The two people who had held me up while everything else fell apart. The ones who arranged the service, who stood beside me at the front of the chapel, who greeted every guest with tears in their eyes and hands folded over their hearts. The ones who told me, over and over, that I had to let her go.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I said, shaking my head. “They’ve been here every day. They’ve been the ones taking care of me, of everything. They arranged—”

“The service,” Chloe whispered, her voice suddenly sharp, like broken glass. “It wasn’t real, Dad. They planned all of it. The fire. The story. Everything.”

I stared at her.

“They told me you were gone,” I said slowly, the words scraping my throat on the way out. “They said you never made it out of the house. They said—”

She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting tears.