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Prologue

PrologueOctober 10, 1999

Briar Vale, New Hampshire

“Damn you, Rich, how could you do this to me? Oh, I could just kill you…” The ludicrous threat to kill someone already much too dead stopped Emily’s whispered soliloquy, but it didn’t stop her rage. She fought an uncharacteristic urge to smash her fist through the rain-streaked window. Where did all this violence come from? It wasn’t like her at all.

The dismal landscape outside perfectly echoed her mood—sullen as the low-hanging clouds, dreary as the gray, sunless day. Although the counselors at the bereavement center told her that her anger was perfectly normal and natural, she could not reconcile herself with her feelings.

Rich hadn’t asked to die. He hadn’t planned the horrible accident on the German Autobahn that had ended his trip home to the States for their wedding. He was the one who was dead, and she’d loved him.

Why should she be angry with him for something over which he’d no control? But she was.

She should be in Jamaica today on her honeymoon, not here in New Hampshire watching the cold autumn rain. She shouldn’t blame Rich, but she did. He hadn’t quit his job in preparation for moving to Germany, hadn’t canceled the lease on an apartment that would have to be vacated in three days, hadn’t turned his life inside out only to be left with nothing.

She was the one with the great hole in her world where love and plans had been. It felt so damned unfair. What was she going to do with the rest of her life? If this was the first day of it, she didn’t see anything to offer encouragement. She almost wished she were dead too. How could the future hold anything but endless bleak days, each one exactly like the previous day, stretching into infinity?

Growing up as a military brat, she’d always had trouble making new friends each time the family moved. Still, she’d managed to entertain herself with books and daydreams, not really minding a rather solitary existence. Although she had spent much time alone, never before had she felt so lonely. Too many new dreams had died along with Richard Crandall, her Air Force officer fiancé. How could she dare to dream again?