Once the casket was lowered within the earth, the ground keepers nodded at me and left me to myself. To grieve. To mourn. To kick myself for never loving a man that thought the world of me.

I sucked in cool air and a hint of a womanly fragrance, a familiar one, invaded my nose.

"So it's true. You buried my son behind my back, despite a court order giving me the right, over you, to lay my child, my first born to rest. How dare you deny me and my daughters the right to tell him goodbye."

I turned to face Lynn Waters.

"Fuck court orders and fuck you. Why couldn't you die, you evil bitch. You never loved him. Maybe if you stayed off of Good Morning America, like you're the next Kim Burrell, you could have been there for your son. Even in the wake of his untimely death you have failed him. What a poor excuse of a mother... "

"He was my everything. I lived through him in ways you'll never understand."

"Come on, woman. Everybody knows you're gay. Officer Becky, the faceless trick. And you had the gall to bash Jonathan for living his truth in light of religious and social prejudice. While you pretend to be a heterosexual woman, a woman of the Lord. You deserve what's coming to you."

"You're a complete whack job. No scruples. Bad enough you was Bob's fuck buddy behind his wife's back, that imitation crab ass of yours broke up his family. So you rebound with my son, a man that was in love with you. It was never about my son. I was trying to run you out of his life. I can't stand your ass."

"If you know what's good for you, leave, Lynn. Just go."

Lynn pulled out a pistol, aiming it at my head. The rain picked up, but we were kept dry by the tent.

She was approaching me. With my hands up, I side stepped to where she first stood.

"You have turned my life upside down. My daughters hate me for lying about their real father and my son is dead. My girls moved out and moved in with their father, Harper Hills. The same day they met him. My reputation is gone. I was fired from the force. The Feds raided my home and took all of my archived evidence. They seized my home, my car and bank accounts. I'm looking at numerous prostitution charges. Harper turned me in with the help of an imprisoned crooked cop and cut a deal. I'm ruined! And it's all your fault."

"But all gays are going to hell, ey. It gives me pleasure to watch you suffer. We're both one in the same, if you think about it. You weren't in love with any man you ever had. And I wasn't in love with my husband. No, I never got over the death of my first love, Lou. I'm not over my father, Dime, taking me from my mother and raising me."

"Dime's your father?" Lynn stammered, her eyes widened.

"If you want to call him that. He loved me just as much as you loved Jonathan, if you call that love. I call it control. Both of you are scum. I hate that his blood flows through my veins. I hate that my own mother didn't fight him for custody, didn't fight to b in my life. She used that as an excuse to live her life without me in it, making like she never had a son. It shouldn't have taken tragedy for her to find me. She's just as fake as you are. Both of you bitches are crazy."

"Your father, Dime, was the one that got me on the police force. He's also the snitching bastard that helped Harper expose me to the Feds."

Lynn released the safety on her weapon and I ran at her, with all my might.

The gun went off just as I slammed into her.

Both of us fell into the grave.

When my head hit the coffin, I was in sheer pain.

Lynn kept screaming, "I can't feel my legs! What happened to my legs?"

Taking up her gun with my shirt, I knocked her unconscious with the butt of her pistol.

Dropping it next to her, I pulled myself out of the grave.

Wondering what kind of deal Harper and my father, Dime, made with the Feds.

I haven't seen since my dad since my high school championship football game.

A cold chill overcame me.

I shuddered, heading towards the entrance of the grave yard. Using the Uber app on my cell to call a ride home.

An Uber driver picked me up five minutes later.

Driving me to the nearest hotel. I booked a room, thinking about how I was going to move on in life, and what direction, now that my husband has been laid to rest.

And his Mama, too.