“I just don’t know how I’m going to tell them.” His voice was hoarse and his chin trembled as he spoke. “The counselor at the hospital said to be as straightforward as possible, without giving them too many details.”
I swallowed before speaking again. “Do you know . . . how did she . . . ?” My words were disjointed, trailing off, unsure of the right way to ask what I wanted to know.
Victor sniffed and cleared his throat, looking the tiniest bit more like himself. “They’re not sure what happened yet, other than that her heart stopped. They have to run some blood tests, I guess, and they’ll know more.” He paused. “There was an empty prescription bottle on the nightstand next to her bed.”
“Oh no.” I took a deep breath and I rubbed his back with my open palm. “What kind of pills?”
“Antianxiety. She’s taken them before. Mostly because she has trouble sleeping.”
Hearing these words, dread twisted in my chest. Oh god. Victor said she didn’t take the news of our engagement very well. What if it was worse than he thought? She was fragile to begin with. What if it pushed her over the edge? My eyes filled with tears, terrified that I had contributed in any way to her death. I hesitated a moment before asking the next question that leapt into my mind. “Was there a note?”
For a brief moment, he almost looked angry, but then he shook his head again. “I don’t want the kids to think that, okay? We don’t know anything for sure.” His tone was a little sharp, one he hadn’t used with me before. He was protective of her, still. I knew he’d played the caretaker role in their marriage—a role he became exhausted of after having to do it too long. I needed to be strong for him now. I needed to not crumble.
“What are you going to say?” I asked.
“The truth. That we don’t know what happened. That she lay down in her bed and didn’t wake up. I don’t think they need more information than that. Not now.”
“What do you need me to do?” I caressed his face with my left hand, and he lifted his own up to hold it there. Touching my fingers, he pulled it away from his face.
“Where’s your ring?” he asked.
My eyes filled unexpectedly. “I took it off. The kids are going to have enough to deal with. We can tell them later.” I searched his face, wiping away an errant tear that slipped down my cheek. “Was that right?”
He rested his forehead against mine. “I love you so much, you know that?” I nodded, then kissed his lips. He took a deep breath, grabbed my hand, and we walked down the hall, bracing ourselves to deliver the news that would no doubt change us all.
Ava
I knew something had to be really wrong the minute I saw Grace standing in the office next to Max. Grace didn’t come to our school. She didn’t make brownies for our bake sales like my mom or chaperone our field trips to the Seattle Art Museum like my dad. The only thing Grace did was work, live with my dad, and drive a car that probably cost more than my mother’s whole house, which is something I overheard my mom say once to Diane.
“How much do you think she paid for it?” Diane asked in a low voice, and my mother answered, “Well, it’s a Lexus. It couldn’t have been cheap.” Then she said the thing about it probably costing more than our house, which I knew couldn’t really be true. And even though I was around the corner in the hallway, eavesdropping as they sat on the couch and drank from a box of wine Diane brought over, I could picture the look on my mother’s face: her tiny nose all crinkled up and her eyes narrowed, the same way she looked when she accidentally opened a carton of moldy cottage cheese.
“Does Grace have a lot of jewelry?” Mama asked me once when Max and I got home from our dad’s house. She was sitting on the edge of my bed as I studied for a history test the next day.
“I don’t know,” I said, keeping my eyes on my notes. “She has diamond earrings she wears sometimes.” At this point, Grace hadn’t moved in yet, so I only saw her a couple of times a month. I felt weird talking to my mom about