“Have you been telling my daughter to hide pictures?

To stop talking about Rebecca?

To stay away when we talk about the house?” Brenda said nothing.

She looked off toward the mountains, her jaw set, and her silence was its own answer.

And then, from behind me, in a voice that trembled but carried clearly enough for the nearest guests to hear, my daughter found her courage.

“She put Mom’s favorite picture in the back of a kitchen drawer last month, Dad,” Hannah said.

“And she told me not to tell you, because you were too stressed with work.”