My mom was sentenced to d!e for ᴋɪʟʟɪɴɢ my dad, and for six years, no one believed she was innocent. 5 minutes before the execution, my little brother hugged her and whispered something that shattered everything.

My father had been found dead in our kitchen. A single stab wound. No sign of forced entry. The weapon—bloody, unmistakable—was discovered beneath my mother’s bed.

There was blood on her robe. Her fingerprints on the handle.

To everyone else, it was simple.

“She did it.”

I didn’t say those words out loud. But I let them live inside me.

That was my guilt.

For six years, my mom—Caroline Hayes—wrote to me from prison.

“I didn’t do it, sweetheart.”