My knees almost gave out. I gripped the cold brass handle of Ava’s coffin just to stay standing.
“Please,” I begged. “Ryan, please. Be quiet today. Not here. Not in front of them.”
His hand struck my face.
The blow spun me sideways. My temple hit the wooden pedestal with a sickening crack, and the chapel gasped as one. Before I fell, Ryan grabbed my hair and pulled me upright.
“Speak to me like that in public again,” he whispered, “and you’ll join them.”
Then he let me go.
Through my tears, I saw Brooke watching with a faint smile. Every instinct screamed at me to fight back. But then a cold clarity pierced through the grief.
If I screamed now, I would become exactly what Ryan had spent weeks painting me as: the unstable, hysterical mother.
He had cried beautifully for local news cameras, blaming the crash on bad weather and our babysitter’s driving. He had emptied our accounts. He had whispered to relatives that I was refusing food, losing my mind, and seeing things.
