Worse.
Disappointed.
His eyes flicked from the unlocked door…
to the journals in my hand…
to the girls beside me.
Then he sighed softly.
“I told you never to bring anyone down here.”
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I instinctively stepped back.
“Daniel… what is this?”
He glanced at Rebecca’s portrait and smiled faintly.
“This,” he said quietly, “is the only place where it still feels real.”
The girls looked confused now.
Because they suddenly sensed something was wrong.
Grace tugged nervously at my hand.
Daniel noticed immediately.
And a dark shadow flickered across his face.
“You opened the door,” he told the girls.
Emily’s lip trembled.
“We just wanted her to meet Mom.”
Daniel closed his eyes briefly, as if fighting something inside.
Then he looked directly at me.
“You weren’t supposed to see this yet.”
Yet.
That word terrified me.
I tightened my grip on the girls.
“What do you mean, ‘yet’?”
Daniel moved closer slowly.
“She left me,” he whispered.
I frowned, confused.
“What?”
His eyes filled with tears that didn’t seem entirely sane.
“Rebecca didn’t die in that car accident.”
The room tilted to one side.
“She abandoned us.”
I stared at him.
“You didn’t… you told me…”
“I lied.”
The girls looked scared now.
Their small faces paled.
Daniel laughed weakly, almost to himself.
“She wanted freedom. She said motherhood was suffocating her.” He clenched his jaw tightly. “Three months later, she emptied the bank account and disappeared with another man.”
He couldn’t speak.
“So no,” he continued coldly, “my wife didn’t die.”
His eyes shifted toward the shrine.
“But the version of her that loved us did.”
Suddenly, the basement seemed incredibly small.
Airless.
Then he looked at me intently again.
And in a low voice, he uttered the phrase that chilled me to the bone:
“That’s why I chose you.”
