The final words my husband said were, “Don’t be scared, Mara. I’ve got you.”
Then the headlights swallowed us whole.
The truck burst through the rain like a beast without brakes. One moment, Daniel was laughing, his wedding band glinting on the steering wheel. The next, glass shattered across my face, metal shrieked, and the world flipped over.
When I came to, I was in a hospital bed, stitched together like something unfinished.
Daniel was gone.
His mother, Evelyn Voss, stood beside my bed in a black dress worth more than our wedding. She didn’t cry. She looked at me the way people look at a stain on white silk.
“You survived,” she said quietly. “How unfortunate.”
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