I backed up, bumping into one of the side tables at the knee, enough to cause bruising. I cried out shortly, both in pain and in surprise.

  At this, he stopped the noise, blinking rapidly.

  I wasn’t sure if I should move. No one was coming back in. They were all on the porch and maybe they couldn’t hear us.

  I remained still, waiting, too terrified to move.

  His face twisted in confusion. It was like he was trying to put puzzle pieces together, but in his condition, he wasn’t able to.

  “I think I’m your granddaughter,” I said quietly. “Your daughter had a daughter. I think that was my mother.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he seemed to be listening. Perhaps he was stunned, or the information was still processing.

  My heart raced. My chest felt tight. I only hoped I was doing the right thing.

  “I just wanted to see for myself,” I said. “I didn’t know where I came from. I just found out a few months ago that my mother... that my stepmother wasn’t really my mo—”

  “You’re Lyric’s daughter,” he said quickly. His voice was strained.

  I nodded slowly.

  “They never told you about her?” he asked. “About us?”

  I shook my head. “Not until... recently.”

  “And you came back here?”

  I nodded again.

  Suddenly he turned from me, I wondered if he was in pain. “I need to rest,” he barked at me.

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Go tell my wife. I need to rest.” His voice was demanding, and he turned in his chair, his back to me, clutching his arm.

  I backed away. He needed to rest, that was true.

  This wasn’t the right time.

  “I just wanted you to know,” I said softly.

  And I left the room.

  Find Out What It Means to Be One

  I lingered in the hallway, puzzled as to what to do next. He’d said to tell my grandmother, but it wasn’t clear if he meant for me to tell her about myself, or to simply to tell her to let him rest.

  But I didn’t think this was the right time to reveal myself to my grandmother. I wasn’t sure if my grandfather would tell her if she returned to talk to him. He needed time to recover, to calm down. But maybe... maybe me revealing myself, I hoped it changed his mind about getting help

  So instead of going to the living room, I returned to the bathroom. I didn’t have a reason to be in there, but I waited.

  I listened.

  Time passed. Eventually my grandmother came back in to talk to my grandfather. I could hear her voice, and his, and there was a conversation but apparently nothing was said about me, because she never came looking for me.

  Instead, she went back to the living room, spoke again once with the doctor and Gabriel. And then suddenly there was silence as someone left.

  I thought it was the doctor at first, until there was a gentle knock at the door and Gabriel called to me.

  “They’re gone,” he said quietly.

  They had both left. And without my grandfather because it was obvious he hadn’t moved.

  My heart cracked in two. It hadn’t helped. He might have even thought I was a dream in his condition. I went to the bathroom door and opened it to let Gabriel in.

  “She’s going to come back a little later. The doctor left to get some medications and...” He paused and then tilted his head, blinking. “Your contacts...”

  With a cracked voice, I told him quickly what I did.

  And what happened.

  That he told me to leave.

  And how I’d been in the bathroom ever since, too stunned to come out.

  Gabriel remained in the doorway, also speechless.

  For the longest time, we simply stared at each other. Time passed. The silence in the house thickened.

  Gabriel whispered, more to himself, “He knows...”

  I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t exactly a question.

  He continued, “I... might have said something to the doctor.”

  He then told me about what my uncle had said that morning when he asked about information on my mother. And then what the doctor said too. That it was more certain that I’d been given to my father first, and then my mother died, and not the reverse.

  On top of that, they lied to their son about it.

  “Do you think the doctor will say anything?” I asked him. I felt I’d taken a risk at showing myself to my grandfather, but the doctor might be even more worrying.

  “He was reluctant to tell me. I don’t think he’ll say anything. Maybe to your grandmother.”

  There was no way to know unless someone said something. Still, it didn’t appear that there was much of me around this house at all. Remnants of my mother remained, tucked away, but nothing of me.

  I closed my eyes. We shouldn’t be thinking about this right now. Maybe I shouldn’t have rushed to show him who I was. My grandfather...

  Gabriel leaned his head against the bathroom doorframe. “Your grandmother said she’d be back. The doctor said he had to go see someone else and to just keep him still and he’ll be back with some meds that might help if he still refuses to leave. But I’m hoping London will be able to get the local judge to approve forcing him into a hospital. If they can just stabilize him...”

  A big if. If the judge didn’t approve, we’d be out of luck.

  All we could do was wait.

  When It All Became Too Much

  Neither one of us felt like breakfast after that crazy morning.

  Even moving or breathing felt like too much motion, too much to do.

  After fifteen minutes of Gabriel and I attempting to tiptoe, getting as far as the parlor door but not daring to peek in just yet, Gabriel insisted we retreat to the bedroom.

  “Take a nap,” he said. “Just a short one. Let’s stay really still and quiet so he gets some rest.”

  I didn’t really feel like a nap. I remained on my side, face in the pillow or staring at the wall, pretending to sleep.

  Gabriel was in the bed beside me, occasionally turning. It seemed like he wasn’t really feeling like a nap either.

  I readied myself again with the contacts and with makeup once more. Just in case.

