Chapter 4 - The House of Ash
Two days later, I returned to my parents' home with a police escort. I needed to retrieve Ruby’s things—her clothes, her coloring books, and the stuffed rabbit she couldn't sleep without.
The house was cold. The air still smelled faintly of the cinnamon candles my mother loved, but now, it felt like the smell of a funeral parlor.
My mother was sitting in the living room, staring at the television. She hadn't bothered to turn it on. She was just staring at the black glass, her posture rigid, her hands folded in her lap. She didn't move when the officers entered. She didn't move when I walked into the kitchen.
I walked to the table where it had happened. There were still faint, dried specks of blood on the grout between the tiles. The table had been scrubbed, but the stain of what occurred remained—a permanent scar on the wood.
I found my father in the garage. He was standing by his workbench, gripping a hammer in one hand. He looked small. The "patriarch" who had spent decades shutting curtains and lowering voices was just an old man in a cold garage, holding a tool he no longer had the strength to use.
"Why?" he whispered, not looking at me. "Why did you call the police? We could have handled it. We would have gotten her help. We would have paid for the surgery."
"You wouldn't have gotten her help, Dad," I said. "You would have gotten her a better lawyer. You would have silenced the nurse, threatened the doctor, and blamed the victim. You aren't capable of help. You are only capable of hiding."
I grabbed a box of Ruby’s belongings from the floor. As I turned to leave, he spoke again.
May you like
"She’s your sister. You’ve killed our family."
"No, Dad," I said, pausing at the threshold of the garage. "You killed this family the day Vanessa broke her first window, and you told the neighbors it was the wind. You killed it when you taught her that she was the center of the universe, and we were just the background noise. I’m just the one who finally called the coroner."
