PART 3: The Unburied Past
“How… how is that possible?” I whispered, my blood running cold as I looked from the box to my parents.
My mother had gone completely silent.
She stood on the porch, her face draining of all color, her hands trembling as she clutched her robe tightly around her chest.
“Mom?” I turned to her, a terrible, sickening feeling blooming in my chest. “Why is Daniel’s mother’s box on our property?”
My father slowly lowered the flashlight, his jaw set in a hard, grim line. He turned around and looked up at my mother on the porch.
“I told you,” my dad said quietly, his voice heavy with a decade of unexpressed grief and guilt. “I told you that if he ever came to this house, the truth would find its way out.”
Daniel took a step toward my father, his shock twisting into pure, volatile rage. “What did you do to my mother?!”
“Your mother didn’t die in a hit-and-run on the highway, Daniel,” my father confessed softly, dropping his head in shame. “She died right here, in this driveway, twenty-seven years ago.”
“My wife was driving home late during a heavy rainstorm,” my dad continued, tears filling his eyes. “Evelyn was walking along the unlit rural road. It was an accident… a horrible, devastating accident. My wife panicked. She thought she would go to prison and leave Helen without a mother.”
