The Wedding Dress at the Funeral
I never thought I would witness something more painful than my mother’s slow, agonizing death. That was before I watched my father walk directly from her funeral service to his mistress, who was waiting for him in a wedding dress.
I stood there, stunned, my mind refusing to process the scene. The funeral had just ended. The last handful of dirt had been tossed onto my mother’s grave. People were still lingering, murmuring condolences and wiping their eyes. My sister, Maria, clutched a crumpled tissue, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. My younger brother, Javier, hadn’t spoken all day, his face tight with a grief too heavy for words.
And my father? He hadn’t even pretended to mourn.
Throughout the service, I had watched him, waiting for a single crack in his self-centered facade, some sign of sorrow. Instead, he kept looking at his watch. Not at my mother’s casket. Not at her portrait. Just his damn watch.
As soon as the final prayer was said, he turned on his heel and walked away—not toward us, but toward a woman standing beneath the trees just beyond the cemetery path. It was Nicole, his mistress. She wore a coat against the chilly wind, but beneath it, I saw it: a flash of unmistakable white lace.
Nausea rose in my throat.
“Is that…” Maria whispered, her voice stiff with shock.
Javier let out a low curse. “That’s Nicole.”
My father reached her side and, without a shred of hesitation, took her hand and kissed her. Right there. I heard Maria’s sharp intake of breath and saw Javier’s hands curl into fists. The few remaining funeral guests stared, their faces twisting in disbelief.
Then my father turned back toward us, a small, satisfied smile on his face. “I’ve waited long enough,” he announced.
The words sent an electric shock through my body. Nicole’s hand curled around his arm as she addressed the small cluster of mourners. “Alfredo and I are getting married today.”
A thick, horrified silence spread over the cemetery.
“What did you just say?” I forced the words out.
Nicole’s smile widened. “We’re getting married today. We already booked the church.”
I stared at my father, waiting for him to deny it, to say something, anything. He just nodded, an infuriating look of relief on his face. The church. They were getting married in the same church where we had just held my mother’s funeral mass.
Something inside me snapped. “You’re seriously getting married today?”
“She’s gone,” my father said, as if that explained everything. “She was my wife for thirty years, but life moves on.”
Before I could hit him, a new voice cut through the cold air.
“Actually, Alfredo,” said Father Dominic, the priest who had just performed my mother’s service. “There’s something you should see before you get married.”
The Secret Will
Father Dominic held a thick, legal-looking folder. My father frowned. “What’s that?”
“I wasn’t going to reveal this today,” the priest said, his voice calm and steady. “But given your… urgency… I think it’s only fair.”
He opened the folder, pulled out a single document, and began to read. That’s when I saw it—the first crack in my father’s composure. The blood drained from his cheeks. Nicole’s smirk faltered.
The document in the priest’s hands was a will. But it wasn’t the one my father had shown us, the one that left everything to him. This was another will. A secret will. A will my mother had written before she died that changed everything.
Father Dominic’s voice was steady as he read: “I, Anna Moreno, being of sound mind and body, do hereby revoke my previous will. I leave my home, my savings, and all of my assets exclusively to my children, Maria Moreno and Javier Moreno.” He paused, his eyes lifting to meet my father’s. “My husband, Alfredo Moreno, is to receive… nothing.”
Nothing. The word echoed in the suffocating silence.
I turned to my father. The smug confidence had shattered, replaced by raw panic. Nicole had taken a small but deliberate step away from him.
“This is a joke,” my father finally choked out.
“It’s not,” Father Dominic said, holding out the document. My father snatched it, his eyes darting frantically over the words, as if he could will them to change. Nicole peered over his shoulder, and I saw her pupils shrink. She was looking for the numbers. My mother had worked hard, invested wisely. My father had always assumed her money would be his. He had counted on it. He had promised it to his mistress.
And now, it was gone.
“No, no, this isn’t legal,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“It is real, and it is legal,” the priest confirmed. “Anna made sure of that.”
My father’s face turned an ugly shade of red. “She couldn’t have done this,” he rasped. “She wouldn’t do this to me!”
Maria scoffed, her voice thick with disbelief. “You mean after you cheated on her while she was dying of cancer?”
He flinched as if she’d slapped him. Nicole remained silent, but her expression had changed. The panic had been replaced by cold, hard calculation.
The Reckoning
I watched the exact moment Nicole reached her decision. She took another, more definitive step away from him.
“Nicole,” my father said sharply, his head snapping toward her. “This doesn’t change anything. We’ll fight it! I can contest this!”
Her lips parted. Then, ever so slowly, she shook her head. “It is over for me.”
And just like that, she turned on her heel and walked away without a single backward glance.
My father stared after her, dumbfounded. For the first time in his life, I saw real fear in his eyes. Raw, undeniable fear. He was alone, and he knew it.
Maria squared her shoulders, looking our father dead in the eyes. “You have until the end of the week to get out of the house.”
His head snapped toward her. “The house is not yours,” I cut in, my voice cold. “It’s ours. You heard the will.”
His eyes darted to Javier, searching for an ally.
“Don’t look at me,” Javier said flatly. “You did this to yourself.”
Our father looked smaller then, the weight of reality finally crushing the last of his arrogance. He scoffed, a hollow, bitter sound. “You think I need this house? I’ll land on my feet. I always do.”
But we all knew the truth. He wouldn’t. The man who had betrayed his dying wife, who had stood at her grave planning his next wedding, was finally, irrevocably, getting what he deserved.
He let out another bitter chuckle. “You’ll regret this,” he muttered, but the threat was empty.
We walked away without another word, leaving him standing there alone in the cemetery, a man who had just lost everything.
The Silence of Regret
His downfall was slow, but it was absolute.
He tried to fight the will in court; he lost. He tried to move in with Nicole; she had blocked his number. His business, which my mother had quietly held together for years, crumbled without her. Clients left, bills piled up, and his reputation was left in tatters. He sold his car, then his watch, then whatever was left of his pride.
The last time I saw him, he was living in a tiny, run-down apartment in the Bronx. He looked at me from his doorway, and I saw something I had never seen in him before: regret. Not anger, not arrogance. Just the hollowed-out shame of a man who had thrown it all away.
He didn’t ask me for anything. He knew the answer.
I turned and walked away, the door creaking shut behind me, sealing him inside his own ruin. He had spent his entire life chasing more—more money, more power, more control. Now, standing in the wreckage of his own choices, he had nothing left but the deafening silence of his own regrets.
And maybe that was the cruelest, most perfect punishment of all.