Above the bed hung a framed photo from their twentieth wedding anniversary.
In it, Mom clung sweetly to his arm, her face glowing with joy as she leaned against his shoulder.
Both of them looked so happy as if they had the world in their hands.
Grandma’s room was neat and simple, just like she had always kept it.
Inside her nightstand, the bracelet Mom once gave her rested quietly, tucked away like a treasure too precious to wear.
My brother’s room brimmed with information about kidney failure.
His books and handwritten notes were filled with hopeful scribbles, prayers and wishes for Mom’s recovery, written in the margins like spells of hope.
I turned the whole house upside down, searching every corner.
But there was nothing.
No clue, no sign, no reason to explain why Mom would suddenly slaughter the family she loved so dearly.
In the end, I opened the home surveillance footage again.
I re-watched the video of the murders with trembling fingers.
I had already gone through it once, back when I first heard the horrifying news.
There had been no signs of tampering.
In the footage, Dad, my brother, Grandma and Mom sat around the table, eating a meal together.