What could I say to a three-and-a-half-year-old whose mother had died suddenly? Everyone who knew Caroline was still reeling from the shock. If it was hard for me to comprehend, it had to be impossible for her son. I had no idea what his father had told him.

“You’re a tough guy, aren’t you?” Tough was the biggest compliment my family offered. Nice was fine, smart was good, but tough was what we aimed for.

“Yep,” he answered proudly.

Gloria Rivera, his nanny, got to her feet. She was anywhere between thirty and fifty—it was impossible to tell—petite and raven haired, her face round and her eyes brimming with sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Deirdre.”

“Thanks.” She was the only person in that church who’d said those words to me.

When Teddy finally let go, I drifted toward my sister’s casket, pulled along by some invisible cord. The upper portion was open, so you could see Caro’s perfect, unblemished face. My sister looked like nothing so much as Sleeping Beauty, golden blonde and rosy cheeked. I could almost imagine her sitting up suddenly, smiling as if this were all one big stunt to reunite our fractured family.

“I didn’t know I could miss anyone this much,” I whispered.

For a moment, in spite of the chattering crowd behind us, it felt like we were alone in that cavernous church. And then the spell was broken as a hand brandishing a gold claddagh ring touched down on the polished wood of the casket. I recognized my father before I saw his face. This was the moment I’d been dreading. My sister, in life, had run interference, keeping my father and me segregated in our respective corners on those rare occasions when we were forced into the same room—at Caro’s own wedding, our mother’s funeral, and Teddy’s christening.

We stared at each other for a moment. His blue eyes were hard and cold. The air around us was poisoned. Nothing had changed. He opened his mouth to speak, but I turned and stepped away before he had the chance.

The minor chords of the pipe organ underscored the ugliness of the moment. I stumbled back down the aisle. Was it my imagination, or were people staring? At the wedding, I’d heard someone say, Can you believe Theo married her? There’d been no end of comments about what a lucky girl my sister was. One bejeweled, bouffant-haired guest even said to Caro, You must feel like Cinderella. My impossibly elegant sister couldn’t come up with a better response than a shell-shocked smile. At her funeral, the mood wasn’t any different, even if the lucky girl was now lying in a casket.