Where Evil Lives

MADDIE HAD KEPT her eyes closed as a whirlpool of sights and sounds played in her head. Light from the stained glass windows danced across two caskets covered with sprays of white gardenias and pink peonies. Mournful sobbing had interrupted a hush of loss. She had wanted to scream until her vocal cords snapped. “It’s all a terrible mistake. Mom and Annie aren’t in there.”

The words, “Comin’ for to carry me home” filled the church and drew her into the present.

Standing next to Brian and Sam, she watched as six pallbearers made their way down the aisle with a pink casket adorned with pink and white roses. When it rolled to a stop, she reached out and touched it. One tear broke free, then another, followed by an unbroken stream. No longer able to contain the extent of her grief, she sank into the pew, rocked back and forth, and keened like a wounded animal. Never expecting to bury her nine-year-old child, death had again defined the order of her existence.

At the burial service, the weather should have been as raw and unforgiving as her emotions. But the birds sang, and the flowers bloomed to show how the world would go on without her daughter. Crouched in front of the casket, the image of her lying in a cold box filled Maddie with a ball of tangled grief. As unchecked tears rolled down her face, she blocked out the condolences, even the heartfelt ones from Julia and the Strathmores. All she heard was the voice in her head repeating, Not again, not again, not again.

Sam knelt beside her, cradled her in his arms, and kissed the top of her head. “Somehow, we will get through this.”

She dragged her fingers through the freshly dug dirt. “I won’t.”

His hands on her shoulders, he guided her upright. “Let’s get Brian and go home.”

She glanced at her son leaning against a nearby oak tree, hands shoved in his pockets. Her heart shattered again at the vacant look on his face. The magnitude of his despair must be titanic.