I dressed her carefully in one of my favorite dresses. My hands shook as I slid my wedding ring onto her finger. Then I unclasped the necklace Gusion once gave me, the one I held onto long after love was gone.
Nana used to tug on it when she was little.
“Mommy, is this magic?” she’d asked, wide-eyed.
“No, baby,” I’d laughed. “But Daddy gave it to me, so it matters.”
“Then it is magic,” she’d said, curling into me.
That memory almost broke me. Now she clung to Hanabi instead.
I placed the necklace around the corpse’s neck and stepped back. The woman on the bed was no longer a stranger. She was Miya Colombo.
That night, before everything burned, I made one last call.
It rang. Once. Twice. Three times. No answer.
I already knew why. My mother had called earlier, her voice falsely gentle.
“They left for Paris this morning,” she said. “It was good for Hanabi's health.. You should understand.”
Paris. A honeymoon for them. A family trip for my daughter. Without me.
I stopped calling and opened my messages.
To Gusion Colombo: