My father left on a business trip when I was 18 years old in the summer.
I lived on campus that year since I was a senior in high school. After losing fluid in the school infirmary due to gastroenteritis that day, I went home with a letter.
I found two pairs of shoes at the entrance as I entered the house: one pair of brown men’s leather shoes that I had never seen before, and the other pair of shoes that my mother usually wears.
“Mom, I’m back.” I screamed at the door, thinking it was a visitor from home at the moment.
No one in the home, however, answered.
When I entered my parents’ room, I found water and strange noises coming from the bathroom. In wonder, I knocked on the door. “Mom?”
My mother’s voice came from the bathroom at this point, “Oh… baby, why are you back?”
“My stomach hurts and I have asked for leave.”
“Are you all right?”
“Nothing, after losing the liquid, it is much better now.”
“Then go back to your room to rest first, and your mother will come soon after taking a shower.”
I turned around and went to my room. It took my mom fifteen minutes to come late.
“How can your stomach hurts, is it because Mom and Dad aren’t there to keep an eye on you? What unclean roadside stalls have you indiscriminately eaten?”
I laughed and said, “Mom, look at what you said. Everyone eats at roadside stalls. Isn’t it all right? I may drink too much cold water.”
“You drink cold water again? Girls should know how to cherish their bodies and can’t always drink cold, otherwise it will hurt their bodies too much, remember?”
“I know.” I said. “Have you just had a visitor?”
My mother looked nervous and asked, “Huh?”
“I saw a pair of men’s leather shoes by the entrance when I came in just now.”
“Oh, it was morning. Your Auntie Sandra and Uncle Brian came. Your Uncle Brian was going to a basketball game temporarily, so he borrowed your dad’s sportswear and sneakers to wear. You just rest at home, I will go and send the clothes and shoes of your Uncle Brian.”
Krista nodded. “Well, all right.”
“So, what now? What do you want to eat? I will go out for a while, buy food on the way, and make it for you at night.”
“Anything goes as long as it’s not greasy.”
Mother touched my arm and left the room.
I heard footsteps coming from the living room while laying in bed with my eyes closed, and they were so fast that they didn’t seem to be from humans.
My phone rang just as I was about to get out of bed to have a look. I noticed that it was my father, and there was a sound of the door closing behind him. I just retracted my bed and picked up the phone.
And strange things like these have happened more than once.
The strange sounds I heard several times in a row were not hallucinations, but rather an extra member of my family.
“My father is also aware of the situation. Isn’t it true that you’ve been with Brent?”
“If you don’t have proof, don’t talk nonsense, Krista.” She shouted. “Do you know how offensive this is to both me and your father?”
I swallowed my bitterness and grief, and then added, “When I called Uncle Brian, he said that when he visited our house, he never wore my father’s sportswear or sneakers. So, when I came home with a stomach ache, the shoes I noticed were Brent’s, not Uncle Brian’s, right?”
“You…” She seemed to be a bit irritated. “You’re full of nonsense. You can humiliate your biological mother with a pair of shoes? Are you trying to kill me, Krista?”
“So, why did you lie in the first place? Whose shoes are they, tell me?”
She stopped for a moment until shutting her mouth.
I know she didn’t expect me to ask these things all of a sudden, and she doesn’t know how much I know, so she can’t continue to lie. I sneered. “You can’t say it because I guessed it right. I have lived in the Brennan family for six years, and I know something about Brent’s living habits. His leather shoes are all made by Johnny, and they are all brown. The owner of those shoes is no one but Brent. When I went back that day, you were in the shower, and there was no man in the room. That proves that Brent is washing with you, and you are a married woman, taking a shower with other men. Do you still want to say that it is pure friendship? ”
She shook her fist. “This is all your guess.”
“You married the Brennan family in a haste only a hundred days after my father died. I don’t believe you can fall in love with any of them in a hundred days. Unless you’ve already married him.”
She appears to have been wronged, as seen by the tears in her eyes. “You’re a little too chill for me. I’m worried about you, not about the Brennan family. I don’t want those people outside to bother you. Others won’t be able to bully us because of the Brennan family’s support. How are you able to misinterpret my meaning?”
“No one dares to humiliate me today, in that case. I asked you to leave the Brennan family. Why don’t you?”
“I…” she said, frowning. “I can’t leave since I’m used to living there.”
“You always make excuses so perfectly, but in fact, you are a downright selfish ghost. My dad loved you so much, but you betrayed him. It was not so much the Cross River Bridge project that killed him as you killed him. My dad was a strong man. He had every chance to defend himself for turning over when the Cross River Bridge happened, but… he didn’t do it. Tell me, why didn’t he save himself, huh?”
Her eyes dodged. “Because he did something wrong, Krista, the evidence from the Brennan group is in front of you. What are you suspecting?”
“I’m suspecting that you forced my father to take the blame for Brent. I’m suspecting that you forced my father to death.”
She took a step back and looked at me, with guilty eyes and panic.
“You’re mad, Krista, you’re really mad.”
Moments later, she turned to open the door and ran out without looking back.
I sat in the hospital bed and closed my eyes.
“Ah…” I tore my heart , cracked a roar, and felt that the heart of depression could not be discharged.
I hate it so much.