The photograph beneath the headline stopped my heart.
It was my childhood home.
I recognized the white porch.
The crooked maple tree.
The bedroom window where I used to sit and watch thunderstorms.
The clipping was dated twenty-nine years earlier.
The night my mother died.
I had been eight.
My memories of that night had always been fragments.
Smoke.
Sirens.
A blanket around my shoulders.
A man asking me whether anyone else was inside.
And Christopher—
No.
Not Christopher.
That was impossible.
I closed my eyes.
Something moved at the edge of my memory.
A boy.
Older than me.
Standing behind the police tape.
Watching.
I opened my eyes.
“Sadie…”
She was crying now.
“I’m sorry.”
“What does your mother have to do with the fire?”
“Everything.”
My stomach twisted.
I pulled another paper from the envelope.
It was a copy of a birth certificate.
Rebecca Elise Morgan.
Date of birth: March 17.
Parents:
Daniel Morgan.
Evelyn Morgan.
My parents’ names.
My hands went numb.
I read it again.
Then again.
“No.”
Sadie wiped her face.
“Rebecca was your sister.”
The world went completely silent.
“My sister died when she was a baby.”
“That’s what you were told.”
“I remember the funeral.”
“You were three.”
“I remember my father crying.”
“Christopher said there was a funeral. But there wasn’t a body in the casket.”
I stumbled backward until my legs hit the bed.
I sat down.
Rebecca.
