Then I picked up his hymnal off the floor, because I’m a polite woman even when I’m furious, and I set it on the pew. And I walked back down that center aisle in my good blue dress while the whole congregation sang on, and I didn’t look back, not because I’m strong, but because if I’d looked back I’d have seen that little boy’s face and I wasn’t going to be able to drive.

That was three weeks ago. Diane has called me twice. We talked for two hours the second time, two women comparing notes on the same lie, and that’s a friendship I never wanted and can’t seem to put down. Mark moved into a motel by the highway. He’s left me eleven voicemails. I haven’t listened to a single one.

I still have both booklets. They’re in the kitchen drawer with the takeout menus. Some nights I take them out and lay them side by side on the counter like I did that first morning. Mark and Brenda. Mark and Diane, and family. And I just stand there in my own kitchen, sixty-one years old, trying to figure out which one of us he actually buried.