My Dad Chose His Mistress Over My Mom’s Funeral And That Night Changed Everything

The air at the cemetery was heavy with damp earth and the faint perfume of lilies. People dressed in black huddled beneath umbrellas, murmuring soft condolences that never seemed to reach me.

My gaze was locked on the coffin, on the golden letters spelling out my mother’s name: Evelyn Grace Miller.

“You didn’t deserve this,”

I breathed. Behind me, whispers rippled through the mourners.

“Where’s Richard? Her husband didn’t show. Shameful.”

I clenched my hands until they hurt. The night before, my father had sent a message.

“Busy with business overseas. Handle the funeral.”

No apology. No hint of remorse.

Just business. When the priest began to speak, my legs trembled.

My cousin’s daughter, little Ava, tugged on my sleeve.

“Aunt Grace,”

she whispered.

“If grandma’s in heaven, can she see us?”

I crouched beside her, tears catching in my throat.

“Yes, sweetheart. She can see us. She’s watching right now.”

A sudden gust turned my umbrella inside out as the casket sank into the ground. The priest’s words melted into the steady drumming of the rain.

Every drop struck the earth like a heartbeat that no longer answered mine. When everyone else drifted away, I remained alone, kneeling in the mud before the grave.

“Mom,”

I whispered.

“If there’s any justice in this world, he’ll pay for what he’s done. I swear it.”

Lightning ripped across the sky, a sharp white wound against the dark clouds. I took it as a sign.

That night, drenched and hollow, I drove home. I showered, pulled on one of her sweaters, and sat in the dark scrolling through my father’s social media.

Then I saw it, his newest post. He was smiling on a sunlit beach, an arm draped around a young woman with flawless hair.

The caption read: “New beginnings.”

My chest tightened and my fingers trembled so violently I almost dropped the phone. While I stood beneath gray skies laying my mother to rest, my father smiled under a warm sun beside another woman.

Something inside me cracked wide open, and in its place, a darker resolve began to stir. That night, sleep refused to come.

Every creak in my apartment felt like a whisper from beyond. The storm clawed at the windows and no matter how hard I tried, I kept seeing my mother’s still face inside that coffin.

Too serene, unnaturally calm. I tried to distract myself by scrolling through old photos.

Mom painting in the backyard, laughing with dirt on her hands, showing me how to bake apple pie, wrapping me in her arms after my first heartbreak. Each memory cut deeper than the last.

Then the phone buzzed. I almost ignored it, probably another message from someone offering condolences.

But when I saw the sender’s name, I froze. Mom, her number, the one I couldn’t bring myself to delete.