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We slipped into a rhythm again. She’d come home around six, we’d eat dinner, and she’d talk about odd cases and legal trivia. I loved every minute of it!
But a few weeks ago, right before her parents’ and brother’s death anniversary, something shifted.
She grew distant and quieter — not in a moody way, but in a focused way, as if her mind were always somewhere else.
Emmy also started asking odd questions over dinner that scratched at old scabs I’d carefully ignored for years.
“Grandpa, do you remember what time they left here that night?”
“Was anyone else supposed to be on that road?”
“Did the police ever follow up with you more than once?”
She grew distant and quieter…
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At first, I thought it was just curiosity. Maybe she’d started therapy or wanted closure.
But the way she looked at me — as if she were measuring my answers — made my skin crawl.
Then, last Sunday afternoon, she came home earlier than usual.
Her coat was still buttoned as she stood in the entryway with a folded piece of paper, as if it might set the house on fire if she opened it too fast.
“Grandpa,” she said.
Her voice was even, but her hands trembled. “Can we sit down?”
But the way she looked at me […] made my skin crawl.
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We sat at the kitchen table. That table had been part of everything: birthdays, report cards, scraped knees, and Sunday pancakes. It had seen so much of our life that I almost didn’t want to bring whatever was in that paper onto it.
She slid it across the surface toward me.
“I need you to read this before I say anything. I have to confess something.”
I opened it. It was in her handwriting. Neat and measured.
“IT WASN’T AN ACCIDENT.”
