepted. And people loved her for that. They loved her hands-on approach to everything.
We got married after graduation, went on a month-long honeymoon and moved into our home. My parents, as a wedding gift, had bought us a house overlooking the ocean. Maddy immediately got to work, making it a home. I loved coming home at the end of the day. Even if Maddy wasn’t home yet, the house was warm and inviting.
Maddy had helped me hire our staff. At first, she argued we didn’t need a staff and that she could handle keeping the house and cooking for us. She said it looked “snooty” to hire people to work for us, doing what she was perfectly capable of doing.
I understood where she was coming from. She’d lived a life where taking care of the house and cooking dinner was something she did all the time. I grew up in a life of privilege and wealth. I was used to having people do the domestic work that Maddy wanted to do in our home.
She acquiesced, and we hired staff together. Maddy insisted that if she was going to have people living and working in our home, she needed to make sure they would get along. I smiled every time she rejected someone or said she wanted to hire them. However, her reasoning was sound, and in the end, we had a cook and a housekeeper that Maddy could work with, who were friendly yet respected their roles.
I would come home, and I could hear Maddy singing in the kitchen with Mrs. Tate, our cook. Sometimes, she would help cook dinner; sometimes, she would keep her company.
Maddy was also generous to our staff. They were well paid, and they worked hard for the money we paid them. However, Maddy ensured they had the flexibility to take time off when needed or wanted. Mrs. Tate was a devout Catholic, and Maddy always made sure she could attend Mass whenever she wanted to, with every Sunday off as well.
Mrs. Handscombe, our housekeeper, loved Maddy. She often told me how Maddy never was in her way and frequently made it too easy for her to do her job. If she had any complaints, it honestly seemed to be that Maddy wasn’t messy and cleaned up after herself, so there was so little for her to do. She dusted, vacuumed, changed the bed linens, and did all the usual housekeeping tasks because it was pretty much all Maddy had left for her to do.
Maddy didn’t have to work. My father and I owned and operated the most prominent development firm in the city, and it was one of the largest in the country. It was worth billions, and we live very comfortably indeed. But Maddy hadn’t spent four years in university to throw away her education, so she worked as an advertising executive at one of the biggest firms in the city as well. She was immensely talented, and while she did have a few people who didn’t like her, my Maddy wasn’t perfect, though I would argue that she was. There were a few people who thought I had gotten Maddy her job. That being a Watkins was the reason she had a job at all. But it was only a few people, and they were jealous anyway. They didn’t have the talent that Maddy had. Maddy landed some significant accounts, and she took pride in the work she was doing. I was proud of her, too. I was proud of how hard she worked and how much she wanted to create. She won a few awards for her campaigns. And she never held it over anyone’s head. She left her awards in the office—but not her office. They were displayed alongside several other awards won by colleagues—her boss’s awards, which she always kept behind theirs.
Maddy never wanted to be the center of attention. But now, all eyes were on her as we laid her to rest.
