When we divorced, David said the thing he regretted most in his life was marrying me. I had drained three million dollars from his business account right when his company was on the verge of collapsing, vanishing into thin air. It took him two agonizing years to crawl back out of that hole and rebuild. He didn’t know those three million dollars went straight into covering up the fraudulent books his older brother had cooked up to save them from prison. And he didn’t know my disappearance wasn’t a choice. It was his brother, terrified the truth would come out, who pushed me over the railing of the Monroe Bridge and into the dark, freezing waters below. Three years after my death, my mother wandered off. She has Alzheimer’s, her mind frozen in time three years ago. The police found David’s number under her emergency contacts and brought her straight to his office building. She tugged on his sleeve, her face lit up with a gentle, motherly smile. “David, sweetheart told me to bring you some chicken soup. She said you’ve been pulling so many late nights at the office, you’re looking thin.” He brushed her off. I stood right beside them, my hands reaching out, but I couldn’t catch her as she stumbled backward. Three years later, and I still forget that I’m nothing but a wisp of cold air. A ghost. … My mother stumbled backward, the thermos nearly slipping from her hands. She didn’t cry or get angry. She just stood there, looking blankly at the ground for a few seconds. Then, as if she had suddenly remembered something, she chased after him with that same gentle smile. “David… the soup is getting cold. Let me heat it up for you.” David didn’t even turn his head. His voice was as cold as a December wind. “Go back and tell Emily that these pathetic little tricks only make me despise her more.” My mother froze. It wasn’t because he had been cruel. It was because she had suddenly forgotten why she was standing there. She looked down at the thermos in her hands, then up at the unfamiliar skyscrapers towering over her, whispering to herself: “Wait… what was I doing here?” Five or six seconds passed before she slapped her forehead. “Oh! The soup for David! Emily told me to!” She spun around to chase him, but her sense of direction was completely off. She stumbled straight toward the busy intersection. A city bus honked its horn violently, tires screeching as it slammed its brakes just inches from her. “Mom!” I screamed, lunging forward. My hands went straight through her shoulders. It was David’s assistant who grabbed her by the collar of her winter coat from behind, dragging her back onto the curb. The thermos hit the concrete. The lid popped off, and the warm chicken soup spilled all over the pavement. My mother dropped to her knees, desperately trying to scoop the broth back up with her bare hands. “Oh no, it spilled… my little girl is going to be so angry with me…” She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years ago. Back when I was still alive. Every day, I used to brush her hair, feed her her pills, and write “You’ve eaten lunch” on the back of her hand so she wouldn’t keep eating over and over. Then I was pushed into the river. And there was no one left to write on her hand. David watched the scene unfold from behind the massive floor-to-ceiling glass windows of his office. His jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek. He told his assistant to look up my address and send her back. Ten minutes later, the assistant returned, his expression incredibly strained. “Mr. Shepard… there is no record of Emily for the last three years. No address, no phone number, no credit card activity, no bank transactions. It’s like… she vanished off the face of the earth.” David was silent for a few seconds. Even though I didn’t have a heartbeat anymore, my chest tightened. He laughed—a bitter, mocking sound. “She’s hiding. She spent all three million, and now she’s too ashamed to show her face.” He glanced at my mother, who was still kneeling on the pavement, wiping her eyes. “Bring her to my house. I don’t believe Emily would let her mother rot with me.” He was using her as bait. But a small wave of relief washed over me. At least with him, my mother wouldn’t wander the streets and get lost. When they arrived at the villa, the housekeeper tried to guide my mother to the guest room. She refused to go. Instead, she dragged a small wooden stool over to the entryway, sat down by the front door, and clutched the empty thermos to her knees. Her eyes were fixed on the door. The housekeeper tried to coax her inside for dinner, but she only shook her head. “I have to wait for Emily. If she comes and can’t find me, she’ll worry.” David walked past and cast a cold glance at her. “Let her be. She can wait until the end of time, no one is coming.” My mother didn’t seem to hear him. She reached deep into her coat pocket, pulled out a gold-wrapped Werther’s Original caramel, and placed it neatly on the threshold, lining it up perfectly. “This is for my little girl. She always loved these when she was small.” I knelt on the steps beside her, tears streaming down my face, disappearing before they could hit the floor. Ever since I was five years old, my mother always kept a candy in her pocket for me. She could forget her way home, forget if she had eaten, forget her own age. But that candy. She never forgot. The next morning, there was a quiet rustling in the kitchen. I drifted over and froze. My mother was standing by the stove, her hands trembling as she adjusted a heavy skillet. The housekeeper stood off to the side, looking utterly helpless. “Ma’am, please, let me handle this…” “No, no,” my mother insisted softly. “David’s stomach is sensitive. I