“Ma’am, I’m very sorry. There’s been an accident involving your son and daughter-in-law.”
I remember grabbing the doorframe.
“Are they at the hospital? Tell me where they are.”
He hesitated before explaining that their vehicle had gone off a rural highway and caught fire.
Neither had survived.
I kept shaking my head because I couldn’t make sense of his words. Silas had been standing in my kitchen only a few hours earlier, asking whether I had any leftover pie.
I asked the sheriff to check again.
He told me the vehicle was registered to Silas and that personal belongings found inside had helped establish their identities.
Because of the condition of the remains, we couldn’t have an open-casket funeral.
I stood beside those two closed coffins a few days later, holding my youngest granddaughter, Romy, against my shoulder.
She was only four.
“Where’s Mommy?” she kept asking.
