Chapter 1 - The Scream Beside the Grave
"DADDY! MOMMY WON'T WAKE UP!"
Emma's scream cut through the cemetery twenty minutes after we buried my mother. I turned and saw my four-year-old daughter on her knees beside Claire. My wife lay motionless on the stone path. Orange flowers, dark soil, and broken clay were scattered around her head.
My sister Mallory stood six feet away, breathing hard.
"She took Mom's cross," Mallory said. "It was supposed to be mine."
I looked at the crushed flowerpot. Then at Claire. Her arms were still curved around the space where she'd been holding Emma.
"What did you do?" I asked.
"I threw it at her. I didn't mean for her to fall."
She said it as if the fall were the problem.
I don't remember deciding to move. I grabbed a smaller planter from the edge of a stone bench and swung. It struck Mallory across the shoulder and head. She went down behind the bench with a startled cry.
For one terrible second, I wanted to hit her again.
Then Emma screamed, "Daddy, please!"
I dropped the planter. I ran to Claire and fell beside her, keeping my hands away from her neck.
"Claire, sweetheart. I'm here. Open your eyes."
Nothing.
Emma grabbed my sleeve. "Mommy turned around so the rocks wouldn't get me."
I called 911. My voice sounded like it belonged to a stranger. The operator told me to keep Claire still and check whether she was breathing. She was, but each breath seemed too small.
When the ambulance arrived, a paramedic knelt beside her and shone a light into her eyes. His expression tightened.
"We need the trauma team waiting," he told his partner. "Right now."
I had just watched the dirt fall onto my mother's coffin. Now they were lifting my wife onto a stretcher.
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Emma pressed her face against my leg. Then she pointed toward a man standing near the cemetery gate: Mallory's boyfriend, Grant Weller.
"Daddy," she whispered, "that man told Aunt Mallory to get Mommy's necklace."
