Ray Miller was a man of cedar and oak. He spent his life in a small town tucked along the banks of the Tennessee River, running a modest carpentry shop. He wasn’t a man of many words, but his hands spoke for him—crafting sturdy dining tables for neighbors and fixing door frames rotted by the humid river air.
He was a late bloomer in love. At forty, he married Marilyn, a woman fifteen years his junior. Happiness arrived like a flash flood—sudden and overwhelming—but it receded just as fast. On a gray, rain-slicked morning, when their triplets—Valerie, Camille, and Sophie—were only three months old, Marilyn packed her bags.
