I hold the cold glass pendant in my hand, feeling a greater weight than any simple heart with an inlaid ruby should. Its touch brings me comfort, but its memory brings me pain.

It was a gift from my boyfriend for my nineteenth birthday. With today being my thirty-eighth birthday, I’ve had it for literally half my life and I’ve worn it every day until three days ago.

I need to decide now whether I want to wear it to the funeral of its bestower, my boyfriend at 19, husband at 22, and father of my children at 24.

I put the pendant down. I’m feeling enough pain today; I don’t need to bring more with me to the funeral home.

I call for my daughter, Zoe. I shouldn’t ask a fifteen-year-old to help her mother on the day of her father’s funeral, but the only church-appropriate black dress I own just won’t fit right. The stress eating in the two weeks since Josh’s stroke must finally be catching up to me.

Zoe comes upstairs, already dressed to see what remains of her father for the last time. She helps me struggle into my dress, then she helps me with my makeup. Even at a young age, she was better with fashion than I was, and I know helping her “old” mom look hip amuses her.

Anything I can do to keep things lighter today.

We go downstairs, without the pendant, and I check to see how my son is doing with his preparations. It’s about as I expected. He’s technically wearing a suit, if an untucked, unbuttoned dress shirt and his tie knot halfway down his chest can be considered “wearing” – and his hair is still the same mess he slept in. He’s lucky his father outgrew this “slovenly teenage boy” phase before I met him, or he’d never have been born. I tell him to go compose himself so that we can get to the funeral home. It wouldn’t do for the family of the deceased to arrive late.

At the visitation, Sam and Zoe get the bulk of the attention, which is appropriate, since no fifteen-year-old should have to deal with the loss of their father without lots of support. As I watch my babies trying to act grown up for their friends and family, I hear a voice from behind me: “You’ve really done an excellent job raising those children, Jordyn.”

I put on my best smile, and turn to face Josh’s mother. “Thank you so much. Josh was such a great dad, I’m not sure how I’m going to manage without him.”

She scoffs. “The way every mother ever does – with a smile that covers how much she wants to frown.” She glances over at Zoe. “She’s growing up to look more like you every day. It’s enough to make you wonder what genes got into Sam.”

I look over at my son, who’s busy trying to smooth his hair flat in the middle of a crowded room without a mirror. I sigh. “It feels like every day Zoe grows up, Sam finds a different way not to. I was just wondering if Josh ever had a phase like this.”

His mom smiles and gives me a hug. “Now, don’t you try to make me speak ill of the dead at the funeral. Just remember who you married instead of trying to figure out who he was when he was a stinky teenager.” I laugh, and she moves on to greet someone else.

I make sure to thank every person who comes to the visitation. I stand there wearing a too-tight dress on my body, a teenager's makeup on my face, and a naked and pendant-free throat, performing a widow's empty-hearted duty of making sure that the people who came to honor their husband feel appreciated for their insignificant efforts. This is the last thing I want to do, the last place I want to be. I haven’t had a beer in twenty years, but at this moment blocking everything else out and enjoying a cold one is all I want to do. I wonder if that’s a healthy or unhealthy grief response.

I note that nobody here except my children is related to me by blood. I haven’t spoken to my own family since college, I don’t know how to get ahold of them, I don’t think they know how to get ahold of me, and while I’m relieved that I don’t have to face a sudden family reunion during the funeral, I also wish I had someone to help me grieve who wasn’t experiencing the same grief themselves. But I realize as I look around that I’ve built my life in a way that doesn’t give me my own friends and family – every person I know here is someone I know through Josh or through our shared employer. I have no people of my own here.

I give Josh’s eulogy. I talk about our lives together, from when we met at a party in college to our marriage just after graduation, our parallel careers in teaching, the family he included me in after mine cut me off, and the family we built together. I talk about my pendant and how love, like glass, is fragile but beautiful, and we care for it while we can and remember it fondly when it’s gone. Josh’s older sister speaks, talking about the boy who grew into the man I loved, and the stumbles along the way that we all find funny, but Josh would have never let anyone share when he was alive. This all feels hollow, empty. I have the memory of each story I was present for, but it’s the memory of a spectator, narrating and talking about someone else’s life instead of their own. I excuse myself to the bathroom to cry. Zoe follows me; nobody else does.

