Chapter 1 - The Call Before Dawn
Four days earlier, Charles woke to the sound of his phone ringing at 4:17 in the morning.
For several seconds, he lay in darkness, listening to the rain strike the bedroom windows. No one called at that hour with good news.
When he answered, an unfamiliar man asked if he was Emily Bennett’s father.
Charles sat up immediately.
The man introduced himself as an emergency physician from St. Matthew’s Hospital. Emily’s car had left the road during a storm and struck a barrier. Paramedics had brought her to the hospital, but her injuries had been too severe.
Charles remembered asking the doctor to repeat himself.
The words did not become more understandable the second time.
His daughter was dead.
Emily, who had called him every Sunday evening.
Emily, who remembered everyone’s birthday.
Emily, who had once driven six hours through a snowstorm because April had told her Grandpa sounded lonely.
Gone.
Charles dressed without turning on the lights. His hands shook so badly that he buttoned his shirt incorrectly twice.
At the hospital, he found Lucy, Rachel, and April sitting beneath the fluorescent lights of a private waiting room.
Lucy was fourteen and understood everything.
Rachel was eleven and seemed to understand only pieces.
April, who had turned seven a month earlier, kept asking when her mother would wake up.
Arthur stood near the window, speaking quietly on his phone.
He ended the call when Charles entered.
“What happened?” Charles asked.
Arthur placed the phone in his pocket.
“She lost control in the rain.”
“Was she alone?”
“Yes.”
“Why was she driving at that hour?”
Arthur’s expression hardened.
“She said she needed space. Emily had been emotional lately.”
Charles looked toward his granddaughters.
Lucy was watching her father with an expression Charles had never seen on a child before.
It was not grief.
It was suspicion.
Charles sat beside the girls and gathered them into his arms.
Arthur did not join them.
A nurse entered with a clear plastic bag containing Emily’s personal belongings. Inside were her damaged phone, her wedding ring, a silver bracelet, and the keys to her car.
Arthur immediately took the bag.
Charles noticed that Emily’s wedding ring was not on her finger.
“She removed it before the accident?” he asked.
Arthur glanced down.
“The doctors must have taken it off.”
The nurse shook her head.
“It was found inside her coat pocket.”
Arthur’s jaw tightened.
Lucy looked at Charles again.
Later, while Arthur completed paperwork, Charles took the girls to the hospital cafeteria. Rachel and April barely touched their food.
Lucy waited until her sisters were sitting at another table with a nurse.
Then she whispered, “Mom was going to leave Dad.”
Charles stared at her.
“Did she tell you that?”
“She said we might stay with you for a while.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
Charles reached across the table and held her hand.
“Did she say why?”
Lucy looked toward the doorway to make sure Arthur was not approaching.
“She said Dad had done something bad with our money.”
Before Charles could ask another question, Arthur entered the cafeteria.
His eyes moved from Charles to Lucy.
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” Lucy answered quickly.
Arthur studied her for several seconds.
Then he smiled.
It was a calm, careful smile that did not reach his eyes.
“We need to start planning your mother’s funeral,” he said. “After that, we will discuss what happens to everyone.”
Charles heard the distance in his words.
Not what happens to us.
May you like
What happens to everyone.
At that moment, Charles understood that his daughter’s death was not the only disaster approaching the family.
