CHAPTER 2
“If no one is willing to take responsibility for those girls, I’ll turn them over to Child Protective Services on Monday. I’m not throwing away my life raising children whose mother is already dead.”
Those were the words my son-in-law decided to speak beside my daughter’s coffin.
Not under his breath.
Not while crying.
Not like a heartbroken husband standing above the woman he had once vowed to love for the rest of his life.
He said them loudly, in the center of the cemetery in Savannah, Georgia, while the soil covering Rose’s grave was still fresh and the smell of white lilies remained in the damp afternoon air. My daughter had been buried less than an hour before. She was just thirty-five years old. And before the mourners had even started leaving, Arthur was already discussing how to get rid of their three daughters, as though they were nothing but an obstacle between him and the new life he wanted.
Something deep inside my chest shattered. Standing beside me were my granddaughters:
Twelve-year-old Lucy gripped her mother’s framed photograph so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.
Nine-year-old Rachel stared wordlessly at the newly covered grave, her expression completely blank.
Little April, only six years old, pressed herself against my black coat, shaking so violently that I felt every tremor running through her tiny body.
Arthur appeared completely untouched by sorrow. His custom gray suit looked flawless. His expensive shoes still shone despite the wet, muddy ground. A luxury watch rested beneath his shirt cuff. There was not a single tear on his face. His phone buzzed. He looked down, read the message, and the faintest smile appeared on his lips—as if someone somewhere was already waiting to celebrate with him.
I stared straight at him. “What did you just say?”
He gave a long, irritated sigh, as though I were the one making an already difficult day worse. “Charles,” he answered calmly, “don’t start this. Rose is gone. I have every right to continue with my life.”
“And what about your daughters?”
His gaze moved toward the girls for hardly a second. Then he dismissed them with a careless flick of his hand. “My girlfriend has no interest in raising three girls who barely show me any respect. You’re their grandfather. If they mean that much to you... then you take them.”
A suffocating silence fell across the cemetery. Several family members dropped their eyes. My godmother covered her mouth with both hands. Even the priest quietly turned his face away, unwilling to watch what had just taken place.
For one short moment, I wanted to strike him. I wanted to erase that smug expression from his face before he could say another word. But then I felt a tiny hand close around mine. April. She held my fingers so tightly that my fury melted into something even more painful: heartbreak.
When I looked down at the girls, I immediately sensed that something was wrong. Lucy was not crying. That terrified me more than anything Arthur had said. She did not look angry. She was not pleading with her father to stay. She simply watched him with a calm, impossible-to-read expression that no twelve-year-old child should ever wear.
Then she turned toward Rachel. Rachel met her eyes. At last, they both looked at little April. The three sisters shared a silent understanding. No words. No tears. Only a single look.
A look that caused my stomach to tighten. At that moment, I understood that they already knew something I did not.
I lowered myself beside them. “You’re coming home with me,” I whispered.
May you like
Arthur gave a soft laugh. “Perfect. That takes care of my problem.”
He never embraced his daughters before leaving. He never kissed them on their foreheads. He never asked whether they had clothes, medication, or even somewhere to sleep. He simply turned away and headed toward a white van parked beyond the cemetery gates. A young woman wearing oversized black sunglasses sat inside. She smiled the instant she saw him coming. He climbed into the seat beside her. The van pulled away, and he did not look back.
