Chapter 10
Lauren drove to the cemetery alone.
Claire, through her attorney, had asked permission to send flowers to the grave.
Lauren refused.
Then changed her mind.
Then refused again.
She finally told the attorney Claire could do whatever she wanted because Lauren was exhausted by the idea that accepting flowers meant forgiveness and rejecting them meant hatred.
A small arrangement appeared anyway.
Lauren stood beside it for ten minutes.
Then she carried it to her car.
At home Ethan found her separating the flowers over the kitchen sink.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving the good ones.”
He looked at the pile.
“Is that allowed?”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
She placed three white roses in a jar.
The rest went into the trash.
“You keeping Claire’s flowers?”
“They’re flowers.”
Ethan smiled.
Lauren pointed a stem at him.
“Don’t make this symbolic.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“I was a little.”
She shook her head.
For the first time, Claire’s name existed in the room without ruining the day.
The investigation into Teresa’s death eventually produced a clearer sequence.
Claire’s SUV had struck Teresa’s car.
Whether Claire intended to hit it could not be proven. Evidence supported reckless driving, not deliberate homicide.
After the crash, Claire failed to call for help.
Instead she used Teresa’s death to conceal what she had already done to Lauren.
Owen altered records and misrepresented the status of identification to facilitate transfer of the remains.
Neither scheme was sophisticated.
Both relied on confusion, timing, professional trust, and the fact that people rarely imagine someone is lying about a dead sister.
That last fact stayed with Ethan.
Trust had not failed because everyone was foolish.
Trust had been used as a tool.
Claire knew which questions people would consider rude.
She knew Ethan would not demand to see Lauren’s damaged body after being warned it would traumatize him.
She knew the funeral home would defer to a colleague.
She knew relatives would let the grieving sister handle paperwork.
She knew Noah could be told adults were busy.
She knew Lauren’s unfinished argument with Ethan would make Ethan ashamed enough to accept help.
Claire had not invented their weaknesses.
She had simply known them.
Six months after the funeral, prosecutors offered Claire an agreement that would require her to accept responsibility for a long list of offenses connected to Lauren’s confinement, the financial theft, evidence manipulation, and Teresa’s death.
The attorneys described the possible outcomes in careful language.
Lauren listened.
Then she asked only one question.
“Would Teresa’s family have to go through a trial if she takes it?”
The prosecutor said probably not, though some proceedings would remain.
Lauren looked at Ethan.
He understood.
Later, in the parking garage, he asked, “Are you sure?”
“No.”
“You don’t have to decide for them.”
“I’m not.”
“It sounded like—”
“I don’t want to spend two years making my life about whether Claire gets the maximum possible punishment.”
Ethan leaned against the car.
“That doesn’t mean you forgive her.”
Lauren’s expression hardened.
“I know.”
“Sorry.”
She looked away.
After a moment she said, “I hate that everybody keeps using that word.”
“Forgive?”
“Yes.”
A car passed behind them.
Lauren waited until it was gone.
“People ask if I forgive her because they want the story to end somewhere comfortable.”
Ethan said nothing.
“She drugged me. She locked me in a room. She sat with my son while he cried because he thought I was dead. She almost buried another woman under my name.”
Her voice remained quiet.
“I can understand how she got there. I can remember that she changed Mom’s diapers when I couldn’t make myself stay in the room. I can remember she once drove six hours because my college boyfriend dumped me. None of that turns into forgiveness just because people like clean endings.”
Ethan nodded.
“What do you want?”
“I want to stop answering that question.”
So he stopped asking it.
Claire accepted the agreement three weeks later.
Owen did too.
Teresa’s family attended the sentencing hearing.
Lauren attended because Marisol asked her to sit nearby.
Ethan sat behind them with Noah, who was now nine and had been given the choice to stay home.
He wanted to come.
Claire entered the courtroom without looking toward them.
When given an opportunity to speak, she stood.
Ethan braced for explanation.
Claire gripped the lectern.
“I have spent months trying to figure out how to say this without making excuses.”
She paused.
Her attorney looked at her.
“There isn’t a way.”
Another pause.
“I stole from my mother. I lied to my sister. I drugged her because I was afraid she would expose me. I caused a crash because I was not paying attention to the road. A woman died.”
Marisol’s shoulders stiffened.
Claire looked toward Teresa’s family.
“I could have called for help. I didn’t. I saw a way to protect myself, and I used her.”
Her voice shook.
“I used Teresa. I used Lauren. I used Noah. I used Ethan’s grief. Owen helped me because I asked him to, and then I let him keep helping.”
Ethan watched Lauren.
She looked straight ahead.
Claire continued.
“I wish I could say I became someone else that night. I didn’t. I was me. That’s the part I have the hardest time living with.”
The courtroom remained silent.
She did not ask for forgiveness.
Ethan was grateful for that.
When she sat down, Lauren released a breath.
Noah leaned toward Ethan.
“Is she going to prison?”
“Yes.”
“For a long time?”
“Yes.”
Noah thought about it.
“Can Mom visit her?”
“If she wants to someday.”
“Does she?”
Ethan looked at Lauren.
“I don’t know.”
After court, Marisol hugged Lauren.
It was brief.
Then she hugged Noah.
“You saved your mom,” she told him.
Noah looked uncomfortable.
“I just heard her.”
Marisol’s eyes filled.
“Sometimes hearing somebody is the important part.”
Ethan looked away.
May you like
The sentence found him too easily.
A year after the funeral, the Blake house had changed in small ways.
