43

Allison

I can't do much these days.

Wake up, shuffle to the bathroom, shuffle back to the bed. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Sunlight hurts my eyes. Noise hurts my ears. It's safest under my covers.

I think about Freya in her final moments.

Hoping for a way out.

Was Papa there in the room? I don't think so. Whatever Papa did, that happened before Freya got in the bath.

Did she know she was dying? Did Papa tell her to take all those pills? Did he force her on them?

I see my sister terrified and alone. Abandoned by her own father. Abused by her husband.

I was the last person she tried to reach, and I didn't know how bad things had gotten.

How could I have known?

But I could have.

I'm stuck in a self-reinforcing loop. I couldn't have known. I should have known. Over and over. Shuffle, back and forth. Shuffle, shuffle. My mind feels like a deck of cards flipping back over itself, never in the same position twice.

Freya's dead. She can't come back to explain herself.

Those emails said too muc