My husband, Ben, and I had five girls and three boys.
Our house was never quiet, and I loved every messy, crowded, exhausting second.
When our boys got old enough, Ben started taking them on father-and-sons weekends to the cabin in the woods he inherited from his grandfather.
Five years ago, I waved at them as they left for a weekend at the cabin.
It was the last time I saw them.
My hands started shaking when I unfolded it and saw Ben’s handwriting.
If anything happens to me, don’t believe what you’re told. I’m sorry, but I did something stupid. Go to the cabin. Look under the rug.
I read it three times, and each time my heartbeat climbed higher.
Lucy started crying. “The police lied to you. It wasn’t the way Aaron told you it was.”
She looked past me, and I turned, following her gaze to the man sleeping beside me in an old police T-shirt.
Aaron.
The man who told me my husband’s death was an accident.
Your dad didn’t make a careless mistake,” I said. “He found out about something wrong, and he was trying to do the right thing.”
I stood there with my daughters and felt the grief move through me again, old and new at once.
Then Lucy leaned against my side and said, very softly, “Dad was good.”
I looked at the cross, at the flowers trembling in the wind, and answered the only way I could.
“Yes,” I said. “He was.”
