Aaron looked at me one last time. His mouth opened like he wanted to say something, but whatever it was, he let it die there.
Then his colleagues guided him out the door to the cruiser parked at the curb.
Mrs. Henderson across the road froze, garden hose in hand, and stared as they guided Aaron into the backseat. Old Mr. Donalds pulled his dog to a halt and stood there on the sidewalk, staring.
By evening, the entire neighborhood knew Aaron
“I’ll come quietly.”
Since then, I’ve gone down to the station to give an official statement and fielded tons of questions from nosy neighbors.
This morning, I drove my girls to the memorial marker.
We brought new artificial flowers because the old ones had faded.
The girls stood in a line beside me as I told them how a letter Ben had hidden in Lucy’s bear had led me to the truth about what happened the day their father and brothers died.
I drove my girls to the memorial marker.
“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.
