I blinked at the kitchen window.
Outside, the sun was rising like it didn’t know anybody had died.
“I’m on the what?”
“You’re on a video,” she said. “A clip. Someone recorded you. With the leash.”
I didn’t say anything.
Because suddenly I could see it, even without her explaining.
A door camera.
A phone held up behind a curtain.
A shaky, zoomed-in shot of an old man in a windbreaker walking a leash with nothing on it—talking to the air like it was his best friend.
Jessica’s voice cracked.
“People are… they’re saying things.”
“People always say things,” I told her.
“Dad,” she said, and now she wasn’t trying to sound mad anymore. Now she sounded like my little girl again, the one who used to wake up from nightmares and crawl into my bed. “They’re calling you ‘confused.’ They’re calling you ‘dangerous.’ Someone commented that you shouldn’t be allowed outside alone.”
I stared at Sarah’s mug.
Her coffee sat there untouched, steam curling up like a small ghost.
“Do you believe them?” I asked quietly.
Silence.
