Goodreads asked Deanna Raybourn:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

Deanna Raybourn Here is a tale worth writing: on a hot day in Texas in 1904, my third-great uncle, Eugene, took his rifle and went in search of his wife. They had been married four years, but Annie--just 21 years of age--had walked out and Eugene refused to let her have the last word. He knocked on the door of her mother's house, and when Annie answered, he opened fire. After a week-long manhunt, a posse brought him to justice and he was sentenced to life in the state penitentiary. Twelve years later, he walked off a work detail and was never recaptured. He made his way north, assumed a new name, and bought a farm where he quietly lived out his life. He was buried in an unmarked grave, his obituary written for the name he chose for himself and no mention of his family. We own the cedar chest he carved in prison. "Mother" is etched into the wood in heavy, elegant letters, and every time I see it, I wonder about the hands that crafted it--the same hands that took the life of the woman he loved. What caused him to break that day in 1904? How did he plot his escape? How did he manage to survive as a fugitive? To buy a farm? And was there ever a day when he did not think of her, the young wife whose life he had ruthlessly stolen? We know he never remarried, and every time he filled out a census form, he wrote in his alias followed by a single word: widower.

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