Chapter 17 - Lucy asks about the coffins
Children do not grieve on adult schedules.
Two months after the funeral, Lucy asked:
“Are Miles and Owen still in the boxes?”
I froze.
We were eating cereal.
No therapist.
No prepared answer.
“Yes.”
“Forever?”
“Their bodies are buried at the cemetery.”
She frowned.
“Can they get cold?”
I swallowed.
“No.”
“How?”
I gave an age-appropriate answer about bodies not feeling after death.
Then she asked:
“Did Grandma make them die?”
There it was.
I wanted to say yes.
Instead:
“Grandma gave them medicine she was not supposed to give them. Doctors believe it helped make their bodies stop working.”
Lucy stared at her cereal.
“Why?”
“We don’t think Grandma wanted them to die.”
“Then why medicine?”
“She thought she knew something she did not know.”
Lucy nodded slowly.
Then:
“Daddy said no snow.”
I looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
And stopped myself.
No interview.
No excavation at breakfast.
I said:
“You already told the people who needed to know.”
She ate another spoonful.
May you like
That was my job now.
Not turning my daughter into a witness forever.
