I remembered hearing Sabine whisper something.
After that—
Nothing.
Until the coffin.
Footsteps approached.
I forced my breathing to remain shallow.
Through the opening, I saw my mother, Deborah, standing beside Preston.
Her face looked gray with grief.
“Don’t even bury her yet,” she said, “and you’re already giving away her things.”
Preston sighed.
“Deborah, Renee told me more than once that if anything happened to her, she wanted Sabine to have this.”
His hand entered my narrow field of vision.
Something gold hung from his fingers.
My necklace.
The necklace my grandmother had given me when I turned fifteen.
I had worn it nearly every day since.
My mother stared at him.
“She never took that off.”
“That’s why she wouldn’t want it sitting in a box.”
Preston turned.
Sabine stood near the window.
My sister was wearing black.
Her mascara had been carefully smudged.
Not ruined.
Smudged.
As if she had practiced crying in a mirror.
Preston stepped behind her.
