Chapter 1 - BESIDE MY MOTHER’S GRAVE
Arthur’s finger pointed at my sisters and me while the last shovelful of earth was still sliding onto Mom’s grave.
“They’ll be sent to an orphanage,” he said. “I’ll have other children with my fiancée.”
Rachel’s hand found mine.
April pressed against Grandpa Charles’s overcoat and began crying without making a sound.
Around us, mourners froze beneath black umbrellas. Nobody corrected Arthur. Nobody reminded him that we were his daughters.
Grandpa moved between us.
“They are coming home with me.”
Arthur smiled as though Grandpa had relieved him of an unwanted bill.
He turned toward the black vehicle waiting beyond the cemetery path. He did not hug Rachel. He did not touch April’s hair. He did not even look at the framed photograph of Mom I held against my chest.
Halfway to the car, he glanced back.
“Perfect. Looks like someone already took out the trash for me.”
Something inside me went cold.
I pulled the purple cloth bag tighter beneath my cardigan. Mom had given it to me three nights before she died.
Keep it hidden from your father, she had whispered. Do not open anything until Grandpa is with you.
Arthur’s fiancée sat inside the black car, her pale face turned toward us through the tinted window.
I opened the bag only far enough for Grandpa to see what Mom had placed inside.
A black notebook.
A small digital recorder.
A sealed cream envelope.
“Mom told us to hide these from Dad.”
Arthur had already opened the car door.
Then he saw the envelope.
His hand stopped on the roof.
The arrogance disappeared from his face so quickly that I almost doubted I had seen it.
Grandpa took the envelope but did not break the seal.
“Arthur,” he said, “why are you terrified of this?”
Arthur started back toward us.
“That belongs to me.”
“No,” I said.
His eyes shifted to the purple bag.
Grandpa stepped in front of me.
“You abandoned three children at their mother’s grave. You do not get to demand anything from them.”
Arthur looked toward the mourners, measuring how many phones were raised.
Then he lowered his voice.
“Dad, you don’t understand what Rose was like near the end.”
I gripped Mom’s photograph harder.
Grandpa guided us toward his car.
Arthur did not follow past the cemetery gate.
He called someone instead.
As Grandpa buckled April into the back seat, I noticed a narrow cut along the side of the purple bag.
May you like
Someone had already tried to open it.
Then the black vehicle pulled away from the curb and began following us.
