Part 2: “What do you mean?” Lucy left the bag on the table and untied the rope.
There were three things inside:
An old phone.
A worn-out notebook.
A small USB memory.
“Mom told us that if anything happened to her, we should give them to someone who still wanted her.” I looked at the notebook on the phone, and then my granddaughter. Rose hadn’t abandoned us; she knew the truth.
And Arthur had no idea we knew her.
PART 1 — THE SECRET ROSE THAT LEFT BEHIND
More than two hundred mourners remained silently around my daughter’s grave.
Arthur had no idea that his three daughters had already hidden his mother’s notebook, an old phone and a last one day that he would destroy his new life, carefully planned.
“If no one agrees to take care of the girls, I will contact the social services on Monday,” my son-in-law said next to Rose’s coffin. “I’m not going to give up my future to raise daughters whose mother is gone.”
He didn’t whisper.
He didn’t seem heartbroken.
He spoke loud enough for all the relatives present at Savannah Cemetery to hear it.
Rose had been buried less than an hour ago.
He was only thirty-five years old.
And while the scent of white lilies was still floating in the humid air, her husband already spoke of her daughters as if they were unwanted objects that she should get rid of.
I felt a knot in my throat.
