Julia looked down at the photo and felt the floor tilt beneath her. The woman in the picture had dark blonde hair, a wide smile, and a face that could have belonged to Julia herself five years younger. The resemblance wasn’t vague or coincidental — it was almost exact, unsettling, the kind of likeness strangers stopped you on the street to remark on.
“That’s my mom,” Tim said again, quieter now. “Chloe. She died when I was ten.” Julia’s mouth had gone dry. She thought of the photo Mark had shown her months ago — a different woman entirely, similarly built, but nothing like this. She thought of the empty walls in Mark’s house, the vague answers, the way his jaw tightened every time Chloe came up.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Tim said. “I didn’t think you’d believe me. I thought you’d think I was making it up because I didn’t want you around.” Julia sat frozen on his bed, the photograph trembling slightly in her hand, months of small, unexplained things slotting into place with sickening clarity. She stood up without a word and walked straight to her car.