When I stayed silent, Derek's voice dropped an octave, patience gone.
"If you don't sign, you're condemning yourself. You'll be the murderer who killed her own son. Everyone here can testify—you put him in that costume. You sent him to his death."
I ignored their faces. My gaze drifted past them, landing on the snow-covered yard through the window. The hem of the mascot costume had flipped up, exposing a single foot.
A navy blue sneaker with white stripes.
Ethan didn't own shoes like that.
I looked up, scanning these so-called "relatives" one by one.
"Are you all certain the boy who died is my son?"
The room went still. Then incredulous laughter broke the tension.
"If it's not Ethan, who else would it be?" Aunt Brenda scoffed.
Diana's eyes were still red-rimmed, but her tone snapped back to its usual sharpness. "You brought the costume. You put it on Ethan yourself. Are you going senile?"
Margaret wiped her crocodile tears and nodded vigorously. "Yes, we all saw it. You dressed him with your own hands."
A lie repeated a thousand times becomes truth. They'd told the story so many times they'd started believing their own fabrication.
I fixed my eyes on Derek.