can’t use too much oil.” She had only been to David’s house once before—on our wedding day, three years ago. Yet, she walked from the front door to the kitchen without making a single wrong turn. A lump formed in my throat. The year she was diagnosed, I was terrified she would get lost. I had held her hand and walked her from our front door to the kitchen twenty times, repeating, “Left at the door, then straight to the end.” Our old house was long gone. But the layout of this villa’s kitchen happened to be on the left side too. When David came downstairs, the dining table was set with four dishes. Slow-cooked pot roast, mashed potatoes, warm tomato soup, and a fresh cucumber salad. He stared at the pot roast, his throat tightening. “Who made this?” My mother stepped out of the kitchen holding a small dish of pickles, wiping her hands on her sleeves. The wrinkles around her eyes crinkled as she smiled warmly. “Eat while it’s hot, David. Emily always told me you love pot roast, but I have to use brown sugar instead of white, and the potatoes have to be extra smooth…” She counted the details on her fingers, one by one. David had never shared those preferences with anyone. It was because every time I visited her, I had patiently taught her how to cook these exact meals. I had been terrified that if one day I wasn’t around, there would be no one left who remembered what he liked to eat. I just hadn’t expected that day to come so soon. He didn’t pick up his fork. “Did Emily send you here to play the martyr? Quite the performance.” My mother blinked, confused. She had no idea what he was talking about. Just then, the old, cracked phone in her pocket began to ring. A voice, slightly distorted through the damaged speaker, floated into the quiet room. It was my voice. “Mom, it’s time for your medicine. Don’t forget, take a sip of water first before you swallow.” My mother obediently pulled out her small pillbox, shook two tablets into her palm, and swallowed them with the warm water from her glass. David froze entirely. Slowly, he reached out and took the phone from her hand. He swiped open the screen, which was webbed with fractures, and tapped into the alarm application. The screen was packed with dozens of alarms. “7:00 AM: Mom, wake up and drink some warm water.” “8:00 AM: Mom, it’s time for breakfast.” “9:30 AM: Mom, take your medicine. Two white pills, one blue.” “12:00 PM: Mom, don’t forget to eat lunch.” … The list went on, all the way to “9:00 PM: Mom, go to sleep early. I’ll come see you tomorrow.” Twenty alarms every single day. He kept scrolling. The start date began three years ago, programmed to repeat daily until the year 2087. I had set them to repeat indefinitely. Because I hadn’t known when her mind would slip away entirely, or how much longer I would be allowed to stand by her side. So, I had programmed the alarms to watch over her in my place. To remind her to drink water, to eat, to take her pills. To ring and ring, until she no longer needed me. David put the phone down, his face entirely unreadable. “Where is she?” “My little girl said she’d come pick me up as soon as she’s finished with work.” “Work? You mean spending my three million dollars to live comfortably?” My mother shook her head violently, suddenly panicked. “No! My Emily would never do that! When she was a little girl, she wouldn’t even let me buy her an ice cream!” Her eyes welled with tears. “She promised me… she said she’d come as soon as she was done…” Mid-sentence, her mind seemed to glitch, like a skipped track on a record. Her brow furrowed as if a memory had flashed just out of reach, but then she smiled again, gentle and simple. “She must be working overtime. My daughter is always so busy.” David pushed his chair back, the legs scraping harshly against the floor. “Get her out of here. Find a decent assisted living facility. I’ll cover the expenses.” The security staff gently guided my mother toward the door. She clung tightly to the empty thermos, refusing to let go, constantly turning her head to look back at the house. “Please, let me wait just a little longer… What if she comes back and can’t find me?” No one listened. The car stopped at an unfamiliar intersection, and the guard opened the passenger door. The sky was turning a bruised violet. My mother stood beneath a streetlamp, spinning around in slow, bewildered circles. She reached into her coat and pulled out a worn, faded photograph of me when I was twenty, smiling like an idiot. The edges were soft and frayed from how many times she had touched it. She pressed the photograph close to her chest. “Sweetheart, I don’t know this street… where are you?” Then, she began to dial my number. “The number you have dialed is no longer in service.” She dialed again. “The number you have dialed is no longer in service.” She didn’t believe it. She dialed seven or eight times, carefully and deliberately pressing every single digit. On the last attempt, she held the phone tightly to her ear, keeping it there for a very long time, as if she could still catch the echo of my voice. The night grew pitch black. She dug a crumpled ten-dollar bill out of her pocket, walked across the street, and bought a warm cinnamon roll from a bakery window. She tore it in half, eating the smaller portion. The larger half she carefully wrapped in a plastic bag and tucked deep into the warmth of her coat. “I’ll save this half for Emily. She always loved sweet rolls.” I collapsed against her knees, sobbing with a voice that made no sound. A cold gust of wind swept through the street, and she shivered, pulling her collar tight. The sound of footsteps echoed on the pavement. Someone stopped directly in front of her. It was