"This case isn’t something you can shoulder on your own. It’s dangerous, far too dangerous."
Just thinking about how the woman who once cradled me in her loving arms had now become a name people whispered in fear, I couldn’t stop the tears from falling.
"If she really did come looking for me, that would almost be a relief."
"At least then, I could finally ask her face-to-face why she did it."
For as long as I could remember, Mom had always been gentle and kind to the core.
She met everyone with a smile and often told us, "Family is a person’s greatest harbor. There’s nothing more sacred than blood."
I couldn’t make sense of it. I didn’t want to believe it.
She had always doted on us, adored Dad and treated Grandma with respect.
So why did she destroy the very people she claimed to love most?
With that confusion weighing heavy on my chest, I turned down my mentor’s plea without hesitation.
I dropped out and went back home.
The house that once echoed with laughter now sat in chilling silence.
I sank onto the couch and stared at the family portrait of the five of us hanging on the wall.
The faint metallic scent of blood still clung to the air, refusing to fade.
It felt like someone had carved a piece straight from my heart and the wound wouldn’t stop bleeding.
For years, Mom and Dad had been inseparable, just as in love as the day they met.
Dad lived simply, never one to splurge, but I still remembered how he once bought her an expensive dress just because she paused in front of a shop window and smiled at it.
When Mom was diagnosed with late-stage kidney failure, Dad didn’t hesitate for a second; he emptied the savings he had spent half a lifetime building just to cover her treatment.
Afraid she wouldn’t get enough nutrition after the surgery, he took on three jobs a day just to buy her the best supplements money could buy.
Watching him push himself like that, Mom would tear up with heartache.
She often told people at the hospital that she was the luckiest woman alive to have married a man like him.
And every time she said that Grandma would smile warmly and reply, “My son’s the lucky one; he married you.”
Grandma always said Mom was the kindest, most gentle person she’d ever known.
While other families bickered over petty things, their relationship was rare, like true mother and daughter. They were so close that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.