The apartment dissolved into chaos.
One officer moved toward Margaret cautiously.
Another questioned Daniel.
Noah stood frozen near the doorway.
But Margaret never took her eyes off Clara.
Not once.
“You told them,” Clara whispered.
Margaret smiled faintly.
“No. But you will.”
Then, suddenly, she collapsed.
Her body struck the floor hard enough to make Noah cry out.
Paramedics arrived minutes later.
Heart failure.
Critical condition.
The officers escorted everyone to the hospital for statements.
By midnight, Clara sat beneath sterile fluorescent lights while rain battered the emergency room windows.
A detective slid a folder across the table.
Inside were photographs.
Burned hallways.
Destroyed rooms.
Bodies covered in white sheets.
And security footage.
Margaret walking calmly through smoke.
Clara stared in disbelief.
“This can’t be real.”
The detective folded his hands.
“Your mother suffered severe psychiatric decline after entering the facility. Staff reported violent episodes and obsessive discussions about her daughters.”
Daughters.
Plural.
Even though one had died decades ago.
The detective paused.
“One nurse survived long enough to give a statement. She claimed your mother kept repeating the same sentence before the fire spread.”
Clara forced herself to ask:
“What sentence?”
The detective looked directly at her.
“‘I chose the wrong daughter.'”
Something inside Clara cracked.
Because for the first time in twenty-three years…
she remembered the missing piece.
Not Anna falling.
Not the storm.
Not the lake.
What came after.
Tiny hands clawing desperately against the dock.
Anna screaming for help.
And their mother standing there.
Watching.
Doing nothing.
Clara’s breath hitched violently.
No.
No, that wasn’t possible.
Unless—
Unless Clara hadn’t blocked the memory because of guilt.
But because the truth was worse.
Her mother had let Anna drown.
On purpose.
And made Clara carry the blame.
