Chapter 2

The next morning, Sarah sat across from me at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee. Her performance was flawless. She spoke in hushed, somber tones about "our loss" and how we needed to "be strong for each other."

"I know I should have been there yesterday, David," she said, her eyes welling up with fake tears. "It was just too much. Seeing that little coffin... I would have fallen apart. Mark was a rock. He just sat with me while I cried all day."

I didn't respond, just stirred my own coffee, the spoon clinking against the ceramic. Every word she spoke was a lie, a carefully crafted fiction designed to paint her as a grieving victim. Did she really think I was that foolish? Or did she just not care?

I had to know. I had to see how far her depravity went.

"I think... I think I'm ready to go through Leo's things," I said, my voice hoarse. "Maybe we can do it together. Pack up his room."

A flicker of annoyance crossed her face before it was smoothed away, replaced by a look of gentle pity.

"Oh, David. You don't have to put yourself through that," she said softly. "I took care of it already. I had a service come yesterday while we were... while you were at the funeral. I thought it would be too painful for you to see everything."

I stared at her, my blood running cold. "You what?"

"I had it all cleared out," she repeated, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. "His clothes, his toys... everything. I donated most of it. It's better this way. A clean break. We need to look forward."

I stood up so fast my chair scraped loudly against the floor. I walked down the hall and pushed open the door to Leo's room.

It was sterile. Empty. The bed was stripped, the mattress bare. The posters of planets and rockets were gone from the walls, leaving pale rectangles on the painted blue. The bookshelf was empty, the toy chest gone. There was no sign that my son had ever lived here. It was as if she had erased him, scrubbing his existence from our home with cold, efficient cruelty.

I felt a profound sense of violation, of being robbed of something essential. Those were my memories, too. My last tangible connections to my son. And she had thrown them away like garbage.

I walked back to the kitchen, my body trembling with a rage so deep it felt like it was hollowing me out.

She looked up at me, a hint of impatience in her eyes. "See? It's better this way, isn't it?"

"Was he in pain, Sarah?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "At the end. Did he suffer?"

She sighed, a long, exasperated sound. "David, what's the point of dwelling on that? The doctors said it was peaceful. He just... slipped away. Let's not torment ourselves with the details."

"He told me he was going to get better," I said, the memory of his small, hopeful face burning in my mind. "He said you were taking him to get special medicine. He was so happy, so optimistic."

"Kids say things," she said, dismissing his final hope with a wave of her hand. "He was probably just trying to be brave for you. It's over, David. We have to accept it."

Her callousness was staggering. She didn't just kill him; she was actively trying to kill my memory of him, to invalidate the love and hope that had kept him going.

Later that day, while she was on a "very important" conference call, I went into the garage. Tucked away in a corner, behind some old paint cans, was a small cardboard box. The "donation service" had missed it.

I opened it carefully. Inside was his favorite stuffed bear, worn from years of hugs. His collection of colorful rocks. A little clay pot he had made for me, with a crooked, smiling face painted on it. And at the bottom, a small, blue notebook. His journal.

I refused to let her erase him. I packed the box into my car and drove.

I had a workshop, a private lab space I rented a few miles from the house. It was my sanctuary, a place where I worked on my personal projects, the aerospace and AI research that was my true passion. It had also become a special place for me and Leo. He loved coming here, watching me work, his eyes wide with wonder. He called it our "secret headquarters."

I unlocked the door and stepped inside. The air was thick with the familiar smell of solder and machine oil. I cleared off a large workbench in the corner, the one where Leo used to sit and draw his "inventions."

Carefully, I unpacked the box. I placed the stuffed bear on the table, propping it up so it looked like it was watching over the room. I arranged his rocks in a neat little row. I put the clay pot in the center. I found a framed photo of us from his last birthday, both of us grinning, and set it beside the pot.

It wasn't a shrine of grief. It was a place of love. A place where Leo's memory could live on, safe from Sarah's cold, erasing touch. This was his space now. Our space.

I spent hours there, just sitting, breathing, letting the quiet of the workshop settle over me. It was the first time I felt a flicker of peace since he died.

When I finally returned home, it was late. As I walked up the driveway, I noticed a sleek, black sports car parked in the spot where I usually left my sedan. I didn't recognize it.

I entered the house quietly. In the entryway, on the shoe rack, sat a pair of expensive Italian leather loafers. They weren't mine.

I walked into the living room. Sarah was on the couch, laughing. Sitting next to her, his arm casually draped along the back of the sofa behind her, was Mark Thompson.

She saw me and her smile widened, a brittle, artificial thing.

"David! There you are," she said, her voice bright. "I want you to properly meet Mark. I know you've seen him at company events, but he's been such an incredible support to me through all of this."

She stood up, gesturing between us.

"Mark, this is my husband, David. David, Mark Thompson. He wanted to come to the funeral, of course, but he was in the middle of closing a massive deal for Zenith. He just couldn't get away."

I looked from her beaming face to Mark' s smug smile. The man who conspired to kill my son. She was introducing him to me in our home, praising him for missing our son's funeral because of work. The work that Leo's death was meant to facilitate.

The sheer, staggering audacity of it left me speechless. The rage I had been holding back began to boil.