Do not trust the death certificate without the original file.
And please, if there is anything decent left between the man I met years ago and the man they say you became, help my children know they were loved.
My hands had gone numb.
Elise looked at me, all color drained from her face.
Maya whispered, “What death certificate?”
But I could not answer.
Because beneath Evan’s message, tucked into the fold, was a photograph.
A woman stood on a beach with windblown hair and a baby in each arm.
Anna.
The twins’ mother.
On the back, written in the same hurried hand, was a date from only eight months ago.
Eight months ago.
Not years.
Not when the twins were babies.
Eight months ago, Anna Bennett had been alive.
And in the corner of the photograph, half-hidden behind her shoulder, stood Claire Bennett.
Smiling.
PART 3
For a long
