Vengeance. Mystery Writers of America Presents B00A25NLU4

Richard, those moments of sheer hatred came from longer, more intense moments of love. The first time June had held little Grace in her arms. The first time she’d shown her how to thread a needle, make cookies, decorate a cupcake. Grace’s first day of kindergarten. Her first gold star. Her first bad report card.
    Grace.
    June came back to herself in her dank bedroom, the sensation almost of falling back into her body. She felt a flutter in her chest, a tapping at her heart; the Grim Reaper’s bony knuckles knocking at the door. She looked past the dingy curtains. The windows were dirty. The outside world was tainted with grime. Maybe she should let Richard take her outside. She could sit in the garden. She could listen to the birds sing, the squirrels chatter. The last day. The last ray of sunlight on her face. The last sensation of the sheets brushing against her legs. The last comb through her hair. The last breath through her lungs. Her last glimpse of Richard, the house they had bought together, the place where they had raised and lost their child. The prison cell he had left her in as he went off to live in one of his own.
    “ ‘A house on Taylor Drive was broken into late Thursday evening. The residents were not at home. Stolen were a gold necklace, a television set, and cash that was kept in the kitchen drawer …’”
    She had loved sewing, and before her life had turned upside down the second time, before the detectives and lawyers intruded, before the jury handed down the judgment, June had thought of sewing as a metaphor for her existence. June was a wife, a mother. She stitched together the seam between her husband and child. She was the force that brought them together. The force that held them in place.
    Or was she?
    All these years, June had thought she was the needle, piercing two separate pieces, making disparate halves whole, but suddenly, on this last day of her life, she realized she was just the thread. Not even the good part of the thread, but the knot at the end — not leading the way, but anchoring, holding on, watching helplessly as someone else, some
thing
else, sewed together the patterns of their lives.
    Why was she stuck with these thoughts? She wanted to remember the good times with Grace: vacations, school trips, book reports they had worked on together, talks they had had late at night. June had told Grace all the things mothers tell their daughters: Sit with your legs together. Always be aware of your surroundings. Sex should be saved for someone special. Don’t ever let a man make you think you are anything but good and true. There were so many mistakes that June’s own mother had made. June had parented against her mother, vowing not to make the same mistakes. And she hadn’t. By God, she hadn’t.
    She had made new ones.
    We didn’t raise him to be this way,
mothers would tell her during parent-teacher conferences, and June would think,
Of course you did. What did you think would happen to a boy who was given everything and made to work for nothing?
    She had secretly blamed them — or perhaps not too secretly. More often than not, there was a complaint filed with the school board by a parent who found her too smug. Too judgmental. June had not realized just how smug until she saw her own smirk reflected back to her at the beginning of a conference about Grace. The teacher’s eyes were hard and disapproving. June had choked back the words
We didn’t raise her this way
and bile had come into her throat.
    What had they raised Grace to be? A princess, if Richard was asked. A perfect princess who loved her father.
    But how much had he really loved her?
    That was the question she needed answered. That was
literally
— and she used the word correctly here — the last thing that would be on her mind.
    Richard sensed the change in her posture. He stared at her over the paper. “What is it?”
    June’s brain told her mouth to move. She felt the sensation — the parting of the lips, the skin stuck together at the corners — but no words would form.
    “Do you want some water?”
    She nodded because that was all she could do. Richard left the room. She tilted her head back, looked at the closed closet door. There were love letters on the top shelf. The shoe box was old, dusty. After June died, Richard would go through her things. He would find the letters. Would he think her an idiot for keeping them? Would he think that she had pined for him while he was