I don't own OTH...but I wish...

My hands shook as my stiff fingers tried to unclasp my grandmother's pearls from my throat. After many minutes of effort in vain, my tired hands gave up and moved instead to smooth my dark hair from my face. I sighed and my eyes shut of their own accord as I felt, rather than heard, my husband come into the bedroom. Without a word, his hands moved my hair to one side and unclasped the pearl necklace. The white beads slipped from their place on my neck and he put out a hand to catch them. He reached around to place the necklace behind me, then placed his hands on my shoulders, turning me so I faced him squarely. He forced my chin up so my swollen eyes locked into his own. His searching gaze asked questions I did not want to answer. Instead, I turned in his grasp so my back was to him.

"Will you unzip my dress?" I asked, cringing as I heard my voice shake and break. Starting again, I said, "Unzip me, please."

"Don't you want to go to your aunt's house?" he asked, fingering a stray piece of my hair.

"No." I paused. "No, I can't go back there. Just unzip my dress."

"It might be good to be around family right now. Maybe seeing your aunt would help."

I was as desperate to get my black, mournful dress off as if it burned the skin it touched. Tugging at it, I choked out, "I can't go back there, I can't. I just have to get this dress off. I have to get it off. I just-I just-"

The words suffocated me and I pushed my fingers to my forehead, trying to push away the faint feeling that had begun to overwhelm my senses.

"Okay, alright," my husband soothed. "Turn back around so I can," he said, since I had moved to lean against the dresser. I complied, and felt his deep sigh blow my hair a bit as he moved his fingers to touch the zipper. "Okay," he repeated, speaking as he would to a child. He ran his hand through his hair. "People are just worried about you. Everyone just wants to help."

"Well, they can't, can they?" I spit out, snapping to face him again although my zipper still had not been undone. I ran my bandaged hand over my worn face. "No one can make me feel better about what happened. No one can make me feel better about what I did."

Quick to jump to my defense, my husband disagreed. "You didn't do anything," his voice raised itself to emphasize his point. But I wouldn't have any of it. So when he tried to say that it wasn't my fault, what happened, I yelled back.

"Don't!" I closed my eyes. "Don't. Don't you dare tell me what is and is not my fault. You will never know the guilt I feel."

"You are not to blame for what happened," he firmly stated, grabbing my upper arms with his hard hands. "You should not feel guilty. You have no reason to feel any guilt."

I lashed out, pushing his grip and his body away from mine. "But you don't know, do you? It wasn't your father, was it? Was it the only family you had left? No. You weren't the reason your father-" The words choked me. Putting my hand up to my mouth, I pushed back a sob. "He was driving me. I was the one fighting with him again. I distracted him and its my fault he's dead."

I lifted my eyes up to his gaze, daring him to contradict me again. I felt tears making salty tracks down my cheeks and I swiped angrily at them.

Wordlessly, my husband turned me so my back was to him again. He slowly pulled down the zipper of the dress that I had worn to my father's funeral and then moved toward the door. As the dress pooled to the floor, he turned to glance at me.

"I'm your family. You still have me." He walked out the door and let me collapse onto our bed and cry.