The fire didn’t just burn my mother’s things — it cracked something open in my father, something that wouldn’t fully heal.
He was released from the hospital two days later, shaken but stable. His doctor said the damage wasn’t critical, but the emotional stress had taken a toll. He wasn’t eating. He barely spoke.
When I brought him home, the house smelled faintly of smoke and lavender — the scent of my mother’s linen chest, now gone.
Dad stood in the living room and looked around like it was someone else’s home.
“She erased her,” he said quietly. “Like she never existed.”
I didn’t correct him. He was right.
Carla had been released on bail and was staying with her sister. Her lawyer reached out to us within the week, trying to “resolve the matter privately.”
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