Her mother laughed softly.
“You never told him?”
“Stop.” Clara’s voice came out dangerously thin.
But her mother took another shaky step forward.
“All these years pretending it was an accident. Pretending you didn’t hear her screaming.”
Noah looked horrified.
“Grandma, what are you talking about?”
The old woman pointed directly at Clara.
And whispered:
“Your mother killed her sister.”
Part 5
“That’s not true!”
The words tore from Clara instantly.
Too fast.
Too desperate.
Her mother’s eyes glittered.
“Then tell them what happened.”
Daniel looked stunned.
Noah looked terrified.
And Clara—
Clara felt thirteen years old again.
The lake house.
The storm.
Anna running across the slippery dock while laughing.
Then the crack.
The fall.
The freezing black water swallowing her whole.
Clara shut her eyes tightly.
“I was a child,” she whispered.
Her mother stepped closer.
“You were jealous.”
“No!”
“You pushed her.”
“I did not push her!”
The scream echoed through the room.
Noah flinched.
Daniel grabbed Clara’s shoulders.
“Hey. Look at me.”
She couldn’t.
Because another memory surfaced.
Not the one she had repeated to herself for decades.
Another.
Anna crying earlier that day.
Their mother yelling.
A broken violin.
Then Anna whispering to Clara:
“Sometimes I think Mom wishes one of us would disappear.”
Clara opened her eyes.
Her mother was watching her carefully now.
Too carefully.
Not confused.
Not delirious.
Calculating.
And suddenly Clara understood something even more terrifying than the accusation itself.
Her mother’s dementia had been exaggerated.
Maybe even faked.
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