PART 1
I visited my daughter’s grave every Sunday, blaming myself for the night I didn’t pick her up. Then the cemetery groundskeeper told me another woman had been visiting with yellow daisies and whispered apologies. I thought I knew how Maya died.
I was wrong.
For a month, I brought white roses every Sunday because the florist called them “appropriate.”
Maya would have hated that.
My seventeen-year-old daughter loved yellow daisies, chipped nail polish, and jeans stained with paint.
But Maya was gone before I could bring her flowers on another birthday. Gone before graduation. Gone before the scholarship letter she had dreamed about.
And gone before I could take back the last thing I said to her.
That night, she called and asked me to pick her up because she was tired and afraid to drive in the storm.
I was exhausted from another argument between Maya and her father.
“Call your dad,” I told her. “I’m done being the referee tonight.”
Two hours later, police officers knocked on our door.
They said two cars had crashed near the bridge.
No survivors.
The funeral director recommended a closed casket.
The officers said it would be kinder that way.
So every Sunday, I knelt beside Maya’s grave and repeated the same words.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I should have come for you.”
My husband, Jordan, joined me twice.
Then he stopped.
“It’s not healthy, Jackie,” he said one Sunday morning. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“Then stop falling apart every weekend.”
At the cemetery that day, rain soaked through my coat while I placed roses beside her headstone.
“Maya,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Behind me, boots scraped against gravel.
“Ma’am?”
I turned and saw Otis, the cemetery groundskeeper.
He glanced at the flowers, then at me.
“Can I ask you something?”
I nodded.
“The woman who visits your daughter every Thursday always brings yellow daisies,” he said. “She says Maya liked them.”
My stomach tightened.
“What woman?”
“The blonde woman. Dark SUV. Comes early in the morning.”
“No one else visits Maya.”
Otis hesitated.
“Yes, ma’am. She does.”
“What does she say?”
His face grew serious.
“She apologizes.”
My blood ran cold.
“Why would a stranger apologize to my daughter?”
Otis lowered his voice.
“Because I don’t think you know the whole truth about what happened.”
And suddenly, everything I believed about Maya’s death began to crack.
PART 2
The following Thursday, I waited near the cemetery entrance.
At 8:06 a.m., a dark SUV pulled through the gates.
A blonde woman stepped out carrying yellow daisies.
Before she reached Maya’s grave, I stopped her.
“Are those for my daughter?”
She froze.
“Yes.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Katherine.”
“That means nothing to me.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“My daughter was Sadie.”
The name hit me like ice water.
Sadie was the girl in the other car.
The girl everyone blamed for the accident.
The girl people said had been racing Maya through the storm.
“Leave,” I said.
“Please, Jackie.”
“You don’t get to use my name.”
“I know. But Sadie spoke about you before she died.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“She survived until the next morning,” Katherine whispered. “She told me what really happened.”
I stared at her.
“The girls weren’t racing.”
I almost laughed.
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s true. Sadie met Maya to apologize for spreading rumors about her art portfolio. She wanted Maya to accept the scholarship because she knew Maya deserved it.”
My heart pounded.
“Then why were they out there?”
“The storm got worse. They were both leaving when Maya received a phone call.”
“From who?”
Katherine’s eyes filled with tears.
“Your husband.”
My breath caught.
“No.”
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