David. I didn’t know how long he had been standing there, watching her from beneath the yellow glow of the streetlamp as she huddled on the curb. His expression wasn’t pity—it was a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion. “Emily, you really are incredible.” He clenched his jaw, his voice directed at the empty air. “Leaving your own mother on the street like this. Are you even human?” He took off his heavy winter coat, hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then draped it over her shoulders. My mother looked up. When she saw him, her eyes lit up instantly. “David! Did Emily send you to fetch me?” He didn’t answer. He reached down and pulled her up by the arms, his brow furrowing when his fingers brushed her icy skin. “Get in the car.” My mother followed him obediently for a couple of steps, then suddenly pulled the wrapped cinnamon roll from her coat. “David, keep this safe for me. It’s for Emily.” He took it from her hand and slipped it into his suit pocket. He didn’t throw it away. I looked at his profile, my chest aching with a complex, unnameable grief. When they returned to the villa, my mother immediately reclaimed her spot on the small stool by the door. This time, he didn’t try to move her. The housekeeper brought over a thick throw blanket. David took it from her and tossed it onto my mother’s lap. “Sit there if you want, just don’t freeze to death in my house.” Late into the night, wrapped in the heavy blanket, my mother began to hum a soft tune. The melody was unsteady and out of key, but I recognized it instantly. It was the lullaby she had hummed to me since I was a baby. When I was little and the thunder roared, I would scramble into her bed. She would wrap her arms around me and hum that song until my fears vanished. When I grew up, I would wrap my arms around her and hum it back to her. And then, I was swallowed by the icy December river. And there was no one left to hum it. David, holding a glass of water, paused at the top of the stairs. He knew that song. The first year we were married, he had come down with a high fever, burning at nearly a hundred and four degrees. In his delirium, he had felt someone stroking his hair, humming that exact melody. He had asked me what the song was. I had told him it was the lullaby my mother sang to me. He stood on the stairs for a long, quiet interval. Finally, he turned and went into his study, closing the heavy wooden door behind him with a dull thud. I couldn’t be sure what he was remembering. I could only see his knuckles resting on his water glass, turning completely white. Over the next few days, my mother lived quietly in his home. Every morning before dawn, she would wake up to prepare meals—every single dish tailored to his favorite tastes. He wouldn’t touch them, but she refused to throw them away. I watched as she carefully wrapped the leftovers in plastic wrap and slid them beneath the cushions of the sofa. “I have to save this pot roast for Emily. She loves it.” “The tomato soup has to stay too. She always drinks it when she gets a cold…” I squatted in front of her, watching her busy hands, my mind drifting to memories of years past. Back when my mother worked at the local textile mill, the cafeteria occasionally served beef stew for lunch. She never ate a single bite of it. Instead, she would pack it away in a small metal container to bring home to me. For years, I believed she simply didn’t like beef. Until the day she collapsed on the assembly line, and her coworkers told me she had been living on plain toast and black tea for months. Once I started earning my own money, I made beef stew for her every week. She would never touch it, smiling and saying, “I’m getting old, sweetheart, my teeth can’t handle it,” before transferring every piece of meat onto my plate. Now, she was hiding food beneath another person’s sofa. Waiting for someone who would never come to eat it. By the fifth day, her supply of Werther’s caramels was nearly gone. She searched her pockets multiple times a day. If she felt a candy, she would smile; if her fingers found nothing, silent tears would roll down her cheeks. The housekeeper mentioned it to David. Without looking up from his laptop, he said, “Buy a bag of the exact same ones and put them in her coat.” “What brand was it?” His pen hovered over the paper. “Werther’s Originals.” I stared at his expressionless face. He remembered. On the seventh day, the doorbell rang. My mother was the first to spring up, her eyes wide and shining like stars. “Emily!” She hurried to the door with trembling steps. But when she opened it, she was met by a young woman in a beige trench coat, her long hair perfectly styled, her makeup flawless. It wasn’t me. It was Rebecca. On the day we divorced, she had been sitting in the passenger seat of David’s car. I had watched her through the glass. My mother’s smile faded slowly, her eyes looking past Rebecca into the dark courtyard. “…Not Emily.” Rebecca walked in, looping her arm through David’s, casting a brief, curious glance at my mother. “Who is the old woman?” “A nuisance.” He didn’t look at my mother when he said it. My mother lowered her head, quietly adjusting the seventh caramel on the threshold, lining it up with the others. Rebecca walked over to the sofa. Just as she was about to sit, she suddenly covered her nose. “What is that smell? Ever since I got pregnant, my nose has been so sensitive. Everything makes me sick.” My gaze drifted down to her stomach, which wasn’t yet showing. He was going to have a child. My place had been given away three years ago. David caught the scent too. He looked toward the sofa, stepped over, and lifted the heavy cushions. Beneath them lay