I wondered then if he had ever imagined that the child we raised would one day try to hollow out the house from the inside and call it protection.
That night I slept badly.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Daniel’s name beneath my forged signature. I saw him standing in front of Jason, arranging his face into concern, claiming I was slipping, perhaps adding little details for credibility. Mom’s forgotten recipes. Repeated stories. Missing keys. The ordinary vulnerabilities of age repurposed as a weapon.
At dawn, I gave up and went to the kitchen.
I brewed coffee the way Robert liked it. Two scoops. No sugar. Strong enough, he used to say, to wake the dead and shame the lazy. The smell filled the kitchen, bitter and steadying. Outside, a mockingbird shouted from the magnolia tree like it owned the whole morning.
I carried my mug to the hallway cabinet and unlocked the bottom drawer.
