“I promise.”
A pause.
Then she threw away Grandma’s quilt.
Clare closed her eyes.
“I got it out of the trash.”
“It is under my bed.”
Silence, a long one.
“Mom, are you still there?”
“I am here, baby.”
“I am always here.”
Clare put the phone down.
She sat on the edge of her father’s bed and she cried.
Not the quiet kind.
Not the kind where you wipe your eyes and keep moving.
The ugly kind.
The kind where your body shakes and you press a pillow over your face so no one in the next room hears you breaking.
7 months pregnant.
Father just buried.
Children being told she abandoned them.
Her home dismantled piece by piece by a woman who had walked in carrying suitcases and started erasing her before the front door closed.
There are moments when everything hits at once.
Grief and betrayal and helplessness all arriving at the same door at the same time.
And the most dangerous thing you can do in that moment is make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotional state.
Cry, fall apart, let it be ugly, but do not act until the storm passes.
The storm always passes.
Clare’s storm passed at 3:00 in the morning.
She washed her face.
She called Thomas Whitfield.
And she began to plan.
She thought the worst was over.
