Christopher
I pull up to the driveway, gripping the wheel so tightly my knuckles ache.
The house looks eerily pristine, almost too perfect, like something out of a staged photo. It’s the same house, the same driveway, the same front porch—but the heaviness, the darkness that had stained this place, weighs me down.
The bannister in the corridor—where the wood had splintered under Elizabeth’s weight when she fell—is freshly fixed.
The bloodstains that were streaked across the tiles are gone, scrubbed away so completely it’s as if they never existed.
It’s jarring.
Stepping inside the living room, I pause. The air smells like lemons and fresh paint. Too clean. The weight on my chest hasn’t lifted, though. If anything, it presses harder.
The mother of my child, an innocent woman, someone
