Their house smelled the same as it always had of clean laundry, lemon polish, and something warm baking in the oven. It should have felt comforting. Instead, it made her chest ache.
Her mom hovered as soon as Mallory stepped inside, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from her sweater, asking too many questions about classes, about work, about whether she was eating enough. Her dad stayed near the kitchen counter, arms folded, pretending to read something on his phone he clearly wasn’t absorbing.
They were both watching her.
Mallory noticed it in the pauses. In the way conversations stopped just a beat too long when she mentioned travel or research. In the careful way her mom avoided saying Meg’s name at all.
They sat at the table with mugs of coffee between them. She watched the steam curl upward.
“So,” her dad said finally without quite meeting her eyes, “what’s got you digging into old myths all of a sudden?”
Mallory’s fingers tightened around her mug. “A little bit of research for a mid-term paper, and a little bit of curiosity.”
“Have you found anything useful?”
She’d had conversations like this before and learned the hard way not to give direct answers. If she kept it vague, it was much safer.
“I’m just… following a lead,” she said. “Something that might explain a few unanswered questions.”
Her mom’s smile wavered. “About what?”
Mallory hesitated. Just long enough.
Her dad sighed and set his phone down. “Mallory.”
There it was. The tone that meantdon’t.
“You’re not…” Her mom stopped and swallowed hard. “You’re not still trying to figure out where Meg went, are you?”
The words landed softly, but the weight of them was crushing. Her parents wanted answers without actually knowing if they wanted to know.
Mallory forced herself to breathe. “I never stopped wondering,” she said quietly. “How could I?”
Her mom looked away with eyes shiny from tears. Her dad’s jaw tightened.
“We’ve been through this,” he said. “Meg left after that fight. She was angry. She wanted freedom. She didn’t want to be found.”
“That doesn’t mean she disappeared,” Mallory said with a tremor that slipped into her voice despite her efforts. “She wouldn’t just vanish. She wouldn’t just cutmeoff.”
Her mom reached for her hand, then stopped halfway, as if afraid to touch the subject. Or Mallory herself. “Sweetheart, we can’t do this again. We’ve spent years tearing ourselves apart over maybes and what-ifs.”
Mallory’s throat burned. “I’m not asking you to tear yourselves apart. I’m just asking you to admit there might be more.”
“There isn’t,” her dad said sharply, then softer, “We’ve accepted what happened. You should too.”
Accepted.
The word felt like a door slammed shut.
Mallory nodded, even though every instinct in her screamed in protest. She suddenly saw the truth she had circled for years.
They weren’t indifferent. They were broken.
Meg’s disappearance had shattered something in them, and pretending it had been a rebellious choice instead of something darker was the only way they’d survived. Digging again meant reopening wounds they’d barely stitched closed.
She stood and forced a smile that she didn’t feel. “I should go. I’ve got a lot to do.”
Her mom hugged her a little too tightly. Her dad kissed her forehead like she was still a child who could be protected by not knowing.
