I said:
“I'm sorry.”
Catherine stood a few steps away.
Not intruding.
I closed my eyes.
“I would have wanted you.”
The wind moved through the cedar trees.
“I would have mourned you.”
Then the sentence broke me:
“You shouldn't have had to disappear so I could love your sister.”
Because that was what Zane had unconsciously done.
Made the girls compete in reality.
If Claire knows Grace died, maybe she cannot accept Emily.
So erase Grace.
Give Claire Emily.
Keep Rebecca away.
Protect Catherine.
Protect everyone.
He had treated truth as though there was only enough love for one version of the family.
I stood there for almost an hour.
Then I called Emily.
She answered on the second ring.
“Mom?”
That word almost destroyed me.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
Immediate concern.
“What's wrong?”
“Can you come home tonight?”
Silence.
“Is this about Dad?”
“Yes.”
She inhaled.
