Chapter 9
The burial happened without Victoria near us.
That was the first mercy of the day.
The funeral director rearranged the procession quietly.
Paul walked beside me.
Leo held my hand.
The folded flag moved in solemn hands toward the graveside.
I watched Thomas’s casket lower beneath the gray Illinois sky and felt something inside me tear without sound.
Grief is not one emotion.
It is a weather system.
Love.
Anger.
Shock.
Fear.
Memory.
Regret.
All moving at once.
Leo leaned against me.
“Can Dad still hear us?”
I swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
He nodded.
Then whispered toward the casket, “I tried.”
I nearly fell apart.
Because he had.
My little boy had tried to protect his father’s voice when grown people stood silent.
After the burial, Victoria attempted one more performance.
She approached slowly, Beatrice behind her, face arranged into wounded dignity.
“Leo,” she said softly.
He stepped behind me.
She looked at me.
“You are turning him against his family.”
I stared at her.
“No.”
“You did that when you lunged for his father’s phone.”
Her mouth tightened.
“You don’t know what Thomas was going to say.”
I looked at her carefully.
“Then why were you so desperate to stop him?”
For once, she had no answer.
Beatrice looked at her sister with something new in her eyes.
Suspicion.
That mattered.
Not because Beatrice was brave.
But because Victoria had relied on automatic belief.
And now belief had cracked.
An officer approached before Victoria could speak again.
“Mrs. Morgan, we need you to come with us to answer some questions.”
Victoria lifted her chin.
“I have nothing to hide.”
Leo’s hand tightened around mine.
I did not reply.
Neither did the officer.
They led Victoria away from the graveside, not in handcuffs, not yet, but with enough formality that every mourner understood the funeral had become something else.
Thomas had been buried.
May you like
But whatever he recorded was still rising.
Read the full story 👉 At the graveside, Victoria tried to reclaim control, but one question from Claire left her silent in front of the mourners.
