The room felt colder than it should have, given the flickering candles casting their wavering light. I hesitated at the threshold, my heart racing, unsure whether to interrupt the scene before me. Lily’s quiet whispers seemed to hang in the heavy air, filling it with an eerie tension. I strained to catch her words, but they slipped away like shadows.

Rebecca’s eyes, wide with a mixture of fear and realization, flicked from Lily to me. It was as if a silent understanding passed between us — an acknowledgment of some unspoken truth that hovered just out of reach.

“Lily,” I called softly, my voice almost lost in the cavernous silence of the funeral home. She didn’t respond, her small form still nestled against our father’s lifeless body. I took a tentative step forward, my bare feet whispering across the cold floor.

Rebecca’s composure shattered as she turned to face me, her expression a blend of despair and guilt. “She shouldn’t know,” Rebecca whispered, as if speaking too loudly would break some fragile spell. Her voice was strained, filled with an emotion I couldn’t quite place.

“What does she know?” I asked cautiously, my gaze shifting between Rebecca and Lily. My heart pounded with the urgency of needing to understand, to unravel the mystery that had woven itself around our family.

Lily’s voice rose, clearer now, as she softly repeated the words I had missed before. It was a message, a plea — something that cut through the veil of grief and mystery. “Daddy’s secret,” she said, her voice steady despite the tears glistening in her eyes. “He told me, he told me what happened.”

Rebecca’s face crumpled, and she sank to her knees beside the coffin. “I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she confessed, her voice breaking with the weight of the admission. “He found out… about everything. I thought he would leave…”

The pieces fell into place with a sickening clarity. The accident, the fear in Dad’s eyes before it happened — it wasn’t random. It was calculated, a plan gone terribly wrong. I felt a wave of anger mixed with sorrow, a tempest of emotions that threatened to overwhelm me.

Lily looked up at me, her eyes wide and innocent yet filled with an understanding far beyond her years. “Daddy isn’t mad,” she said, as if she were relaying a message from beyond. “He just wants us to be safe.”

Rebecca sobbed openly now, her guilt and fear laid bare in the dim light of the funeral home. I found myself moving toward Lily, wrapping my arms around her small frame protectively. We had lost so much, but in that moment, it felt like we had gained something too — a truth that bound us together, a promise to preserve Dad’s legacy and protect each other.

As we left the funeral home, leaving Rebecca to her tears and confessions, I felt a sense of resolve solidify within me. We would uncover the whole truth, and we would heal. For Dad. For Lily. For all of us.

And as the night deepened, the world felt a little less hollow, a little more hopeful, as if Dad were watching over us, guiding us through the darkness toward the light.