At the funeral luncheon, I want to sit with Sam and Zoe, but they sit with Sam’s girlfriend and their other friends. Lots of people come to offer their condolences – co-workers, friends, Josh’s family – but none stay at the table with me. Through all the conversation and well-wishes, I watch my children to see how they’re coping. Sam’s girlfriend is comforting him, and Carina, one of Zoe's friends, seems to be getting close to offer her the same. Zoe keeps glancing around as though she’s unsure if she wants someone to see them together. I send her a text: “If you want her to be there for you, let her. Fuck anyone who says you can’t get the comfort you need after your father dies.” She reads my text, gives me a sad smile and nods, and moves closer to the other girl.

After the funeral, I drive home on mental autopilot. I just need to be out of there. Zoe and Sam have friends come over to take them out and get their minds off the day. I’m glad they have people there for them. I wonder if I’ll still have people there for me without Josh. I head to the refrigerator; there’s some leftover beer that Josh bought for a party just before his stroke. I grab a bottle; after all, there’s nobody else here who will drink it. I kick off my shoes, struggle out of my dress, and put on a dressing gown. I drink the beer alone on the couch, its bitterness reflecting my hidden feelings about how Josh could just leave me like this without warning or a goodbye. I turn on the television, but nothing holds my interest. I finish my drink, put the bottle in the recycling, and head toward the bedroom. I text the kids, letting them know they can stay out as late as they want, even overnight, as long as they stay safe. I pick up Josh’s pendant – my pendant – and try to feel its comfort as I try to sleep, but all it feels is cold. Just before I drift off, I feel my hand relax and hear the sound of the pendant breaking as it hits the floor.

I dream.

I dream of my senior prom. The thing I remember most from that night is my girlfriend, Amanda, and how jaw-droppingly gorgeous she was. She was pretty every day, but something about what she did to get ready for that night – her gown, her hair, her makeup, the combination thereof – pulled out all the stops and I was beyond smitten. I would have given her anything and everything she asked for that night, but all that she asked for was another night of my companionship.

As the dream goes on, more memories show themselves. Rolling my eyes as my parents keep asking for one more picture, over and over again. My date fixing my tie, which won’t stay straight no matter how much we fight. Opening the door for her to get in my car, wondering where we could go if she decided she was ready to have sex with me.

She was.

We decided to go to her house after the dance; she had told her parents that she was thinking tonight would be the night. They were more progressive than my parents, so they’d helped her get ready with birth control, condoms, even some toys and different kinds of lubrication if we’d wanted to try that.

I remember thinking it was extremely important to make sure my hair was straight when we got to her house. Maybe I thought she wouldn’t want to have sex with me anymore if it was messy. I’m present in the moment as I open the door of her bathroom, walk inside, and look in the mirror. My tuxedo is a little less than crisp, but that’s teenage boys for you, and it’s coming off soon anyway, so what does it matter? I look at the face in the mirror and start trying to get my hair to lie down flat. I chuckle to myself as my dream becomes more lucid. I don’t know why I didn’t see before where Sam gets his looks from; he’s obviously the spitting image of me when I was his age.

I take off my jacket and go back into the bedroom. Amanda’s already taken off her dress and is lying naked on her bed. She starts to undress me, and I feel myself getting hard as she takes off my belt and unbuckles my pants. I put on the condom, impatient to lose my virginity. We embrace and…

wait, what the fuck?

I wake up. My sheets are soaked from my body’s reaction to the dream. I lie awake staring at the ceiling thinking about the differences between the dream and my reality. I didn’t go to prom with and lose my virginity to a woman named Amanda Smith; I went to prom with a boy named Milton Smith and didn’t lose my virginity until Josh and I started dating in college. His parents were the ones embarrassing us by wanting more pictures; mine weren’t even there. Amanda’s gown, hair, and makeup were familiar because that’s what I wore, and I remember worrying that I’d never look that beautiful again in my life.

Of course. I’d had a sex dream about my own prom but gender-swapped for some reason, and it felt normal because that’s how dreams feel sometimes.

But that face – not Sam’s, but similar enough to know it was a relative – has such a sense of familiarity that I can’t shake it.

Is “weird gender sex dreams” some secret stage of grief that nobody prepared me for?