Chapter Fifteen
Stella
The sharp clatter of Mom’s spoon against china makes me wince.
She’s been stirring that same cold cup of tea for twenty minutes, her vacant eyes fixed on something I can’t see. The kitchen feels wrong without Dad’s booming laugh or the smell of his strong Turkish coffee.
I’ve been watching her drift between counter and sink like seaweed caught in a tide, her movements automatic, purposeless. Her black dress hangs loose where it used to hug her curves. The dark circles under her eyes match the ones I see in my mirror each morning.
“She’s in pain,” says Boyana, though I barely register it. Somehow, losing a father and watching your mother waste away is something that can’t be handled by an imaginary sister.
At least I’m here for Mom.
The decision to move in with her after she got out of hospital was one that I didn’t hesitate over. There was no doubt in my mind that she wouldn’t cope without me around. And my old room was just as I left it.
The funeral plays on repeat in my head — Mom standing statue-still beside the casket, not crying, barely breathing. Nick’s empty chair in the front row like an open wound. The pitying looks from the few distant relatives who’d attended, whispering about how young she is to be a widow.
My coffee has gone cold, but I can’t stop watching her. She picks up items and puts them down in the wrong places — sugar in the fridge, milk left out on the counter. I should say something, help her, but what do you say to someone who’s disappeared inside themselves?
Now, she’s back at the kitchen table, in a seat across from me.
“Stella.”
The sound of my name freezes me mid-reach for my cup. Mom’s voice is rusty from disuse, but her eyes are suddenly sharp, focused on my face with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
“Your father—” She stops, swallows hard. “There are things you need to know.”
The spoon finally stops its endless circles in the tea. Her hands are flat on the surface of the table, fingers splayed, as if she’s bracing herself. For the first time since we found Dad, I see my mother looking back at me instead of the ghost who’s been wearing her face.
“They were waiting for him to get home,” she says softly.
Mom’s voice trembles but holds steady as she describes that day.
My coffee sits forgotten as she speaks of the black car that had been parked in the street, engine idling.
Of Dad’s face when he’d seen it — the flash of recognition, then fear.
“He pushed me back toward the house.” Her fingers curl against the table, nails grazing the surface. “Told me to run inside, lock the doors. But I couldn’t move. I watched him get in his car, watched them follow…”
The crash plays out in her words — the screech of tires, Dad’s Mercedes flipping, the sickening crunch of metal.
I feel the echo of her terror as she describes running to him, seeing his body halfway through the shattered windshield, crushed beneath the bonnet.
Then pain exploding in her head as one of the men struck her.
“They checked him.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Made sure he was dead before they left. I tried to tell the police, but they said I was in shock. That I’d imagined it all because of the trauma.”
I remember the hospital, the pitying looks from officers as Mom raved about murderers. The way they’d written “single vehicle accident” on the report, dismissed her as a grieving widow whose mind had created conspiracy where there was only tragedy.
There were no other witnesses, and Mom’s story had seemed so wild and disjointed that I hadn’t believed it myself.
But now her eyes are clear, her words precise. This isn’t the rambling hysteria from before. This is my mother — the sharp, practical woman who taught me calculus and made me memorize Russian poetry — telling me my father was murdered.
“Why?” The word scratches my throat. “Why would anyone want to kill Dad?”
She meets my gaze, and for a moment, I see a flash of the woman she used to be. “Your father had secrets, Stella. Things he never told you. Things he never told me.”
“Secrets?” I stare at her. “But Dad—”
“He was a complicated man, Stella.” She lowers her eyes. “A man who made mistakes, just like many others have done. But he was a good man.” Her voice falters.
“What kind of mistakes, Mom?” I frown.
“It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that they killed him.” Her voice begins to rise. “They killed him, and they can’t be allowed to get away with it, Stella!”
I reach out and put my hand over hers, afraid that I’m about to lose her again.
“We’ll go to the police tomorrow morning,” I say, squeezing Mom’s hand. “First thing. We’ll make them listen this time.”
Mom nods, the fire in her eyes already dimming. The burst of clarity seems to have drained what little energy she had left. Her shoulders slump as the weight of memory settles back over her.
“Come on.” I help her up from the kitchen chair. “You need rest.”
