Chapter 1

Their words kept replaying in my mind. From dawn to dusk, I sat at the wake without moving.

I knew everything now.

Stefan Harbor wasn't dead. The grave I had tended for five years was empty. The man I had mourned for five years had been alive all along, living with Rachel Johansen and raising a child with her as her husband.

Everyone had known. Everyone had hidden the truth from me and my daughter.

Maybe I had already cried every tear I had over the years. My heart couldn't summon even the faintest ache anymore. All I felt was a slow, suffocating numbness.

I reached out and touched Natalie's photo. She wore her school uniform and sat up straight, smiling brightly at the camera.

She rarely smiled after that, especially after Stefan's car accident on her birthday.

She had been five years old that year. On her birthday, she wore a little dress and sat beside the cake, waiting for her father to come home.

I called Stefan. He was out of town, but he said he was already on his way. He told us to wait for him before blowing out the candles.

Natalie believed him. She hugged her stuffed rabbit and leaned against the window, waiting for what felt like forever.

Instead, we got a call from the hospital.

When I rushed there with her, my mother had to hold me up. Rachel stood nearby with red-rimmed eyes and said her brother-in-law had died too suddenly. My friend handled all the paperwork for me. Everyone kept telling me I had to let go of my grief.

That day, I knelt beside the bed covered with a white sheet and cried until no sound would come out.

For a long time afterward, I believed I had killed him. If I hadn't pushed him to come home, if it hadn't been Natalie's birthday, none of it would have happened.

I tortured myself with that thought day after day.

The worst moment came when I stood in a daze at the edge of a rooftop, one step away from falling.

Natalie grabbed my leg and sobbed. Her voice shook as she cried, "Mom, don't go," over and over.

She pulled me back.

But from that day on, something inside her slowly began to break. She refused to celebrate her birthday ever again. Every year, when that day came around, she hid away somewhere, covered her ears, and trembled.

She had nightmares again and again. She dreamed of her father trapped in the car, covered in blood, staring at her.

After that, she grew quieter and quieter. Sometimes, she went entire days without speaking.

Her teachers came to me more than once. I took her to see doctors more than once, too.

I had always thought those were the wounds left by losing her father.

I never imagined that the person who had destroyed her had never died at all.

My phone buzzed.

It was a message from Rachel.

Rachel: [Sis, I didn't mean for you to find out this way. I was so happy after giving birth that I forgot to block you. What's done is done. Please, just wish me happiness. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.]

I stared at those two messages and suddenly remembered what she had been like when she first came to live with us.

She had been timid and too scared to speak. I was the one who took her out for meals, walked her to school, and stood up for her when other kids bullied her. I was even the one who introduced her to Stefan.

Once, I had truly thought of her as my sister.

Now, when I looked back, I only felt like a fool.

While my daughter and I had drowned in grief, the two of them had been living happily together. They had even had a child.

I deleted the chat without typing a single word in reply.

After the mourning period ended, people slowly drifted away.

I sat alone at the wake and looked at Natalie. I reached out and gently touched the smile in her photo.

"Natalie, don't be afraid." My voice came out hoarse. "Mom will be with you again soon."