For the next year, Claire stayed hidden in June’s spare room while the world gained and lost interest in her. Search teams combed the ravine, the woods, and the watercourse below. Her mother gave one statement, then none. Her sister cried on local television and asked Claire to come home if she was somewhere frightened and alive.
Claire nearly broke then. “I have to tell her.” “No,” Grant said gently. “Not yet.” By the end of the first month, the search had shifted. No body had been found, but hope had thinned in the way it often does when weather, terrain, and time begin siding with absence. Colin, meanwhile, moved carefully. He contacted the insurance company. He asked questions about access to Claire’s accounts. Then, gradually, just after the first year, he met with a funeral director.
There would be no burial yet. No official death certificate. But there could be a memorial service with a closed coffin — something symbolic for a family caught between grief and uncertainty. “That’s obscene,” Claire said. Grant looked at her steadily. “It’s also useful. He is beginning to take refuge in safety.”