  The television seemed too loud to bother with. He used a phone to update everyone on what was going on, but even then, there wasn’t much for anyone to do. North and Silas remained away from the house for the day. They parked the RV nearby and kept the vehicles near just in case.

  For what felt like an hour, Gabriel and I remained silent. Waiting for anything. I played with the necklace I still wore, feeling the crystals and touching each of them. Gabriel was more still, but appeared to be listening out, just in case.

  Eventually I did sleep. At least I thought so. Or maybe I drifted but never fully settled, because at some point, it felt like I was waking up from a dream.

  And the whole world had changed.

  Silence. Everything, everywhere. That’s all that was.

  Somehow, in the deepest part of my heart, I knew what had happened. Maybe it was just now, but it was certainly very recently.

  I rose from the bed, listening to the stillness. No birds. No wind. It was like the whole world had shushed.

  But it wasn’t snow this time. No. Snow I could hear. I listened as hard as I could, trying to hear it. But no, it wasn’t snow.

  This was something completely different, and my gut told me what it was.

  I stepped as silently as I could onto the floor. I didn’t want to wake Gabriel. He had eventually fallen asleep. Gabriel’s face was placid, with his elbow over his forehead and his mouth a little slack.

  The faint mumble of some song lyrics on his lips, but he didn’t sing. Not this time.

  Slowly, easing my feet along the floorboards, testing each one so none would creak, I made my way into the hallway. The light had changed to a gentle glow and beams of light made bright spots along the floor.

  I closed the bedroom door and hovered where I stood.

  Listening.

  Waiting.

  Any noise made, and I’d know I was wrong.

  But I wasn’t wrong.

  I walked slowly, toward the parlor. The parlor’s glass door panels colored yellow at an angle and cleared as I drew closer.

  I held my breath, easing over to look.

  He was there. His eyes closed.

  His chest not rising.

  Unmoving.

  I stood for the longest time, as if at any second, he would move, he’d get up and see me. He’d say something. Maybe he wouldn’t remember what I had said, he’d call me Samantha. He’d get up, want to take the dog out...

  Where was Chica?

  I spotted her at his feet, laying there, awake but not really focused on anything other than him. She hadn’t heard me get up, or she didn’t care.

  She wasn’t leaving him. It was like she knew, too, and was staying by his side.

  It was looking at her that made me start to tear up. Not him dead in his chair. Somehow, in that early morning, knowing what I knew now and realizing this was what he wanted, somewhat peacefully...

  But the dog, who was still alive, waiting for her owner to get up, that brought tears to my eyes. I didn’t want her to be sad. She wouldn’t understand what happened. Her world would change soon.

  I didn’t want to call to her. Not yet. Because the moment I woke Gabriel, the moment he went to check for sure, what I knew for sure already, it would begin. We’d have to call my grandmother to tell her.

  And my uncle.

  And... what happened then?

  I couldn’t think of it. Not now. Not in this quiet hour. Sad but peaceful, let the dog have more time. The last time.

  Thinking of it like that, I left the hallway, right to the bathroom, and closed the door.

  I sunk down to the floor and cried. Mostly for Chica. For relief.

  Was I happy I told him?

  Was it good I came now?

  Did telling him stress him more that he died?

  Crying silently, I laid down on the cold tile floor of the bathroom. Like a lump, I felt heavy, too weak to stop the tears from flowing.

  I cried until my face was in pain. I cried until there were no tears left. And I simply lay on the floor, alone. The cold tile helped. It was soothing.

  I stayed for as long as I could, until I was sure that Gabriel was making noise in the bedroom.

  I hurried to the sink, splashing cold water on my face to clear the tears and mess, and wiped away most of the makeup in the process.

  I got to the bathroom door to open it just as Gabriel was out the bedroom and walking toward the front of the house.

  “Wait,” I whispered. I don’t know why I was whispering. We were the only ones left.

  He paused and cocked a brow. “Why?”

  I said with a slight cracking in my voice, “He’s dead.”

  His eyes blinked rapidly, his mouth hung open and he seemed to still for so many moments. “He’s dead? How do you know?”

  “I just know,” I said, a little louder now.

  “Did you check?”

  I shook my head. I could be wrong... but I knew.

  Gabriel crossed the hallway, and went to the parlor door. He peered in through the same glass pane as I’d done, searching for signs of life.

  After a moment, he went to the knob, opened the door and peered in.

  “Mr. Sorenson?” he said into the room. “Brian?”

  Silence. Only Chica responded with what sounded like excited breathing, but she didn’t get up to greet him.

  Gabriel squeezed himself into the room. When he went in, I went to the door and leaned against the frame, waiting.

  I didn’t dare enter. It felt like sacred ground now. I didn’t mind Gabriel going in to check on him, it just felt wrong for me to cross into the room.

  Gabriel eased himself around the big collection of furniture, calling to my grandfather every couple of feet.

  When he reached him, Gabriel found his wrist, checked for a pulse. He checked again at his neck, and then felt near his nose.

