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Back When She Returned Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT
  3. CONTENTS
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. THIRTY-NINE
  44. FORTY
  45. FORTY-ONE
  46. FORTY-TWO
  47. FORTY-THREE
  48. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

He raised his eyebrows with surprise. “You did?”

“Of course.” His opinion would always be first on my list. Nothing would change that.

“I’m going to have to run it by Meredith to see what she thinks,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that serious. Can you wait to say something to her? All I wanted to do was let you know that I wanted to do it when Mom was ready. I don’t want to make a big deal about it until then.” We made a left into the car pool lane. I grabbed my backpack from between my feet. “Please just think about it.” I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek as he slid into line behind a blue minivan. “I love you, Dad.”

KATE

THEN

We buried Willow—plain and simple. It didn’t matter how many times Abner said we were returning her to the earth. We put her in the ground and shoveled dirt on top of her, chanting scriptures about ashes to ashes and dust to dust. My head swirled with what we’d done. We had suffocated her. That was what we had done, no matter how much they wanted to sugarcoat it or call it another name. We were responsible for another person’s death. There was no moving past that, even though Abner acted like it was all meant to be as if it had been part of the master plan all along. Everyone agreed with him, like they always did. It sickened me. My insides had begun to bleed, anger and grief twisting knots into my guts every day.

My brain had been unplugged. Disconnected. I watched myself perform from somewhere above. Getting up each morning before the sun. Thirty minutes of meditation before heading out to the field. Working in the fields all day. But I was gone. Willow had taken me with her into the earth.

Bekah’s screams pierced through the night, traveling across camp. She writhed in agony on the mattress. She’d been that way for over twelve hours and couldn’t take any more. Her pain had passed words a long time ago.

Margo crouched at the head of the bed while I knelt at her feet. She pressed cool washcloths on her forehead while I tried to help work the baby down. Nothing about her labor had been normal. I didn’t need to be a doctor to know that blood at the onset of labor was not a good sign. She’d been in mind-numbing pain ever since.