Aunt Clara always had the saddest face. She never married, lived alone, rarely left the house except to teach a bunch of kids. Nobody understood her including me, Grace Dawson, and I was her only niece. That’s how it was until a curious day in the spring of 1951 when Aunt Clara lay dying in the hospital with secrets still to tell and chose me to hear them.
What she said was downright shocking and hard to believe, and I just couldn’t rest until I figured it all out. Then, I wanted to fix things, make everything right, but that meant getting the police chief involved, which was a different thing altogether, and only the beginning.
I think most people will sympathize with her. Some might even give her a pass. I’d like to say I fully accept what she did. But I don’t, not completely.