Chapter 3

Mom paused at the question, then said, “Of course I’m sad.”

I rubbed my dry eyes again, unable to find anything to say.

In one sense, she seemed normal. Earlier, she’d clung to me while we both sobbed.

In another, she didn’t. Once she’d stopped crying, she’d acted as though nothing had happened. There hadn’t been another trace of grief on her face.

She waved a hand and unlocked her room. “I’m tired. Get some rest.”

I said nothing more. I went into my own room and locked the door behind me.

Lying on the bed, I didn’t feel like looking at my phone or doing anything else. All I could see was Dad’s face, his dead eyes glaring.

Then the question that had troubled me for years surfaced again.

“Our family has a big secret.”

I clicked my tongue in frustration. Only then did I realize I’d forgotten to tell the police about it.

So what was this secret Dad kept talking about?

My instincts told me it had to be connected to his death somehow.

Something suddenly occurred to me. I picked up my phone and called Mom.

It took her half a minute to answer.

I got straight to the point. “Mom, you know how Dad was always saying our family had a big secret? Yesterday he said he could tell me today… Do you know what it is?”

“A secret?”

Mom sounded confused. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard anything about that. Are you remembering it wrong?”

I grew agitated. “How can you not know? He’s said it at home several times. You were there when he said it.”

She sounded tired. “I really don’t know. When has he ever said anything like that? Are you sure you haven’t got it wrong?”

Her voice didn’t sound as though she was lying. It sounded as though she truly knew nothing about it.

However much I pressed her, I couldn’t get anything out of her about the secret.

She flatly denied the whole thing.

There it was again.

The same thing all over again.

They were the ones who wouldn’t let me sing and dance at home, who stopped me from doing all sorts of things. Yet they refused to admit it and turned it back on me, saying I was remembering it wrong.

It was so eerie. So absurd.

How could anyone have no memory of things they’d done?

I sat on the bed, frowning hard.

As I thought, countless memories flooded back.

Normally, my parents’ memories worked perfectly well. They behaved just like everyone else.

But whenever those strange rules came up, like not singing and dancing, not going to hospitals, not turning off the lights to sleep…

They became different people, denying they’d ever done any of it.