EDITED 07/06/2025 to remove identifying places/names.
I'm sitting shirtless at the public pool with my sister-in-law. I goad my little nephew to pop this massive yellow pimple on his temple.
My husband is standing at the 10' deep area of the pool and watching our nieces dive in and jump out, dive in and jump out.
We just came from his biological mother's graveside service in a tiny cemetery a few towns over. A handful of people with atrocious dental hygiene stood in a semicircle around her urn. The graves sat two or three feet away from the road; cars hurried past and interrupted attendees as they spoke. The service was mostly centered around Jesus - everyone who spoke mentioned her addiction and her faith. The woman who raised her played a country song about meeting Jesus through her phone's tinny speakers. She asks for anyone to share stories of the deceased - I shift my weight from one leg to the other during the uncomfortable silence that answers her.
As her mom says a prayer, my stomach drops. That indescribable flooding feeling. Warm and red, blood pools in my underwear. I want to telepathically signal to my husband, but what could be done? We're in the middle of nowhere. Like all things, I just need to endure.
We met her brothers. One of them looks exactly like my husband: if my husband was an apple, his bio-mom's brother would be one of those freeze-dried apple snacks. It's like seeing what he'll look like in 50 years. (My father is the freeze-dried apple version of me - we joke on the way home about Bio-Mom's brother and my dad making out).
Everyone calls her his mom. Or calls him by his birth name. One person asks if he "still keeps in touch" with his parents (as if he could cast them off after being their child his entire life). I'm angry for him, frustrated at their treatment of him. They're not family.
One obnoxious pastor asks my husband if his dad will get back into preaching -- he humblebrags about how hard it is to be a community leader while resisting temptation. Fuck you, I think.
Everyone moves in for hugs. I know I must seem standoffish or unfriendly, but I have nothing to say to any of these people. I'm here for my husband only.
Now, here at the pool, tampon-in. It's warm out. A million children buzz around, screaming. Kids outnumber adults by about five to one -- seems like the only thing to do up here in bumfuck is to make more people.
My heart is wrenching, being wrung out. Like holding a plum in your hand and making a fist - blood running down your wrists. My body is a Rube Goldberg machine designed to make me suffer.