Chương 4
Not because he was wrong.
Because he sounded like he was talking about an inconvenience.
Not the thing someone had placed beside where she slept.
“Who put it there?” Nora asked.
Nobody spoke.
The answer had become too heavy for anyone to carry.
Nobody answered.
The silence was no longer an absence of information.
It was information.
Nora looked at Edgar.
Then at Kristina.
The two people standing in front of her had spent years making decisions in rooms where her name was spoken without her presence.
Now they stood together, unable to decide who would speak first.
The snake shifted beneath the blanket again.
The movement was slower this time.
More deliberate.
A reminder that while they argued about the past, something dangerous was still trapped inches away from where Nora had slept.
Edgar reached into his pocket.
Nora noticed immediately.
“Stop.”
He froze.
“I’m getting my phone.”
“Why?”
His expression tightened.
“To call someone.”
“Who?”
A pause.
That pause told her more than the answer would have.
“Edgar.”
He looked at the floor.
“I know someone who can remove it safely.”
Nora stared at him.
“You know someone.”
The words were quiet.
That was what made them hurt.
“You know someone who can remove a rattlesnake from my bed.”
Kristina looked away.
Edgar closed his eyes briefly.
“Nora.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I need you to stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m a person you love instead of a situation you need to control.”
The accusation landed.
Edgar did not defend himself immediately.
That frightened her more than an argument would have.
For years, he always had an answer.
A reason.
A carefully arranged explanation that made him seem reasonable.
Now there was only silence.
The kind of silence that existed when someone had run out of places to hide.
Kristina moved toward the bed.
Nora stepped in front of her.
“No.”
Kristina looked at her.
“I’m not trying to hurt you.”
Nora almost believed her.
That was the worst part.
People did not always become monsters before they did terrible things.
Sometimes they remained complicated.
Sometimes they still worried about the same people they harmed.
Sometimes they convinced themselves that cruelty was necessary.
“That doesn’t matter,” Nora said.
Kristina’s face changed slightly.
“What?”
“Whether you wanted to hurt me.”
Nora swallowed.
“You still brought it here.”
The room became quiet again.
Edgar looked toward the bedroom window.
The light outside had faded into evening.
The house that usually felt warm now felt unfamiliar.
The expensive furniture.
The polished floors.
The framed photographs on the walls.
Everything looked like a display someone had created to convince visitors that nothing bad could happen there.
“I need to understand one thing,” Nora said.
Neither person answered.
“Did Edgar ask you to do this?”
Kristina looked at Edgar.
That was enough.
Nora saw the exchange.
A fraction of hesitation.
A silent conversation.
A decision about whether the truth was worth the damage.
Edgar noticed her watching.
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Too quickly.
“I didn’t ask her to do anything.”
Kristina looked at him.
“Careful.”
The word was soft.
But it carried a warning.
Nora felt something inside her shift.
They were not united.
Not completely.
Whatever existed between them had cracks.
“You two aren’t even telling the same story,” Nora said.
Edgar stepped closer.
“Nora, listen to me.”
She raised her hand again.
He stopped.
The fact that he listened made her angry.
The fact that he had not always listened made her angrier.
“I found the picture,” she said.
Edgar went still.
“The one with Heather.”
His face changed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
“She was real.”
Kristina sat down slowly in the chair near the window.
The movement looked less like surrender and more like exhaustion.
“She was always real.”
Nora looked at her.
“Then why did everyone act like she wasn’t?”
Kristina folded her hands together.
The green gardening glove on one hand was still on.
The other hand was bare.
A strange detail.
A detail Nora would remember later.
“She was my daughter.”
The sentence did not sound dramatic.
It was almost ordinary.
That made it worse.
Nora stared.
“What?”
Kristina looked down.
“My daughter.”
Edgar said nothing.
Nora looked at him.
“You had a relationship with her.”
It was not a question.
Edgar’s face tightened.
“I knew her.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Kristina answered.
“She was twenty-two when she died.”
The room changed.
The accusation Nora had been holding suddenly collided with something she did not understand.
Died.
The word carried weight.
Pain.
A different kind of secret.
“What happened?”
Kristina’s fingers tightened around each other.
“She was supposed to have a different life.”
The sentence sounded familiar.
Edgar had used almost the same words.
A different future.
A different life.
Different from what?
Nora waited.
Kristina looked toward the bed.
Toward the hidden snake.
Then back at Nora.
“She believed Edgar was going to leave.”
Nora felt the air leave her lungs.
Edgar looked away.
“Kristina.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“You don’t get to hide behind her anymore.”
Nora watched them.
Something old was breaking apart.
Not because of her.
It had been breaking long before she walked into the room.
“Heather was your daughter,” Nora said.
Kristina nodded.
“And Edgar?”
Kristina did not answer immediately.
That hesitation was crueler than a confession.
“He was part of her life.”
Nora looked at Edgar.
“What does that mean?”
Edgar’s face had gone pale.
“She was young.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“I was trying to help her.”
Kristina laughed quietly.
There was no humor in it.
“You always say that.”
Edgar looked at her.
“Because it’s true.”
“No.”
Kristina stood.
“You say that because you need to believe it.”
The argument between them suddenly felt older than the house.
Older than Nora’s marriage.
Older than the room they were standing in.
May you like
Nora felt like she had opened a door into a story that had been running without her for decades.
“What happened to Heather?” she asked again.
