Chapter 4

Monica came back two days later.

Not to stay.

To talk.

That was what Dad said.

I stayed upstairs with Leo, but voices carried through vents in old houses.

Monica cried.

Dad spoke quietly.

Then Monica said the sentence that changed everything.

“I just wanted one house where your dead wife wasn’t still living.”

Leo looked at me.

“Dead wife means your mom?”

I nodded slowly.

He frowned.

“That’s mean.”

“Yes.”

Downstairs, Dad’s voice went cold.

“Clara is Ava’s mother. She will always be part of this house.”

“What about me?” Monica cried. “I married a ghost.”

“You married a widower with a child.”

“I married you. Not your grief.”

“You don’t get one without the other.”

Silence.

Then Monica said, “Ava looks at me like I’m stealing something.”

I whispered, “Because you were.”

Leo heard me.

He leaned against my side.

After Monica left, Dad came upstairs.

He sat on the floor outside my room.

Not inside.

Waiting.

I sat across from him.

He looked at me with eyes full of regret.

“I need you to tell me everything I minimized.”

That was a terrifying invitation.

So I did.

How Monica stopped setting a plate for me when I was late.

How she called my visits “schedule disruptions.”

How she put Mom’s Christmas ornaments in a box labeled miscellaneous.

How she told me Dad needed “fresh air from the past.”

How she changed the family photo wall and moved my mother’s picture to the hallway near the laundry room.

Dad cried during that one.

“I didn’t notice.”

“I know.”

“I should have.”

“Yes.”

The word came out before I could soften it.

He nodded.

“Yes. I should have.”

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