Adam had made it through the service without falling apart.
He had stood beside the photograph of his mother, thanked people for coming, and listened while they told him she had been kind. He had nodded when they said she was no longer suffering.
Then someone handed him the cardigan she had worn during her last hospital stay.
That was what broke him.
He stood in the funeral home lobby with the folded cardigan against his chest, trying to breathe quietly enough that nobody would notice.
A phone appeared in front of him.
His aunt Sharon held it vertically, her arm extended, her expression solemn in a way that seemed rehearsed.
Adam turned away.
“Stop filming me.”
Sharon moved with him.
“People want to see.”
He looked back at her, disbelief cutting through his exhaustion.
“My mother just died!”
Sharon kept the camera pointed at his face.
“That’s why everyone’s watching.”
For a moment, Adam heard nothing else.
Not the murmured conversations near the entrance. Not the door closing behind departing guests. Not the soft instrumental music drifting from the adjoining room.
Just that sentence.
He raised his hand between himself and the lens.
“Put it away.”
Sharon angled the phone around his palm.
“Adam, don’t make this uncomfortable.”
He stared at her.
He was thirty five years old. He had spent the past week choosing flowers, signing forms, and answering questions nobody ever imagined having to answer about their mother.
He had no energy left for an argument.
Still, he stepped backward and held his hand up again.
“This is not yours to show.”
Sharon’s mouth tightened.
“I’m sharing our family’s loss.”
“You’re filming me after I told you to stop.”
A funeral director approached from the hallway.
“Is everything all right?”
Adam lowered his hand just enough to look at him.
“I need her to stop recording.”
Sharon immediately smiled.
“Just something for relatives who couldn’t come.”
The director looked at Adam, not at her phone.
“Would you like a private room?”
Adam nodded.
Sharon followed.
The director stepped gently into her path.
“He asked for privacy.”
For the first time that afternoon, the phone lowered.
