THE WOMAN IN ORANGE

Six months later, Nora and June returned to the chapel.

It had been sold by then, stripped of Caleb’s name and reopened under a nonprofit memorial trust for families harmed by funeral fraud. The white interior remained, but the atmosphere had changed. Less polished. More human. The front area no longer displayed the gold-trimmed coffin. In its place stood a simple arrangement of white flowers and a plaque with no names, only a promise that dignity would never again be used to hide abuse.

June walked slowly with a cane.

Nora walked beside her, one hand hovering without touching unless asked.

At the front, June stopped where the coffin had been.

For a long time, she said nothing.

Then she looked at Nora. “I heard you hitting the corner.”

Nora’s eyes filled. “You did?”

June nodded. “It sounded far away. Like thunder under water. I thought maybe I was dreaming. Then I saw light.”

Nora covered her mouth.

“I thought,” June continued, voice trembling, “if that’s Nora, she won’t stop.”

Nora laughed and cried at the same time.

“No,” she said. “I really wasn’t in a stopping mood.”

The sisters stood in the cold daylight beneath the arched windows. The room that had nearly become June’s tomb had become something else now—not safe exactly, but conquered.

June touched Nora’s bruised knuckles, long healed.

“You broke the coffin,” she said.