At the hospital, the doctors determined that Sister Grace had congenital heart failure and didn't give her more than 48 hours to live. Mother Superior kept a bedside vigil along with some of the other nuns from St. Bernadette's. The only time she got up, was to eat, stretch, or continue to call the Peters' residence. That was proving to be fruitless. It was as if both Hannah and her husband had vanished off the face of the earth. As the hours passed by, she gave up any and all hope on reaching them. Instead, she held Sister Grace's hand as the latter opened her eyes and smiled when she saw the Mother Superior.

Sister Grace squeezed the Mother Superior's hand and got a reassuring one back. Sister Grace wasn't afraid of death, she welcomed it. She knew that she was going and she just wanted to say one final and important thing. She slowly reached one of her hands up to the cross necklace she always wore around her neck and slowly whispered:

"Give my cross to Hannah when..."

She never finished the phrase as she closed her eyes and her hand went slack. The monitors started beeping wildly as her heart stopped and with a small smile and a final breath, Sister Grace slipped away to heaven. The Mother Superior had tears running down her cheeks as she watched all of this. She then took the necklace off of Sister Grace's neck as per her last wish and put it into a pocket of her habit as she said a prayer. She then walked out of the room and let the doctors do what they did in these cases. She had a funeral to prepare for and to tell the others. A holy period of mourning was about to settle over St. Bernadette's.

Mother Superior wasn't going to spend any further time trying to reach the Peters'; she had to get the arrangements in order. Sister Grace was going to be buried at the Calvary Hill Cemetery which had a special section for all of the nuns from St. Bernadette's. It would take a few days to get all of the preparations in order but closure had to happen if any of the children and nuns at St. Bernadette's were going to move on. She also decided to bring in a nun that worked as a psychologist for the children so they could process the loss. God wasn't always the only one who could help in these situations. They were very progressive and understood when outside help would be needed.

Meanwhile, days had passed since Hannah had tried her first hit of meth and she wasn't crashing yet. It was unusual to say the least but she didn't think much about it. She was just spending as much time driving around as possible and very little time at home. Her phone had died and she kept forgetting to replace the battery. She was so preoccupied with everything that was going on and just enjoying being free that she didn't bother looking at the blinking lights on the answering machine at home. She figured sooner or later Chris would listen to the messages and tell her if anything important was going on.

Chris was avoiding Hannah because ever since that unbelievable lunch hour of Scarlett blowing his brains out, he had her over to his house and they had screwed in every room imaginable including the marital bed he shared with Hannah. One would think that was sacrilegious but Chris only cared about the here and now. He had had enough of the illness Hannah had and just wanted to experience life without the sick wife issue.

The day that Sister Grace was laid to rest, the Mother Superior had finally gotten through to Chris' parents and told them the news. They were both shocked and stunned that neither Chris nor Hannah knew what had happened. Something weird was going on as they hadn't heard from their son or daughter-in-law in a few weeks. Phone calls were going unheeded except for one brief one with Chris where he had to get off the phone because he was just so busy at work.

Courtney decided that it was time to pay their kids a visit and see what was really going on. They drove from Fort Worth to Plano. Neither Courtney nor Ralph could believe that in nearly a week, Hannah didn't know of Sister Grace's passing, considering how close they were. Something was up and whatever it was, it wasn't good. As they pulled up to the house in Plano, they were surprised to see a strange woman exit the house and wave to them with a smile. They watched as she walked across the driveway and lawn to the house next door, opened the door, and disappeared inside.

Ralph and Courtney looked at each other; there was definitely something off about the way she walked. Courtney was always good with figuring people out just by looking at them. Her intuition was telling her that this woman was a serious hazard and her whole demeanor was not that of a neighbor next door. She walked swinging her hips and swishing her hair. Her eyes were that of a barracuda having just devoured its prey. It was time to get to the bottom of what was going on they thought as they parked in the driveway. Hannah was obviously not home. They got out of the car and walked up to the front door where they ran the doorbell. Chris was very surprised to see them.

"Mom, dad.....what are you doing here?" He asked as they hugged him briefly.

"We just wanted to check up on you and Hannah. You don't call, we got worried." Courtney replied as she looked around the house with an experienced eye.

The windows were open and she could understand why. The whole house smelled of Chanel #5 perfume. Hannah didn't wear Chanel at all and preferred Cool Water or Destination by Ann Taylor. Hers was more practical. The house didn't as much smell of the Chanel perfume but reeked of it. There was another smell in the house that Courtney knew all too well; the smell of sex. She looked carefully at her son as he avoided eye contact.

"There's nothing to worry about. I've been really busy at work, is all." Chris said fidgeting slightly.

"Where's Hannah?" Ralph asked then.

"She went to run some errands." Chris answered almost too quickly. Truth was he had no idea where she was.

"Who was the woman we saw exiting the house as we pulled up?" Ralph pressed.

"Oh that? That was Scarlett, she lives next door. She just comes over on occasion to check up on us. She knows Hannah is sick."

"Are you sleeping with her Chris?" Courtney cut to the chase as Chris gapped at her and turned a shade of red that gave it away without him saying a word.

"Of course not! Where would you get such an idea mom? I'm married!" He sounded indignant.

"So what if you're married. That hasn't stopped people before. Her perfume reeks in every corner of this house. I may be old but I'm not stupid, Chris."

"Mom, I swear I'm not sleeping with Scarlett." He tried to lie as smoothly as possible to his parents who didn't look convinced.

"Ok, then answer me this, why haven't you told Hannah about Sister Grace?" Ralph asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"What about Sister Grace?" Chris looked blankly at his parents as they looked at him as if he had grown another head.

"Son, do not tell us that you don't know that Sister Grace died? The Mother Superior has called both your and Hannah's cellphones and the house phone. Do you really want us to believe that you had no idea?"

"Oh that, yes I found out about it a few days ago but dad I have been so busy at work that I haven't had a chance to tell her. I will though." He said shuffling his feet.

"Chris are you really that deft? Sister Grace was the most important person in Hannah's life and you just shrug off something like her funeral and not tell her because you were too busy at work? What if it was God forbid one of us? Wouldn't you want to know?" Courtney asked wondering who the man in front of her was and what had happened to her actual son.

"I swear I was going to tell her about the funeral." He tried to sound convincing but the truth was that every time he would remember about it, Scarlett would wipe his mind clean.

Just then Hannah walked into the house, surprised to see her parents in law there. She had seen their car in the driveway and therefore parked on the street. She hadn't heard any of the conversation at all except the last part regarding a funeral she needed to be told about. She looked confused at everyone as they looked at each other. Time seemed to freeze as Hannah asked:

"Tell me about whose funeral?"