  After that, he backed away from him. Sorrow etched in his face. “I think... he’s gone,” he whispered.

  “What do we do?” I whispered. I sort of knew, but I didn’t know what would happen now.

  “We should call Charlotte,” he said. “Let her know. She might know what to do next.” He gazed at the body, and then my grandfather’s collection of stuff all over the room, and then to Chica. “I’ve never... when my parents died, they were gone. Away from the house. I never saw them until the funeral.”

  A funeral.

  It was the first time I realized there would be one most likely.

  I hadn’t ever been to one.

  I’d never seen someone dead, until now.

  My grandfather... I’d only known him for a few days. It was hard to feel very sad. And I thought that was wrong. I’d cried of course, but it had been for Chica, or so I told myself.

  Part of me now was just numb. Silent like the world around us. Knowing soon it wouldn’t be because his wife would come and others, every moment became slow and numb, an experience of a strange sort of peace.

  I didn’t understand it. Later I assumed it was shock.

  Gabriel called with a sorrowful message to my grandmother.

  I prepped my makeup, though Gabriel spotted me and fixed my face for me. He didn’t ask me to look at him or turn my head too much like he usually did. He just had me stare at the wall, and then occasionally close my eyes. That was it. As gentle as he could to make sure I was masked again.

  Within a half hour, she was there. She kept her overcoat around her, wearing boots and gloves. She went immediately to check on her husband.

  I stood further away this time, not wanting to intrude, but I lingered near the foyer’s steps, waiting just in case they needed someone else.

  Chica never moved from her spot. When Grandmother arrived, the dog stood up, and nuzzled her knee.

  Grandmother touched at her husband’s still hand, checked his pulse, checked his neck, checked for breathing.

  When it was clear we were right, she sat down silently in the couch next to him, and waited.

  Within another hour, the doctor came without her calling, the one who had been here before. She must have called before she got to the house.

  This time, Chica was encouraged to leave the room. The doctor did an examination.

  To avoid being near the doctor when he was here, I took Chica outside with me. I walked with her around the perimeter of the property while Gabriel stayed inside if they needed something.

  The air was frigid and snow occasionally appeared and then stopped shortly. I’d forgotten a jacket, but I didn’t really care. I welcomed the cold, because it numbed my body. I wasn’t ready to feel anything yet.

  My sneakers crushed frozen grass blades as I followed the tree line without going in, and then along the field behind the house.

  Chica stayed with me, occasionally veering off a little to a nearby tree to sniff at it, but then she’d return. She didn’t rush after animals.

  Maybe she needed this as much as I did.

  After, I went to the barn. It was so old. Like the house.

  In the center of the barn was a wide-open space. There were stalls for horses here. I wondered when there had last been horses here. Did my mother have one?

  Inside the barn, a new collection of concrete and supplies for fixing up the chimneys lay. Some more expensive tools had been locked up in one of the stalls.

  I didn’t know if we would ever finish the chimneys now.

  As I walked, millions of questions entered my mind. Mostly what would we do now, what happened next. To my uncle, we were nobody. What would happen to the house?

  Part of me wondered if this would be the last time I would be here, because we no longer had a purpose, and this passing of my grandfather changed everything.

  Answers were lost forever.

  Yet I didn’t want to go back to the house and ask questions. Not yet.

  With Chica following me for this quiet morning walk, it was like she knew I needed a companion, but she, too needed someone. Someone who understood the silence that felt required in this moment. Silence felt like the only answer now.

  Taking time to be alone, as much as possible, because soon, there would be people.

  People who wouldn’t know who I was.

  That I was a secret of this family, and the people still living didn’t even know I was here.

  After an hour of walking around, I found a short tree stump close to the field’s black fence on the far side of the barn, shielded from view of the house. I sat on the stump, bracing my arms against the chill. The temperature was warming slightly as the sun was coming up but snow flurries appeared on occasion, and darker clouds on the horizon promised much more would come.

  At some point, a familiar voice drifted to me.

  “Sang?” Nathan said.

  I knew one of them would come to find me. I didn’t mind. However, I didn’t turn to greet him. Despite having been alone, I hadn’t cried like I did in the bathroom. It was like I’d finished completely. But I couldn’t talk.

  Instead of saying any more, Nathan sat beside me and put an arm around my shoulders. He sent one quiet text to someone via the phone he carried and that was it. He kept a strong arm around me, gazing out into the field like I was.

  I leaned against him. He simply held me.

  And it was like that until Luke found us. He’d brought a coat for me. I did put it on, but still, I said nothing, and stared out into the field. Luke joined us. Sitting on the other side of me, squeezing us together on the stump, with an arm around my waist.

  And soon after, Dr. Green, materialized, but instead of joining us at the stump, he went to the fence, hanging on it, and he, too, stared out into the field.

  After a bit, North and Silas joined us. Silas sat on the ground near me. North went to the fence with Dr. Green.

  We all remained together, in complete silence. It was like they knew, and understood. I didn’t know how they knew.

  Silence.

  No words. No discussion. No planning what to do next.