Chapter 1 - The Pounding on the Door
The heavy wooden front door shuddered under a sudden, frantic assault of knuckles, the noise rattling the windowpanes of my quiet living room.
I didn't flinch. I sat at the kitchen counter, my fingers tracing the cold rim of Jonathan’s old ceramic coffee mug, staring down at the glowing screen of my laptop. The news article published three hours ago by the Arizona Republic was still open in my browser tab, the bold headline mocking six months of radio silence from the people who shared my DNA.
WIDOW OF ROUTE 66 CRASH VICTIMS AWARDED $18.7 MILLION IN SETTLEMENT; ANNOUNCES CHILD SAFETY FOUNDATION.
“Hannah! Hannah, open the door right now! I know you’re in there!”
It was my mother’s voice, shrill and frantic, cutting through the frosty January morning air. Just behind her, my father’s deep baritone muttered something about checking the side windows, followed by the heavy, muffled thud of someone leaning desperately against the panels.
They hadn't driven seven hours to Flagstaff when three caskets were lowered into the frozen ground. They hadn't answered my calls when I sat alone in a dark house surrounded by Samuel’s half-finished Lego towers and Charlotte’s abandoned shoes. But an eighteen-point-seven-million-dollar settlement? That had managed to pull them right off the couch.
The pounding grew louder.
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“Hannah, don't be ridiculous! Open this door before I call the police!” my mother shrieked, her fist hammering against the wood once more.
I took a slow, deep breath, stood up from the counter, and walked deliberately down the hallway. My hand rested on the cold brass doorknob. For six months, I had been a ghost haunting an empty home. Today, the ghosts were coming inside.
