Chapter 2

After Dad' s funeral, Mom became a ghost.

She barely ate, never left her room.

The silence in our apartment was heavier than ever, filled with unspoken things.

I was devastated, confused, angry.

I had to know.

I went to her room, found her staring out the window.

"Mom, what happened? Why did you tell him not to go?"

She turned, her eyes empty.

She picked up a notepad, slowly wrote: "Stress. Sleepwalking. His."

Then, she looked at me, and a small, chilling smile touched her lips.

It wasn' t a smile of comfort, or sadness. It was unreadable, terrifying.

A week later, she packed a small bag and wrote another note: "Going to Blackwood Creek. Need to be there."

She severed most contact, just occasional, brief, uninformative postcards.

I was alone with my grief and a growing, terrible suspicion.

I couldn' t shake that smile.

Weeks turned into months. I kept replaying that night in my head.

The building had security cameras in the hallways and elevators, but not inside apartments.

But there was one camera on the rooftop, angled vaguely towards our side of the building.

I bribed a security guard to let me see the footage from that night.

It was grainy, distant.

But I saw it.

A figure on our balcony. David.

And another figure, standing in the doorway to the balcony, watching.

Just watching.

It was Mom.

She didn' t scream, didn' t move to help.

She just watched him fall.

The knowledge settled in my gut like a stone, cold and heavy.

My resentment warred with the memory of the mother who had, in her silent way, always loved me.