Emily fell asleep during dinner with frosting on her cheek.
Daniel looked happy that day, but cautious too, like part of him still expected happiness to disappear if he relaxed too much around it.
After the wedding, I moved into his house.
It felt lived-in immediately. Warm kitchen. Crayon drawings taped to the refrigerator. Tiny shoes near the front door. Toys somehow appearing under furniture minutes after being cleaned.
It should have felt ordinary.
But little things began bothering me almost immediately.
Especially the basement door.
It stayed locked constantly.
The first week I casually asked about it while we cleaned dishes after dinner.
“What’s down there?”
Daniel barely looked up. “Storage. Paint cans, old tools, junk. I don’t want the girls getting hurt.”
The answer made sense.
Still, something about the door lingered in my mind.
Sometimes I noticed Grace staring at it quietly from the hallway. Sometimes Emily wandered too close before quickly running away again with the guilty expression children wear when they almost reveal a secret.
One afternoon I found Grace sitting cross-legged in front of the basement door just watching it.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Thinking.”
“About what?”
She stood up immediately. “Nothing.”
Then she ran off.
Families develop strange habits after tragedy, I told myself. Maybe this was one of them.
Then came the afternoon that changed everything.
Both girls were home sick with colds while Daniel worked. By noon they had recovered enough energy to turn the house into chaos.
“I’m fading fast,” Grace announced dramatically from the couch.
“You have a runny nose,” I replied.
Emily sneezed into a blanket. “I also am fading. Maybe forever.”
By lunchtime they were sprinting through the house playing hide-and-seek despite my repeated warnings not to jump off furniture.
I was stirring soup when Grace suddenly appeared beside me and tugged my sleeve.
Her face was unusually serious.
“What is it?”
She looked up at me quietly.
“Do you want to meet my mom?”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“What?”
