Chapter 1 - The Photo From the Beach
I found out my family had gone to the Bahamas while I was arranging my son’s funeral because my sister posted a photo.
Not because anyone called.
Not because my mother cried and confessed she could not face another burial.
Not because my father had enough shame to explain himself.
I found out from Chloe’s smiling face on a beach, yellow dress blowing in the wind, one hand wrapped around a piña colada.
Her caption said:
“Thankful for this family that always shows up when I need them most.”
I stared at those words until the phone blurred in my hand.
My name is Melissa Bennett. I was thirty-eight years old, a widow, and that week I was also preparing to bury my twelve-year-old son beside his father.
Thomas, my husband, had died six months earlier when a drunk driver hit his truck on the way home from fishing.
Our son, Lucas, survived the crash.
For six months, I lived beside his hospital bed.
I read him baseball scores. I told him about his classmates. I described the weather. I held his hand and promised I would be there when he woke up.
He never did.
When the hospital called that July morning, I knew before the doctor said the words.
Lucas was gone.
I called my mother and told her I needed help.
May you like
There was silence.
Then she said, “We fly to the Bahamas tomorrow. The trip is already paid for.”
