Page 19 of The Woman at the Funeral

So what did I do instead?

Something I had no fucking business doing.

Bringing up Blair’s social media account.

I knew it from back when Matt first met her. He’d mentioned her working at an “art store” and had “some blog calledThe Tenth Muse.”

It was clear from day one that Matt had no idea the kind of woman he had hooked. How educated and worldly she was. How passionate she was about her vocation.

It’d been clear to me from the first time I checked out her blog and socials. The special angles of the artwork—both classics and amazing pieces she found on the walls of coffee shops or from street sellers—and the long, gorgeous captions that made you look at even the most mundane things—like brushstrokes—as poetic and meaningful.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d been keeping an eye on her accounts ever since. So much so that I could pinpoint the moment when it was clear she’d given up on her marriage. A solid three months before she’d finally kicked Matt out.

It was a picture of theL’Absinthepainting by Degas. It featured a couple sitting together but seeming worlds apart. The man’s attention was focused outward away from the woman—distracted, disinterested. The woman was staring downward, focused inward, her expression sad.

Blair’s caption?

What loneliness looks like in brushstroke form.

Not long after, there wasNighthawksby Hopper. A picture of a diner at night. It was stark, embodying the concept of urban isolation.

A study in stillness. Highlighting the way solitude can cling to the corners of everyday life.

After that, it wasThe Seated Woman with Bent Kneeby Schiele.

A portrait of unraveling. Nothing softened.

Then, reaching her resolve and determination phase, it wasChristina’s Worldby Wyeth, featuring a woman in a dress in a field, seeming about to crawl her way home.

It’s not helplessness. It’s persistence with the volume turned down.

I couldn’t help but wonder as I scrolled down and down if all of her posts represented deeper meaning in her life.

There’d been one post since Matt’s death. It wasThe Funeral of Shelleyfeaturing a funeral pyre and those left watching the flames.

Some grief is as tender as it is permanent.

The comments were filled with sympathy. It seemed that even though Blair had gone to great lengths never to display much about her personal life (she rarely even had her own face in her posts), her followers had somehow found out about the death of her husband.

I tried to talk myself out of it, but I found myself scrolling down until I got to one of the rare snaps that featured Blair herself.

It was a candid picture of her at her former gallery. She was in a simple black dress that was the subtle kind of sexy. It was form-fitting without being skintight. It was neither short nor cut low in the front. Still, she was exuding confidence and passion as she smiled at something someone out of the frame said, her delicate hand curled around a champagne flute as she stood in front of a massive painting.

I imagined it was someone else who worked there who’d taken it. Matt’s own family—who swore he did no wrong—wouldn’t even let him take the pictures because they came out shaky and from unflattering angles.

This picture was taken by someone who had an eye for beauty and wanted to capture it.

“Christ,” I sighed, exiting the app.

I needed to get a grip.

Stop thinking of my dead friend’s widow.

Reaching for my phone, I shot off a text to my brother, knowing the only way I could stop thinking about Blair was to get myself distracted.

And Leondro had just rolled back into town.

Twenty minutes later, we were sitting at the pizza place we used to frequent as teens, staring out the plate-glass windows at the city, our reflections looking back at us.

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