Page 52 of The Weight of Her Silence
He climbed onto her bed without asking more questions. He curled on top of the covers, and for a moment, they sat in silence.
“Is Mom going to die?”
Ava’s throat tightened.
“She’s going to fight. That’s what matters right now.”
Caleb didn’t respond.
After a long pause, he said, “I saw Dad with that woman again.”
Ava turned to him, still.
“What woman?”
“I told you before. The one with the red car. I saw them in the parking lot outside the bookstore last week. He hugged her. It wasn’t... like normal.”
Ava had brushed it off the first time Caleb said something. She’d told herself it was stress, misinterpretation. But now?
Now she wasn’t so sure.
“He’s been weird,” Ava said.
“Even before Mom got sick. I think something’s going on.”
Caleb looked at her. “You think it’s her fault?”
“No,” Ava said firmly. “No. If anything, I think she knows. And that’s worse.”
A silence stretched again.
Then Caleb whispered, “Should we find out?”
Ava didn’t answer right away.
She reached over to her nightstand, pulling open the drawer where she’d stuffed a crumpled receipt she found in the trash weeks ago.
A hotel, downtown. Dated three days before their mom collapsed. Her father had thrown it out in his office bin, not even bothering to shred it.
She flattened it out now on the bed between them.
“I already started,” she said quietly. “And I think you’re right.”
Caleb leaned in, his eyes scanning the paper.
“We’re going to find out everything,” Ava whispered.
“Even if it hurts.”
And in the heavy silence that followed, something passed between them—grief shaping itself into purpose.
Not just mourning. Not just fear. But the first seeds of a quiet, devastating reckoning.
Chapter 35
The Cracks Exposed
Nate hadn’t slept in two days. The house had become a labyrinth of silences and echoes. Lila was in and out of rest, too weak for full conversations. Her voice had grown thin, a whisper of the woman she once was.
