“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I should have come for you.”

My husband, Jordan, joined me twice.

Then he stopped.

“It’s not healthy, Jackie,” he said one Sunday morning. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“She’s my daughter.”

“Then stop falling apart every weekend.”

At the cemetery that day, rain soaked through my coat while I placed roses beside her headstone.

“Maya,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Behind me, boots scraped against gravel.

“Ma’am?”

I turned and saw Otis, the cemetery groundskeeper.

He glanced at the flowers, then at me.

“Can I ask you something?”

I nodded.

“The woman who visits your daughter every Thursday always brings yellow daisies,” he said. “She says Maya liked them.”

My stomach tightened.

“What woman?”

“The blonde woman. Dark SUV. Comes early in the morning.”

“No one else visits Maya.”

Otis hesitated.

“Yes, ma’am. She does.”

“What does she say?”

His face grew serious.

“She apologizes.”

My blood ran cold.

“Why would a stranger apologize to my daughter?”

Otis lowered his voice.

“Because I don’t think you know the whole truth about what happened.”

And suddenly, everything I believed about Maya’s death began to crack.

PART 2

The following Thursday, I waited near the cemetery entrance.

At 8:06 a.m., a dark SUV pulled through the gates.

A blonde woman stepped out carrying yellow daisies.

Before she reached Maya’s grave, I stopped her.

“Are those for my daughter?”

She froze.

“Yes.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Katherine.”

“That means nothing to me.”

 

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