She leans against me as we climb the stairs, her body feeling smaller than I remember. In her bedroom, the air still carries traces of Dad’s cologne. Mom’s fingers brush his pillow as she lies down, and I pretend not to notice the tears sliding down her cheeks.
“Are you alright, Mama ?” I whisper.
She nods her head silently. Her eyes are squeezed shut and I can practically feel the pain radiating from her. It breaks my heart.
I sit on the edge of the bed, running my fingers through her hair like she used to do for me after nightmares. Her breathing eventually steadies into sleep, but her face remains troubled even in rest.
Back in the hallway, I close her door quietly and slide down the wall to sit on the floor.
My hands shake as I process what she’s told me.
Dad’s death wasn’t an accident. Those men in the black car — they meant to kill him.
But why? What secrets could my father, who cried at my graduation and spent weekends tending his roses, have possibly kept that were worth killing for?
The image of his crushed Mercedes floods my mind. I’d assumed he’d lost control somehow, or maybe even had a heart attack. But murder? The word feels wrong, like something from a crime show, not my real life.
Yet Mom’s story rings with terrible truth. The vacant look in her eyes these past weeks wasn’t just grief — it was the horror of witnessing her husband’s murder and having no one believe her. No one. Even I had doubted her, dismissed her words as trauma-induced delusions.
I push myself up from the hallway floor, my legs stiff from sitting. The kitchen needs cleaning before bed — Mom’s forgotten tea, my cold coffee, the scattered remains of our interrupted evening.
My hands move on autopilot, rinsing cups, wiping counters. The routine tasks help ground me after Mom’s devastating revelation. Each item I return to its proper place feels like a tiny restoration of order in our chaotic world.
The house creaks and settles around me as I finish up, the familiar sounds somehow hollow without Dad’s evening routine — his newspaper rustling, the TV news murmuring in the background. I switch off the kitchen light, plunging the downstairs into darkness.
Exhaustion weighs on me as I climb the stairs. My bedroom door stands open at the end of the hall, but I pause outside Mom’s room. Just one quick check to make sure she’s sleeping peacefully.
I ease her door open, the soft glow of her nightlight spilling into the hallway. The familiar floral scent of her moisturizer mingles with something else, something... wrong.
My eyes find her bed. Mom lies there, still and peaceful at first glance, but something’s off about the way she’s positioned. Her hand has fallen limply over the edge of the bed, an empty glass on the nightstand beside her. A pinkish froth stains the corner of her mouth.
My scream shatters the night’s silence.
Mom!
I rush to her bedside, my fingers pressing against her neck, searching desperately for a pulse while my other hand fumbles for my phone.
Her skin is cool to the touch, and there’s a faint, bitter almond smell in the air that makes my stomach turn.
A small, empty vial has rolled under the edge of the bed.
“Please, please, please...” The word becomes a mantra as I dial 911, my voice cracking as I relay our address to the operator. Mom’s skin is still warm, but her chest doesn’t move. No breath stirs the air.
My eyes lock onto a folded paper on her nightstand, my name written in Mom’s elegant script.
The operator’s voice fades to background noise as I reach for the note with trembling hands.
The paper feels delicate, fragile — like Mom’s pulse had been just hours ago when we sat in the kitchen.
When she’d finally told me the truth about Dad.
“I’m so sorry, my darling,” the note begins.
My tears blur the words. “I can’t go on.
Not like this. Please believe me when I say I’m doing this for all of us.
Know that I love you and your brother so much and I want you to go on with your life.
But this is where mine ends. All I ask is that you understand. Love you forever, Mama.”
The distant wail of sirens grows louder as I clutch the paper, my mother’s final words burning themselves into my memory. The same mother who’d been so alive just hours ago, who’d finally seemed ready to fight for the truth about Dad’s death.
But she’d never meant to fight at all. She’d already decided. While I’d been downstairs cleaning up our tea cups, thinking everything would be clearer in the morning, she’d been up here, writing this note.
Planning her exit.
The paramedics’ heavy footsteps thunder up the stairs, but I already know the harsh truth. They’re too late. Mom’s gone, taking her secrets with her, leaving me alone with nothing but questions and a piece of paper that only offers more questions than answers.
* * *