Home Entertainment Game Technology Advertisement Part 2: For eight years, my parents made me leave the house every time my brother brought his fiance over; Mom said, “She comes from a good family, don’t embarrass us”; Dad added, “Just disappear for the weekend”; I did; then one weekend, I never came back; it took them four years to find out where I went.

He kept his job at Lockheart Construction only temporarily; eventually he resigned.

Avery's father did not fire him for being my brother.

He ended the business relationship because Mitch had signed a false probate affidavit.

Actions.

Not blood.

That mattered.

Neil Pruitt lost his funeral-home license and faced his own criminal case.

The most surreal part was my parents' sentencing.

Dad received a custodial sentence.

Not decades.

Real time.

Mom received a lesser sentence involving home detention followed by probation, partly because her role in the forged vital record was smaller and because of her health.

Mitch received probation, restitution obligations, and community-service requirements after cooperation.

I did not argue the numbers.

No sentence could return eight years.

I did not need prison years to become a measurement of my pain.

After court, Suzanne Lockheart stood twenty feet away.

She did not approach.

Good.

Then she lifted one hand.

A small wave.