On this morning, as the sun rose and poured through the wind-shield, the time for philosophical debate had ended. It was too late to undo the horrible things he had done, and so he placed his head on the steering wheel and sobbed uncontrollably, praying to the God whose existence he doubted, hoping He would forgive him. The thing he’d plotted for so long, the plan that seemed so logical just the day before, had gone as wrong as wrong could be. He looked over at the passenger seat as if listening to someone, and then opened all the windows so he could hear the wind one last time. The leaves scattered on the ground and a few blew in through the window.

Danny leaned over, picked up the shotgun resting on the Escalade’s floor, inserted it barrel-up between his knees, and delicately placed his chin on the round, metal rim. He swallowed hard. Then, with his left hand on the steering wheel and his right thumb on the gun’s trigger, he pressed the accelerator to the floor.

The truck took off, gaining speed as it scaled the embankment leading up to the quarry, until the speedometer read over eighty miles per hour. At the precipice, the car narrowly passed between the two large boulders, snapping the trees at the mouth of the quarry as it became airborne. As the Escalade propelled off the cliff, Danny closed his eyes, braced himself, and with one final cry, pulled the trigger of the powerful gun.

A single shot rang out and echoed against the quarry walls as the heavy weight of the engine pulled it down into a dive. The vehicle bounced off the jagged side of the one-hundred-foot ravine before crashing into the quarry’s watery bottom. There, the car rested on its side and quickly engulfed Danny. Little did it matter.

He was already in the hands of the Lord.

CHAPTER 7

Forever Young

Brief is life,
But love is long
—Lord Alfred Tennyson

NOVEMBER 17, 2004, began as a normal weekday for Carolyn and Mitch Bianci. He charged out the kitchen door dressed for the gym a few minutes after seven, juggling his dress clothes and briefcase with an apple clutched in his mouth, cradling his cell phone to his ear and somehow managing to wave good-bye. Carolyn raced around and, by some motherly magic, was able to whisk Luke and Joey out to the bus stop in front of the house just before the doors closed. She then ran back inside and wrestled Frankie into his winter coat, despite his protests that it made him look like a little kid. She drove him to his kindergarten class, dropped off the clothes at the cleaner, stopped at the supermarket, and finally started to relax when she pulled into the driveway, envisioning the steaming cup of coffee she presumed was in her immediate future.