October 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 t
