I swallowed hard. I couldn’t let my emotions get the better of me.

“That’s what other people can’t understand. When you have a love like that, it never lets you go. There is no moving on. Others want you to be whole again, but it’s not that simple.” She shook her head. “Constance never knew that kind of love. If she had, she never would have done what she did.”

I stepped toward the Graves family plot and looked down at the area closest to Grant Coleman’s grave. “This was where you wanted to be buried, wasn’t it?”

“Grant and I thought we were so lucky when we were able to buy this plot. How perfect. I could be both with him and my family. I never imagined she would take that away from me.”

I didn’t answer.

“Constance was the only mother I had ever known. Let me ask you, how do you raise a child and then treat them the way she treated me?”

I shook my head.

She looked away. “It was that damned will. My father hurt us all so much in life and then that.” She wrapped her arms across her chest. “That’s where it all started. I was under so much pressure back then.”

“Pressure from your first husband?”

“He was a monster. When he found out I wasn’t getting our piece of the family pie, I was afraid for my life. My daughter’s life.” She stepped even closer to her second husband’s grave. “I just couldn’t understand why Constance would do that to me. My father was one thing, but she had all the power after he died. She could have split the estate. Everything could have been different.”

I thought back to the letter Rip Sr. had written. This was all such a mess. “Did she ever try to explain?”

“We didn’t give her much chance. Beatty Barnes made sure we all had copies of the will as soon as our father had died. I remember thinking he was behaving strangely when he came to the door. He looked sick with guilt. It didn’t take long to figure out why. He knew what was in that will. All he said was that he was sorry for our loss and that I should speak to Constance right away. So that’s what the three of us did. We were furious when we headed over to confront her. Even John. Although that didn’t last long.”

“Rip attacked Constance, didn’t he?”

“He was vicious. He accused her of having planned it for years. For taking care of our father just so she could whisper poison in his ear. He said she was the one who had pushed him to change his will. And then he—”

“And then he what?” I knew what she would say, given what Ben had told me, but I wanted to hear it from her.

“He accused Constance of hurrying our father’s death along.”

“You mean he accused her of murder.”

She patted the top of the gravestone. “He never said those words. I think even he had some shame deep down. But that was the implication.” She curled her fingers into a fist. “I’ll never forget the look on her face.”