I stared at him, trying to process it.
“You’re telling me they faked your death?”
“Yes.”
“There was a body.”
“There were remains,” he corrected. “Not mine. They redirected identification. I did get burned—I was there when it started. But they got me out.”
I leaned back, struggling to breathe evenly.
“You let me believe you were dead.”
His hands trembled slightly. “I had post-traumatic amnesia. Smoke inhalation. A head injury. They sent me to Switzerland—for treatment, isolation. For a long time, I didn’t even know who I was.”
“And when you remembered?”
“They told me you had moved on. That you were married. That you were happy.”
Happy.
The word felt hollow.
For illustration purposes
Fragments of the past began to rearrange themselves in my mind—my father watching too closely at the funeral, the closed casket, the unease he never spoke out loud.
