LAURA

I'd cried with my mother that night. Not because Cary and I had been close—we'd never really clicked, not like Paul and I—but because he'd been a good man who hadn't deserved to die so young. I'd cried because my mother had lost yet another man she'd loved and probably the one she'd loved the most. 

"When Cary died, my mom's soul did too." The words left my mouth in a monotonous tone, bitter in their truthfulness. "She lost interest in everything, she stopped talking much and it was a struggle getting up in the morning to go to work. Of course things got worse," I laughed humourlessly. "She...