She came to help, not to say goodbye. One unanswered call became a stranger at the gate, then a quiet dread that grew heavier with every step toward the front door. The house that once rang with laughter and arguments, scripts and celebrations, now held only a terrible stillness. In that stillness, she found her father’s body, a moment freezing her life into a before and after no one can reverse.

By the time the sirens arrived and statements were taken, the story was already leaving her hands, turning into headlines, charges, and televised speculation about her brother. Only later did she learn that her mother had died too, just rooms away, gone before Romy ever knew to look. The justice system will decide what happens to the accused. Romy is left with something the courts can’t touch: the memory of a home turned battlefield, and the unbearable task of remembering what it was before it bled.