At dawn, Lucas asked for breakfast cereal and then refused to eat it.

Joanne sat beside him in the family lounge and told him a story about Rachel learning to ride a bicycle at age six.

She had fallen into the grass, scraped both knees, and immediately demanded to try again.

Lucas listened for a moment, then asked the question nobody wanted to hear: “If Mommy was alive, why did they put her in the ground?”

Joanne closed her eyes.