It is a pain I would not wish on my worst enemy.

All I can do now is try to honor her memory, and find a way to move forward.”

In the aisle, Gretchen caught his eye and gave him the smallest, most private smile of triumph.

They were, the two of them believed, minutes away from total freedom.

And that was the moment I had chosen.

Outside, in the cold, in an ice-blue trench coat, with my father’s security director beside me carrying my sleeping son, I put my hand on the great double doors of the chapel, and I pushed them open.