There was no gentleness, no shared sorrow, none of the softness of a man mourning his brother and worrying over a traumatized child.

There was only impatience, sharp and controlled and urgent, the impatience of a man who very badly needed a particular thing to stop happening.

Marcus did not want his brother comforted.

He wanted his brother’s casket left alone.

And in that moment, I understood, with a clarity that cut straight through my grief, that my daughter and my brother-in-law were telling me two completely different stories, and that only one of them could be true.

Chapter 7 — Two Thumps