She didn’t answer.
“Vanessa?”
Her lips parted.
“I think you need to see what’s in that box.”
“Have you seen it?”
A long silence.
“Not all of it.”
I felt my heart pounding.
“What’s inside?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t want to tell you something I can’t prove.”
The room felt suddenly airless.
For twenty-eight years, I’d imagined my daughter’s final moments.
I’d wondered whether she’d felt pain.
Whether someone had held her.
Whether she’d heard my voice.
I had asked Mark those questions when I first returned from the hospital.
He always said the same thing.
She was peaceful, Emily.
That’s all you need to know.
Now a young stranger was sitting across from me with a list of records that could contain answers I’d been denied for nearly three decades.
“I want that box,” I said.
