But whenever I mentioned the lake, something closed in his face.
“Andrea, you have to stop.”
Daniel’s brother was around constantly after the accident.
“I just want to understand…”
“What if they missed something?”
“They searched for weeks.”
“What if Daniel turned around because something happened?”
Dean would rub both hands over his face.
Then say some version of the same thing.
“You have three daughters who still need you.”
“What if Daniel turned around because something happened?”
I hated him for saying that.
Not because he was wrong.
Because it sounded too much like:
Forget the other four.
I never did.
Six years passed.
The girls grew up around absence.
One daughter started college.
Another learned to drive.
The girls grew up around absence.
Sophie became the person who finally said what everyone else had apparently been thinking.
“Mom, we need to go through their things.”
I looked at her.
