Then, Diane stood up to give the eulogy.
The air in the room shifted. She approached the podium with slow, deliberate steps, gripping the wood until her knuckles turned white. She began by speaking about her “precious grandbabies” and how she had prayed for their souls. It was standard, performative grief.
But then, her tone changed. It grew sharp. Calculated.
“These babies were innocent,” Diane said, her voice projecting clearly to the back of the room. “Pure. Untouched by the sin of this world. Sometimes… sometimes God takes the innocent to spare them from what lies ahead. He sees the rot before it sets in. He sees the environment they would be raised in.”
The implication hung in the air like poison gas. The murmuring in the pews stopped.
“He knows what kind of influences might have shaped these boys had they lived,” Diane continued, her eyes boring into mine through the lace of her veil. “God took them because He knew what kind of mother they had. He saw the future, and He showed them mercy.”
My vision went red. A roar of sound filled my ears—the rushing of my own blood.
“Can you at least shut up on this day?”
The scream tore out of my throat before I could stop it. It was raw, animalistic, desperate.
The chapel fell into a silence so profound it felt like the vacuum of space. Diane’s face contorted behind her veil. The mask of the grieving grandmother slipped, revealing the predator beneath. She descended from the podium with shocking speed for a woman who claimed to be frail with sorrow.
Before I could flinch, her hand connected with my cheek. Crack. The slap echoed off the vaulted ceiling.
The pain didn’t even register before she grabbed a handful of my hair, her fingers twisting cruelly into the roots. She yanked my head down, forcing me toward the nearest coffin—Oliver’s.
“You ungrateful wretch!” she hissed, slamming my forehead onto the polished wood of my son’s casket.
The hollow thud made Emma scream—a high, piercing sound of terror.
Diane leaned in, her breath hot and smelling of peppermint and rot against my ear. “You better shut up if you don’t want to end up in there with them.“
I struggled, but her grip was iron. I looked to Trevor. Help me. Please, help me.
Trevor moved. He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my bicep hard enough to bruise, and yanked me backward—not to save me from her, but to pull me away from her.
