I opened the application.
The footage from the previous evening showed my father returning home alone. He went inside at 10:17 p.m.
A few minutes later, someone crossed the edge of the driveway.
The figure wore a hood and kept their face turned away.
My pulse quickened.
“Who is that?”
My father leaned closer.
“I do not know.”
The person stopped near his car, then disappeared from view.
I rewound the recording.
This time, I noticed the shoes.
White sneakers with a dark stripe along the side.
I had seen them before.
Not recently, but often enough to remember.
My father looked at me.
“Lola?”
I closed the application.
“I need to check something.”
I drove home and pulled an old storage box from my closet. Inside were photographs, birthday cards, and papers that had belonged to Mom.
At the bottom, I found a picture from her final summer.
My aunt Sabrina stood beside her, smiling at the camera.
