y father was the first person I saw when I entered my mother's apartment with Sarah. He must have heard my key in the door, for he came out of the small library. Anxiousness and concern ringed his mouth, and his thin, patrician face was taut with strain.

Sarah said, "Hello, Uncle Edward," and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen before he could answer, discreetly leaving us alone.

"Mal!" my father exclaimed, hurrying across the entrance hall. But there was no joy in his voice at the sight of me, only anguish.

"Oh, Dad," I cried and ran to him. I threw myself into his arms and held on to him tightly. "Oh, Daddy, I can't bear it. I can't. I can't live without Andrew and Lissa and Jamie. I should have been with them. Then I would have been killed too, and we would be together." I broke down, sobbed against his chest.

He stroked my hair, trying to console me. But I was inconsolable. He held me for a few moments. At last he said, "When Diana reached me I couldn't believe it. It's not believable… that such a thing could happen to Andrew and the twins—" He stopped, unable to continue, his voice broken; tears shook him, and we stood there in the middle of the entrance hall, weeping and clinging to each other.

After a short while we both managed to gain control of ourselves, and we drew apart.

My father took out his handkerchief and wiped away my tears, tenderly, as he had when I was a child. Then he wiped his own eyes and blew his nose.

After helping me off with my black wool coat, which he hung in the closet, he put his arm around my shoulders and walked with me into the library.

Looking up at him, I said, "Where's Diana? I thought you traveled together from London."

"We did. She's in your mother's bedroom, freshening up. The minute she walked in and saw your mother, she began to cry. So did your mother, of course. It's difficult to comprehend that we don't have Andrew and our grandchildren anymore—" My father's strong, resonant voice faltered, and I saw the tears glistening at the back of his eyes.

Silently, we sat down next to each other on the sofa. My father said, "I wanted to comfort you, to help you, but I'm afraid I'm not doing a very good job of it, am I, darling?"

"How can you?" I replied in a strangled voice. "You're grieving too. We're all grieving, Dad, and we're not going to stop, not ever."

He nodded, took my hand and held it tightly in his. "When David picked us up at Kennedy this morning, he explained that you'd gone to the precinct to make a statement, that this was just normal procedure. But did they tell you anything? Pass on any new information?"

"No, they didn't, except that they thought the shooting was a carjacking."

My father looked as puzzled as Sarah had. I explained and repeated everything the detectives had told me.

He shook his head in wonder, his tanned, freckled face registering a mixture of pain and anger. "It's so horrific one can hardly bear to think of it, never mind comprehend it." A deep sigh escaped him, and he shook his head again.

"And all for a watch, a wallet, and possibly a car, until something, or someone, made them run." My voice wavered, and fresh tears surfaced. "And they may never be caught."

My father's voice was gentle and loving as he said, "I'm here for you, darling. I'll do whatever I can to help you bear this… this… this unbearable sorrow and pain."

"I don't want to live without them, Dad. I don't have anything to live for. Life without Andrew and the twins is no life for me. I want to die."

"Ssssh, darling," he said, gentling me. "Don't say that, and don't let your mother and Diana hear you. It will destroy them afresh if they hear you speaking in this way. Promise me you'll put such thoughts out of your head."

I remained silent. How could I make a promise I knew I couldn't keep?

When I did not answer him, my father said, "I know that you—"

"Mal!" Diana said from the doorway, and it sounded like a cry of pain.

I leapt up and went to her as she came toward me.

All of her emotions were on her face; I could see her raw grief, her immense suffering. I tried to be strong for her as I put my arms around her and embraced her.

"You're all I have left now, Mal," she said in a low, shaking voice, and the tears came and she wept in my arms, just as I had wept in my father's a few minutes ago.

He rose and came to us and led us both back to the sofa, where she and I sat down.

Daddy took a chair opposite us and said, after a few moments, "Shall I go and get you a cup of tea, Diana? And one for you, Mal?"

Diana said, "I don't know… I don't care, Edward."

I murmured, "Yes, why not. Go and get it, Dad, please."

"All right." He got up and strode across the carpet but paused in the doorway. "Your mother's in the kitchen, helping the maid make sandwiches. Not that I think anyone is going to eat them."

"I can't, and I'm sure Diana feels the same way."

Diana said nothing. She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief and blew her nose several times. "I simply can't absorb it, Mal," she began, shaking her head. "I can't believe they're… gone. Andrew and Lissa and Jamie. My son, my grandchildren, cut down like that—so senselessly, so cruelly."

"They didn't suffer," I managed to say in a tight voice. I was so choked up it took a moment for me to continue. "I asked the medical examiners if they had, and one of them assured me they hadn't, that death had been instantaneous."

Diana bit her lip, and her eyes filled, and at that precise moment I realized how much Andrew had resembled his mother. I covered my mouth with my hand, pressing back the tears.

"I don't know what I'm going to do without him," I whispered. "I loved him so much. He was my life, the twins were my life."

Reaching out, Diana clasped my hand. "I know, I know. I want to see them. I want to see my son and my grandchildren. Can we go and see them, Mal?"

"Yes. They're at the funeral home. It's nearby."

"And the service is tomorrow, your mother said. In the morning. At Saint Bartholomew's."

"Yes."

Diana said nothing more. She simply sat there staring at me, stupefied. I knew she was in shock, as was I. As we all were, for that matter.

Swallowing a few times and trying to get a grip on myself, I said, "I need you to do something for me, Diana."

"Oh, Mal, anything, anything."

"Will you come to our apartment? I have to choose… choose… their… clothes… the clothes they'll wear… in their coffins," I managed to say brokenly, the horror of it all sweeping over me yet again, as it had constantly in the past forty-eight hours.

"Of course I'll come," Diana said in a choked voice that sounded suddenly exhausted and old.

Without warning and without another word, she jumped up and rushed out, and I knew she was barely managing to hold herself together.

I knew exactly how she felt.

I leaned back on the sofa, and my gaze turned inward as I sat and reflected about my life and how it had been destroyed beyond redemption.