a collection of wrapped plates—pot roast, tomato soup, potatoes, and even a few biscuits. Some of the food had gone sour; some was covered in a fuzzy layer of white mold. And sitting right next to the plates, lined up in a perfect, neat row, were seven gold-wrapped caramels. One for each day. Rebecca took a sharp step back in disgust. The vein in David’s temple throbbed. “What is all this?” My mother threw herself forward, using her body to shield the decaying food. “Don’t touch them! Those are for my little girl!” She knelt on the floor, her hands frantically trying to reseal the plastic wrap around the plates. “She loves the pot roast… and the soup has to stay, she needs it when she gets sick…” She looked up at David, her face slick with tears. “Didn’t you tell me she was coming to get me? She has to eat when she gets here… my Emily has been hungry for so long…” David’s lips parted as if he wanted to say something sharp and dismissive. But no sound came out. My mother kept going, her voice cracking. “My girl had such a hard life… she was always so good, so sensible… she gave me all the best food…” “She always told me she wasn’t hungry, but I knew she was just saving her money to buy my medicine…” She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve, but the tears kept coming. “She was so thin… I was always afraid to hug her too tight, afraid I’d break her…” I knelt beside my mother, leaning my forehead against her shoulder. I slipped right through her. I had forgotten again. Rebecca stood nearby, clearly unnerved by the breakdown, taking another step back. Her heel struck something on the floor. She looked down. It was a dusty, worn cloth pouch that had slipped from my mother’s embrace. It was embroidered with a crooked, amateurish sunflower. “What’s this?” Rebecca reached down to pick it up. “Don’t touch it!” My mother lunged, snatching the pouch back and clutching it tightly against her chest. I had sewn that pouch while lying in my hospital bed. During my final days, I had barely any strength left. It had taken me three days just to finish that single, lopsided sunflower, the stitching messy and uneven. But my mother had held it and told me it was the most beautiful flower she had ever seen. David’s eyes locked onto the sunflower. His gaze froze. He recognized the fabric. It was cut from one of his old shirts. He had worn it for three years until the collar frayed, and I had kept it, cutting a small square to make the pouch. His entire expression shifted. “What’s inside that?” My mother stared at him blankly, her lips trembling. She had forgotten again. She tried desperately to think, tapping her temple in frustration. “Emily told me… she told me to give it to… I have to give it to…” I stood beside her, my heart heavy with a bittersweet ache. I had tucked that letter into her pouch myself. On the night before Christian pushed me into the river, I had prepared everything—the bank transfer receipts, the photographs, and a long letter I had spent days writing. I had instructed my mother to give it to David. Back then, I wanted him to know the truth about the three million dollars. I wanted him to know exactly what kind of monster his beloved brother really was. But now, looking at Rebecca’s stomach, looking at this beautiful villa I had never stepped foot in, looking at the new life he had built… I wasn’t sure anymore. What would change if he found out? I couldn’t come back to life. It would only saddle him with a guilt that would haunt him for the rest of his days. When I first handed the pouch to my mother, I hadn’t thought about that. I had only cared about clearing my name. But after three years of being dead, my innocence felt trivial. I only wanted to spare him the pain. But my mother’s eyes suddenly cleared, lighting up as she looked at him. “It’s you! David! Emily said I had to hand this to you myself!” With trembling hands, she lifted the cloth pouch and offered it to him. She had forgotten almost everything. But the phrase “give it to David” was etched into her mind, deeper than the disease could reach. Just like the caramels she kept in her pocket. Some things were simply too deep to be erased. David didn’t reach for it immediately. He looked at my mother, then at the lopsided sunflower stitched onto his old shirt fabric. Slowly, he reached out and took the pouch. He untied the worn cotton string at the neck. Several folded sheets of paper slid out into his palm. He picked them up. They were bank transfer receipts. Amount: $3,000,000. Receiver: Vanguard Trading LLC. It was Christian’s shell company. The account his brother had used to hide his embezzlement. David’s hands began to shake violently. Another slip of paper fell, and with it, a photograph. In the picture, I was wearing his oversized green winter coat, standing near the railing of the Monroe Bridge. The December water behind me was a dull, heavy grey. I looked incredibly thin, my hair whipped wild by the wind. But I was smiling. On the back of the photograph, six words were written in my neat handwriting: “David, don’t hate me.” Beneath the photo lay a worn, brown paper envelope, the corners soft and rounded. It bore his name, written in my handwriting. The handwriting he knew better than anyone’s. “For David. Read in private.” My mother leaned closer, gently tugging at his sleeve, her face bright with a hopeful smile. “David, what does Emily’s letter say? When is she coming home to get me?” He couldn’t find his voice to answer. It took his trembling fingers three attempts before he finally managed to tear the envelope open. The moment he pulled the letter out, his eyes burned a deep, painful red.
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