I just saw her. She was much too young, much too vibrant, to be dead. “Melanie, are you there?” “I’m here.” All at once I felt drained. I leaned back against the counter and let it support my weight. Years earlier, when I’d heard the news about my parents’ deaths, how their car had run off a lonely stretch of road and plunged over an embankment, I’d wanted to scream out loud as if noise alone could negate the awful truth. But this time grief had a different effect on me. I could barely summon the energy to make a sound. “What happened?” I asked. “I’m not sure. Rick was hardly coherent. He said Jenny collapsed last night right after dinner. He and Angie thought she’d fainted. They lifted her up on the couch, then Rick realized she wasn’t breathing. They called for an ambulance but by the time they got her to the hospital, it was too late.” I exhaled slowly, feeling pain as the air left my body. There was a constriction in my chest I couldn’t seem to breathe around.
