Chapter 1The Stranger I Know

At the scene of the crash, a man was holding my father's body, his cries raw and torn from his soul.

My mother's lips parted in confusion. Then, a bitter, knowing smile touched her lips as she drew her last breath.

After the funeral, the house was filled with relatives, all of them wearing troubled expressions. No one wanted to take me home.

I sat in the yard, ten years old, praying over and over for my mom and dad to come back to life.

The man from the crash site pushed open the gate. His eyes were steady as he declared, "I'll raise Rose."

The relatives erupted. They pointed at him, their faces twisted with disgust. "And what are you going to be to her? Her new mommy, or her new daddy?"

* * *

The man's name was Aidan, a name that sounded soft, almost feminine. But he was a man. A genuine, bona fide man.

My father's high school yearbook, which he flipped through countless times, was filled with photos of the two of them. They were just kids then, in the green, tender years of youth. The affection in their eyes was innocent, naive. Nothing to raise an eyebrow.

My mother had suspected every woman in my father’s orbit, a list that included, but was not limited to, the old ladies from the neighborhood who played bingo on Tuesdays. But she never found a single trace of an affair.

She would straddle my father, a wild look in her eyes, slapping his face, then her own. She’d break down, sobbing, demanding to know who the "other woman" was.

Who was she?

No one knew. My father had hidden that person away so well. He was willing to lose everything—leave with nothing but the clothes on his back, ruin his reputation, be scorned by everyone—rather than reveal a single detail about them.

It was this stubborn, self-proclaimed sense of honor that finally pushed my mother over the edge.

One night, she dragged me out of bed. The snow was falling outside, the winter air biting cold, but she didn’t care. She didn't care that I was wearing nothing but my underwear. She threw open the window and shoved me toward the edge.

She told my father that if he didn't name that woman, she would push me from the fifth-floor window.

Then, she said, the family would be truly and utterly destroyed.

And it would be all his fault.