The house felt like a stage set after the actors had fled—everything in its place, but wrong, hollowed out. Lauren’s favorite playlist wasn’t humming from the kitchen speaker, the TV was a black square, and the ceiling above us held its breath. Two coffee mugs sweated cold rings on the counter. My son’s fingers dug crescents into my arm as we stared at the thin line of light under his bedroom door. They said you’d be angry if you found out, he whispered, and that one small they cracked the world I thought I knew. A murmur bled from behind the door, cut off like someone’s hand had clamped over a mouth, followed by the slow, deliberate scrape of something heavy being dragged. I turned the knob. Inside, Lauren knelt by the bed, alive, eyes blown wide. And beside her—thinner, older, eight years dead in my mind—stood my father, a battered cardboard box at his feet, my son’s toy chest yanked from the wall to reveal a torn strip of baseboard he was prying back with shaking fin… Continues…