I had never liked him. God knows I tried. I smiled warmly at their rehearsal dinner. I danced at their wedding. I invited him into my home and pretended not to notice how he evaluated every single room he entered, as if every space and every person existed solely to be assessed for their net worth. There was a slick, reptilian carefulness to him. He had the kind of superficial charm that never actually warmed a room; it only claimed ownership of it.
And Sarah—my bright, stubborn, big-hearted girl who loved teaching fifth grade—had grown progressively quieter year by year after she married him. She developed a heartbreaking habit of checking herself before she spoke, glancing at his face as if every sentence she uttered required his silent permission. At Christmas, she had been frighteningly pale and bone-thin, complaining of severe migraines. I told her to see a specialist. She had just smiled and said, “Greg says you always think everything is medical, Mom.”
I should have pushed harder. I should have dragged her to a clinic myself.
By the time the plane touched down in Anchorage, it was nearly midnight. The airport was blindingly bright and eerily empty. I rented a compact car and drove out into the Alaskan night. The air outside cut the lungs like shattered glass. I had forgotten how brutal the cold up here felt—not just in temperature, but in its vast, isolating scale.
