The Unbreakable Widow

ng I remembe

broken planks of the abandoned barn. It was a cold that

ing their dutiful daughter-in-law, their live-in nurse, their servant.

eir final note said.

are for a family that was never truly mine. They left everything-th

orgotten woman in

heard

lilies and stale coffee. My eyes snapped open. I wasn't in the barn.

Her face, usually a mask of pinched cruelty, was a publ

enough for the whole church to hear. "Don't you worry. W

ame false promise that had

mber faces. My daughter, seven-year-old Molly, sat beside me, her small hand clut

I was back. Twenty

n, something else surged through me, h

a

"You're in shock, dear. Let me get you something to calm

r numb me, make me pliable. I let her g

this

abrupt, so violent, that she stumbled back

said, my voice

, widened in surprise. "Gabrielle

ned the crowd, my gaze sweeping past the stoic, complicit face of my fath

is Roberts. Andrew's captain. The administrator for the Firefighter's Union

pulling Mo

Debra hissed, her sweet

ocked stares. I walked away from the coffin, away from the lies, and s

ce steady. "I'm Gabrielle Chadwic