Prologue #2
Patrick and Theresa’s house became our refuge. Sunday dinners stretched longer. The cousins wore themselves out while the adults lingered, pretending everything was fine.
Theresa knew. My sister-in-law had always been able to read me, and one evening she cornered me in her kitchen while the men were outside with the kids.
“You’re scared,” she said. Not a question.
I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak.
“Michael told Patrick about the trial. About the threats.” She dried a wine glass, taking her time with it. “Patrick wanted to hire private security.”
“We can’t live like that. Like prisoners.” I stared at my hands, at the gold band Michael had put on my finger. “We can’t let them take our lives just because we’re afraid.”
“Being afraid isn’t weakness, Shell.”
“I know. But giving in to it is.”
Theresa set down the glass and pulled me into a hug, and I held on harder than I should have.
“We’re so proud of you,” she said. “Both of you.”
“I just want my kids to be safe,” I managed.
“They will be. You and Michael, you’re doing the right thing.”
I wanted to believe her.
The night before Theresa’s birthday, I couldn’t sleep.
Michael was beside me, out cold, but I lay awake counting the days until the trial. Six weeks. Forty-two days.
I slipped out of bed and checked on the boys. Blaze was sprawled sideways across his mattress, comic books scattered around him. Fury had kicked off his blankets and was clutching a basketball in his sleep. Of course he was.
Rose’s room was last.
She was curled on her side, stuffed bunny tucked under her chin, flame-kissed hair, so much like mine, fanned across the pillow. Two years old. The baby we’d almost given up on. The one who made it when three others didn’t.
I sat in the rocking chair and watched her breathe.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry the world is like this. I’m sorry bad people exist and good people have to fight them.” I tucked the blanket tighter around her small body. “But your dad’s doing the right thing. The brave thing.”
Rose stirred. Rolled over. Settled.
I kissed her forehead and sat there until my own eyes got heavy, making promises I didn’t know if I could keep.
The party was good. Theresa cried when she opened our gift, a first edition of a poetry collection she’d been hunting for years. Patrick made his famous brisket. The kids ran wild until they dropped, collapsing onto couches and laps and every soft surface they could find.
Now we were heading home. January night, cold and clear, the kind of sky you only get in Northern California winter. Sharp stars, no clouds, everything still.
Rose was out before we hit the highway. She’d spent the entire party chasing her older cousins on those stubborn little legs, and now she was slumped in her car seat, dark hair across her face, dead to the world.
Blaze was losing his fight with sleep in the back, head nodding, jerking up, nodding again. Eleven years old and too proud to admit he was tired.
But Fury. My middle child. Nine years old and still running on whatever fuel God gave him when we decided to name this kid after his own energy.
“And then, Mom, are you listening, then Brody put the frog in Uncle Patrick’s boot, and Patrick didn’t even notice until he was putting it on, and the frog jumped out and landed on Aunt Theresa’s lap and she screamed so loud—”
I turned in my seat to watch him, smiling. His hands moved when he talked, the same way Michael’s did. The same intensity. The same inability to tell a story without using his whole body.
“I’m listening, baby. The frog in Uncle Patrick’s boot.”
“Right, so Aunt Theresa screamed, and then Blaze said—”
I never heard what Blaze said.
Michael’s hand shot out and grabbed my arm. His fingers dug in hard enough to bruise.
“SHELLY—”
I turned.
Headlights. Massive. Blinding. On our side of the road, coming straight at us.
A semi truck, crossing the center line. So close I could see the grill.
Michael yanked the wheel. The car lurched, loss of control, tires screaming on asphalt.
Not enough.
The truck filled the windshield.
I reached back. Reached for Rose, for Fury, for Blaze.
Not my babies. Please, God, not my—
Impact. Metal on metal, the loudest sound I’d ever heard, and then my body wasn’t mine anymore. I was thrown sideways. Something broke inside me. Michael’s hand was ripped from my arm.
Then silence. The wrong kind.
Pain, everywhere, so much of it that my brain just... stopped trying to catalog it.
Michael wasn’t moving. I could see his face in the orange glow of the dashboard, and I knew. Before the thought formed. Before I could make myself understand what I was looking at.
He was gone.
I tried to turn. Tried to see my children.
My body wouldn’t do it.
The kids. Are the kids—
Crying. Fury’s voice, high and broken: “Mom? MOM?”
Alive. He’s alive. Thank—
The dark was pulling at me. Heavy. Patient.
Someone has to help them. Someone has to—
Rose—
The last thing I heard was Fury screaming for help.
The last thing I thought was the only prayer I had left:
Let them live. Please. Whatever happens to me, let my babies live.