They went to the funeral. Together.
It was the final project they had to manage.
They were a tableau of perfect, tragic grief. Karlman, his face a gray, stubbled mask, his suit immaculate. Eunice, a pillar of ice in a severe black dress, her face hidden by a veil, the blue sippy cup in her coat pocket. Her hand was wrapped around it.
It was a small, graveside service. Just them, and the tiny, white casket.
And the families.
They reappeared. They "materialized," as Karlman thought of it. They hadn't come for the wedding. They hadn't come for the 15 years of infertility. They hadn't come when Lia was adopted.
But they came for the tragedy. Because the tragedy was validation.
Eunice's father, the patriarch, was the first. He stood over them, his silver hair unruffled by the cold wind. He looked not at the tiny grave, but at Karlman. His contempt was a physical force.
"Eunice," he said, his voice clipped. He did not acknowledge Karlman. "A... terrible... situation."
He used the word "situation" as if it were a hostile takeover that had gone wrong.
"Father," Eunice said. Her voice was flat, dead.
"I warned you," he said, his voice dropping. "I told you what would happen when you defied the order of things. When you mixed... what should not be mixed. This... this outcome... was inevitable. You played with fire, and now... you see the cost."
He wasn't talking about Lia. He was talking about Karlman. He was talking about the union.
Karlman felt his blood run cold. 'This outcome.'
Before he could even process the cruelty, his own mother was upon them.
She was not cold and calculating. She was a whirlwind of religious fervor, her face twisted in a mask of ecstatic, terrified grief.
"Karlman! My son! My son!" she wailed, clutching a large, black Bible. She grabbed his arm, her fingers digging in like talons.
"He's spoken!" she whispered, her eyes wide. "He's finally spoken!"
"Mother... stop..." Karlman tried to pull away.
"No! You must hear! This is the judgment! We warned you! We prayed for you! But you would not turn from the... the woman..." she shot a look of pure venom at Eunice. "You would not dissolve this... this abomination... in His eyes!"
She raised her hands to the gray sky. "He is a just God! He gave you 15 years to repent! 15 years of barrenness! And you defied him again! You took a child that was not yours, a child of this unholy union... and so... HE... HAS... TAKEN... HER!"
She was shouting now. The other mourners, the few from Karlman's work, were frozen in horror.
"This is your chance, Karlman!" she cried, shaking him. "Repent! Leave her! Leave this cursed woman! Save your soul! This is God's... God's... mercy..."
"Stop."
It was Eunice.
She had lifted her veil. Her face was a white, skull-like mask of pure, undiluted rage.
She took one step toward Karlman's mother.
"You... call... this... mercy?"
Karlman's mother, for the first time, looked truly afraid. She saw something in Eunice's eyes that was not of this world. She backed away, clutching her Bible to her chest, muttering, "The curse... the curse..."
The families... they just... left. Their work was done. They had delivered their verdict.
The service ended. The tiny casket was lowered.
Eunice and Karlman were left, standing alone, at the edge of the hole.
The silence that settled between them was no longer the silence of grief. It was the silence of the families' words, settling in the air, congealing.
This outcome was inevitable.
He has taken her.
This union is cursed.
Karlman turned to his wife. He had to know. He had to... fix this.
"Eunice," he choked. "Don't... don't listen to them. They're... they're monsters. We... we're just... we're just... grieving..."
Eunice turned to him. Her face was calm. All the rage was gone. She was the strategist again. She had processed the data. The judgment of her father. The judgment of his mother. The judgment of her own heart.
She looked at the man she had loved. The man who was distracted. The man who had been weary. The man who had been on his phone. The man who had killed her daughter.
"They're right," she said, her voice clear and simple.
"What?" he whispered.
"They're right, Karlman," she said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the blue sippy cup. She looked at it, then at him. "We are cursed. And you... you're the one who brought it."
She let the sippy cup drop. It fell onto the soft, fresh-turned earth next to the grave.
Then she turned, and walked, alone, out of the cemetery.