“You heard something and spoke up.
That saved me.”
She looked toward my house.
“Is it quiet now?”
I listened.
No screams.
No hidden speaker.
No footsteps moving through rooms that belonged to me.
“Yes,” I said.
“But this time, I know why.”
I drove to work without checking the security app or watching the house disappear in my mirror.
The dead had not returned.
A liar had hidden behind my grief, and when he stepped into the light, he was smaller than the ghost I had carried.
The silence in my house no longer felt empty.
It felt like mine.
