The rain starts right as I finish reading. Just a drizzle at first, soaking into the paper in my hands, blurring the ink until the words bleed together. Not that it matters. I know them by heart.

I clear my throat, but the lump doesn’t budge. Feels like trying to swallow glass. I look down at the gravestone—his name carved into polished black marble like it means something. Like he meant something.

Easton Sinclair.

My father.

The title never sat right. Never fit. Like wearing someone else’s jacket—too big in the shoulders, too tight in the sleeves, weighed down with shit I never asked to carry.

I fold the poem, slipping it into my pocket. The wind picks up, cold against the damp collar of my jacket. I should say something. People do that, right? Talk to the dead like they’re listening?

I exhale, watching it fog in the cold air. “It could’ve been better.”

My voice is quiet, but it cuts through the stillness. I glance at her—standing beside me, hands stuffed into her coat sleeves, the same way she always does when she’s trying to warm them up. She doesn’t say anything. Just leans in a little, her shoulder brushing mine.

I look back at the headstone. “You could’ve been better.” My jaw clenches. “But you weren’t.”

My throat’s tight again. I swallow hard, blinking up at the sky. I don’t know why I wanted him to meet her. He doesn’t deserve to. And my mother—she wouldn’t have cared. Wouldn’t have seen her the way I do. But still, the thought lingers, carving out space between my ribs.

She squeezes my hand, fingers wrapping around mine. I squeeze back.

My father fucked up his life and subsequently fucked up my own in the process. I wouldn’t do that because she wouldn’t let me and I wouldn’t do that to her.

Easton Sinclair had ample opportunity to be better. Maybe he’ll be able to see the life he never got to live wherever he is. See me get married and happy and raise stable kids while doing poetry professionally.

He left his life to the merciless coin of fate. I left mine in the hands of a tiny woman.