CHAPTER 2 — The House That Remembered Everything
Inside the house, everything changed shape.
Guests were no longer guests.
They were witnesses.
The pink ribbons outside suddenly felt like decoration on a crime scene no one had named yet.
Helen tried to regain control.
“You’re overreacting,” she said sharply. “It was a family correction—”
James interrupted her.
“No.”
One word.
Flat.
Final.
He gently passed Lily into the narrator’s arms. The baby still warm, still alive, still unaware of how close she had come to becoming a memory instead of a future.
Then James reached into his pocket.
And placed something on the kitchen table.
A small black recorder.
Rebecca’s face tightened.
“What is that?”
James didn’t answer immediately.
He pressed play.
And the house filled with Helen’s voice.
Not the public one.
Not the polite one.
The real one.
May you like
“If she doesn’t lose the baby… we fix it ourselves.”
Silence collapsed the room.
