Turning my head, I looked to the right and saw the house Heath and Margo had grown up in since they were seven. They’d moved next door after a tragedy that neither Margo nor Heath had shared with me. I knew there had once been three of them – triplets – and that they lost their sister Mary when they had been just six years old. Yet, not once had they shared that with me or told me how she was killed. But I knew.

Their parents still lived there. They were much older parents. Although Margo and Heath never said anything about their parents age, kids had mistaken them for their grandparents at school functions when we were younger. I liked that about them though. They did feel like grandparents. Their mother always baked us cookies and spent time teaching us to mix the batter ourselves. During the holidays, I was always invited to join in their festivities. They had a traditional Christmas tree covered in popcorn that we would string and handmade ornaments that Heath and Margo had made over the years. They were the only normal I got to experience. I would have thought their life was perfect if I hadn’t always known they lived as if Mary hadn’t existed. Not even a photo of her in their house. That was a dark place they all held inside.

Their house wasn’t right next door, but they were our closest neighbors. With it being about two football fields away, they couldn’t see in our windows or make out our faces, but if I took a chance and leapt from this balcony to avoid facing my mother downstairs then I was sure they’d notice that. Margo and Heath’s parents would call the police and things would get a little too exciting around here.

Sighing, I went back inside and closed the large ornate doors behind me. They were extravagant like the rest of the house. My father had given my mother exactly what she wanted. Which had been everything. This house had been in his family for two hundred years. He’d added on, made updates and done everything my mother asked of him. Then she’d let him die or caused him to die. His private jet had gone down when he was in it without her, which was rare. For so long that had haunted me, but the older I got, I began to realize that the life he would have had with her if he’d lived would have been awful. She’d have never let him be free. His own desires would have been taken from him and replaced with hers. His world would have been pleasing her, and he would have never realized it. I had no proof she’d made his jet crash but I knew my mother. That was enough to make the possibility haunt me.