If she only knew. Frantically she looked around. Blackness everywhere. Only inky, cold, terrifying blackness. They could be in the middle of the creek or close to one bank. Who knew? But they couldn’t stay in the freezing water. They’d both die from hypothermia.

Which way?

“M-m-mom, I’m so cold.”

“Hang on, Stephen.” How long had they been in the water? “Philip!” she cried and strained to hear. Far away there were voices. “Listen!”

She looked up and saw a bobbing light. The freezing water whirled and danced madly around her.

“Hey!” a male voice boomed. “Anyone there?”

“Help! Oh, God, help us!”

“Hang on, we’re comin’,” the voice assured her and she clung to Stephen and the car, trying to stay conscious, praying that her husband and daughter were safe.

She didn’t remember the rescue. It had taken over an hour and both she and Stephen, suffering from hypothermia, had passed out. She awoke in a hospital in Portland to the news that she and both children had survived, but Philip, as a result of his efforts to save Christina, had died on the way to the hospital. No attempts at reviving him had been effective.

Tiffany was barely out of the hospital, hardly able to function from grief and despair, when she had to arrange a funeral. All of Philip’s family was at the long, mind-numbing service. She was a widow. Alone with her children.

J.D. sat between his parents and sister-in-law, not so much as touching her or offering any sign of condolence during the funeral. White-faced, drawn and tense, he’d partially shielded Tiffany from the rest of the family.

But it hadn’t worked. Philip’s father, Carlo, had been grim and forbidding, his black eyes boring into Tiffany throughout the eulogy. Frances, seated at her husband’s side, wouldn’t even look in Tiffany’s direction, but shunned her and pretended that her daughter-in-law didn’t exist.

Philip’s ex-wife, Karen, a short blond woman with huge blue eyes, clung to her ex-mother-in-law and sobbed loudly, blowing her nose and sliding furtive glances at the woman who had, eventually, replaced her in her ex-husband’s heart. She wailed loudly, while her children, Robert and Thea, were stoic and grim. Philip’s older children were both in college, both acting as if they’d rather be anywhere in the world but at the funeral home, both seeming more bored than grief-stricken.

Throughout the service Tiffany held on to both of her children. Christina sat on her lap, and Stephen, pale and wan, was beside her in the pew.