She laughed and hugged me. I wish I could go back and hold her longer.
When Abigail became pregnant, she glowed. She called me every week to describe the nursery colors, the tiny socks she bought, the name she chose for the baby. Isaac. She whispered it like a prayer.
Three months before her due date, I noticed bruises on her wrist during a family dinner. Thin purple marks like fingerprints. I touched her arm gently.
“What happened,” I asked.
She pulled her sleeve down fast. “I bumped into the door,” she said. “I am clumsy.”
I did not believe her, but she smiled, and Brandon poured her water, and the moment passed like a stone sinking into a lake.
Then came the phone call. Abigail was gone. The baby was gone. She had fallen down the staircase in their home. An accident. That was what Brandon told the police. That was what he told the doctor. That was what he told my parents. His voice cracked at the right places. His eyes reddened. He held my mother while she cried.
I watched him and felt nothing but ice.