The Second Betrayal

The summer I turned eighteen was thick with the scent of plane tree leaves scorched by the sun. Clutching my freshly received report card, I stood on a street corner downtown, about to call my dad who was working late. My dad's figure emerged first through the revolving glass door. He wore that light gray shirt I bought with my first part-time paycheck, sleeves rolled up, his posture relaxed. Right behind him was the housekeeper, Anna Zimmerman. She wore a designer dress that wasn't hers, holding my Dad's briefcase, a hotel-logo paper bag dangling from her fingertip. My Dad turned to her and said something, reaching out to brush the stray hair from her forehead—a gesture painfully intimate. My phone hit the ground with a snap, the screen shattering into jagged cracks. They didn't hear me, walking side by side toward the parking lot, the sunlight merging their shadows into one, inseparable. I crouched down, my fingers trembling as I picked up the phone. In the cracks on the screen, my pale face was reflected. I don't even know how I made it home. The living room light was on. My Mom was curled up on the sofa, clutching a faded pillow, her eyes vacant as she stared ahead. She saw me come in, moved her lips, her voice hoarse like sandpaper rubbing: "Did you see it?" My throat tightened, and I couldn't utter a word, only nodding hard. "I knew all along." My Mom smiled, but her smile was soaked in despair. "Ever since she first wore my silk scarf, since he first came home late carrying a strange perfume." I threw myself into her embrace, tears falling on her shoulder: "Mom, let's leave him. We'll be together." She gently patted my back, the touch as light as a feather: "Nora, I'm tired. I can't hold on anymore." That night, I stayed by My Mom's side, unable to sleep at all. At dawn's first light, I went to the kitchen to pour some warm water. When I turned around, I heard a dull thud from the balcony. I rushed over like a madwoman and saw My Mom lying on the concrete floor below, blood spreading over her pale pajamas like a red plum suddenly in full bloom. The wailing sirens of ambulances and police cars shattered the morning silence. I sank down at the edge of the balcony, my fingertips still warm from My Mom's touch the night before, my mind completely blank. Someone had called My Dad. Two hours later, the police found me and told me in a heavy voice that my dad, rushing back and trying to save time by running a red light, had crashed into a large truck and died instantly. A single sentence, so light, yet it completely tore away my last shred of support. Overnight, I became an orphan. My Mom's funeral and my dad's funeral were held together. Many relatives came; they surrounded me, saying things like "stay strong," "take good care of yourself from now on"—their tone mixed with sympathy and an unavoidable scrutinizing gaze. Anna Zimmerman came too, dressed all in black, her head lowered, eyes red, like a victim. I looked at her and suddenly felt sick, rushing forward to confront her, but my relatives held me back. "Nora, don't be impulsive. The dead can't be brought back." "She's the killer! She's the one who killed my parents!" I shouted hoarsely, my voice cracking, tears pouring down. No one paid attention to my accusations. They just pinned me to a chair and told me to "calm down". That day, the sunlight was unbearably harsh, but it couldn't penetrate the ruins inside my heart. After the funeral, I sold the old house and moved into a small rented apartment near the school. I dropped out of school, not wanting to see those familiar faces anymore, nor to hear people's gossip. I took a part-time job at a convenience store, standing by the cold shelves every day, from evening until past midnight. When it was quiet at night, I would sit behind the cashier, staring out at the streetlamp, my mind replaying the scenes of my parents' accident over and over. I began to fear intimacy, fear commitment, fear everything that once seemed beautiful. I feel like a blade of grass growing from a crack in the stone, barely surviving on the faintest drop of rain, no longer able to bear the sunlight's warmth.