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Those three words forever after haunted her, like a trinity of demons sent from the blackest bowels of hell by the devil himself. She whispered, “My father couldn’t bear to stay in New Mexico after that. We moved to Florida, but that wasn’t far enough, so a few months later we moved to Spain. He thought the only way we could start over was in a new country, but it didn’t help.” Unnoticed and unfettered, tears streamed down her cheeks. “He never finished a painting again. He would start one, then abandon it for another. And I never played the cello again; even after the surgeries, my fingers didn’t work right. There was too much nerve damage.” She drew in a long, shuddering breath. “Neither one of us ever moved past that day. We went through the motions, but everything was hollow. Nothi
- Writer
