(1359  words)

Saturday, July 5, 2025

By Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Parker had already visited the apartment twice.

The first time, she brought soup.

The second time, she arrived with fresh bread, cheese, and two plastic containers full of pasta. She smiled and insisted, as always, that it was "far too much food for one person anyway."

Michael no longer believed that excuse.

She stayed longer every day now.

She would sit near the kitchen table, speaking quietly with Mark, asking careful questions and listening a little too closely to every answer.

Sometimes they talked about Alicia.

Sometimes they talked about ordinary things.

The weather.

The building.

The noise from the street.

But even when the conversation sounded completely normal, Michael always had the feeling that she was searching for something beneath the words.

"She likes feeling needed," Michael said quietly one evening as he watched her from the kitchen doorway.

Mark looked exhausted.

"She's just trying to help."

Mrs. Parker finally stood up and gathered her empty containers.

"I should get going," she said softly.

Nobody tried to stop her.

The apartment felt heavier after the front door closed behind her.

For several seconds, neither Mark nor Michael spoke.

Then Michael noticed an envelope lying near the front door.

It had probably been pushed through the mail slot earlier that day.

He picked it up without thinking.

PAYMENT REMINDER – RENT

Michael frowned.

"What's this?"

Mark looked up absentmindedly.

"Probably some mistake."

Michael slowly opened the envelope while Mark watched him.

The letter inside looked official.

It was an eviction notice.

One month's rent was overdue.

At the bottom was the signature of a name Michael didn't recognize.

His stomach tightened.

"It says rent."

Mark stared at him blankly for a moment.

"What?"

Michael handed him the letter.

Mark read it once in silence.

Then he read it again, this time more slowly.

"No," he said quietly.

"That doesn't make any sense."

Michael remained calm.

"What do you mean?"

Mark looked genuinely confused now.

"When I met Alicia, she was already living here."

His eyes moved across the paper again.

"The apartment belonged to her."

Michael frowned slightly but stayed silent.

"She bought it before we got married," Mark continued slowly.

"Her parents left her some money after they died."

"Not enough to make her rich."

"But enough to buy this apartment."

Outside, the rain continued to fall.

"She always said it was important to own something of your own," Mark added quietly.

"Something stable."

Michael looked at the letter again.

The landlord's name still meant nothing to him.

"So what happened?" he finally asked.

Mark rubbed his forehead wearily.

"I don't know."

Michael believed him.

Neither of them spoke for several seconds.

Then Michael asked quietly,

"Do you think she sold it?"

Mark slowly raised his eyes.

Suddenly, the apartment felt unfamiliar.

The walls.

The kitchen.

The furniture Alicia had chosen years earlier.

Everything looked exactly the same.

And yet...

None of it felt solid anymore.

"She only worked two days a week," Michael said calmly.

"And she had a few private students."

"That isn't enough money to pay for all this."

Mark looked back at the letter.

"If she sold the apartment..." he murmured, almost to himself.

"...then where did all the money go?"

Michael looked down the dark hallway leading to Alicia's bedroom.

For the first time since she had disappeared, he stopped thinking about his mother as someone who had simply walked away.

This felt much worse than that.

It felt as if Alicia had been quietly building another life beside theirs...

For months.

Maybe even years.

Mark kept staring at the letter for several more seconds before pushing it away.

"I can't do this anymore," he said suddenly.

Michael watched him carefully but said nothing.

Mark covered his face with both hands.

"I think we should call the police."

Michael's expression didn't change.

"Why now?"

Mark pointed at the letter lying on the table.

"The apartment."

"The money."

"The lies."

He slowly shook his head.

"I just want this to be over."

"I want someone else to deal with it because I can't anymore."

Michael remained silent.

"There's something else," Mark admitted after a moment.

Michael looked at him.

"The night she disappeared..."

"I didn't tell you everything."

Mark kept staring at the table as he spoke.

"I'd been drinking."

"Not a lot."

"But enough."

He swallowed slowly.

"I saw her with another man."

Michael didn't react.

"They were standing outside a bar near the train station."

"The man handed her some kind of envelope."

"Maybe documents."

"I don't know."

Michael stayed perfectly still.

"I heard Alicia say something."

Mark frowned as he tried to remember the exact words.

"She said..."

'The problem will be taken care of.'

Mark looked uncomfortable.

"At the time, I thought she was cheating on me."

He rubbed his forehead again.

"I got angry."

"We argued outside for several minutes."

His voice became quieter.

"And then I told her to leave."

Silence filled the apartment.

"I didn't come home after that," Mark admitted.

"I stayed at Kevin's house because I was too drunk to drive."

Finally, he looked at Michael.

"And the next morning..."

"...she was gone."

Neither of them spoke for several long seconds.

Then Mark gently pushed the letter across the table.

"I think she was involved in something dangerous," he admitted quietly.

"And I think we should call the police."

Michael lowered his eyes toward the dark hallway leading to Alicia's room.

Then he looked back at his father.

"Give me two more days," he said calmly.

Mark frowned.

"For what?"

"There are still a few things I need to check first."

Mark looked at him with growing suspicion.

But Michael already knew one thing with complete certainty.

The police could never become part of this.

"No."

Michael kept his voice calm.

"She's collecting information."

Mark slowly rubbed his forehead but didn't argue.

That afternoon, however, Mrs. Parker stayed even longer than usual.

Rain tapped softly against the windows while the apartment smelled faintly of laundry detergent and reheated food.

Mark sat at the table with a cup of coffee while Mrs. Parker spoke gently across from him, leaning forward slightly, as if she were sharing something deeply personal.

At first, Michael remained in the hallway without being noticed.

"She talked to me more than people realize," Mrs. Parker admitted quietly.

"Especially during the last few months."

Mark looked genuinely surprised.

"Alicia?"

Mrs. Parker nodded.

"She seemed lonely."

The words hung in the room.

Mark lowered his eyes.

"She never told me that," he said softly.

Mrs. Parker sighed.

"Some women stop telling their husbands things long before anyone else notices that something is wrong."

Mark looked at her carefully.

"Do you really think something was wrong?"

She hesitated.

"I think she was tired."

"Very tired."

Michael remained perfectly still, listening to every word.

"She told me that everyone depended on her," Mrs. Parker continued quietly.

"And after a while, she stopped feeling like a wife."

"She started feeling like part of the system that kept everything together."

Mark looked uncomfortable now, but he didn't interrupt.

The washing machine hummed somewhere in the background while the rain continued falling outside.

Finally, Michael stepped into the room.

Mrs. Parker noticed him immediately.

"Oh," she said softly.

"I didn't hear you."

Michael calmly sat down at the end of the table.

"What exactly did she tell you?"

Mrs. Parker studied him for a moment before answering.

"I didn't know her secrets," she said quietly.

"Mostly small things."

"Her stress."

"Her responsibilities."

"Sometimes she simply looked too tired."

Michael didn't look away.

Mrs. Parker hesitated again before continuing.

"Before she disappeared, she talked more than she used to."

"Not directly."

"Just small comments."

She gave a slight shrug.

"Sometimes I felt she was carrying far too much all by herself."

Mark stared silently at the table.

"I didn't know she felt that way," he admitted.

Nobody spoke for several seconds.

The rain grew heavier, and the apartment slowly became darker around them.

Then Mrs. Parker frowned slightly, as though she had suddenly remembered something important.

"The coat," she said quietly.

Michael's attention sharpened immediately.

"The brown one?" Mark asked.

Mrs. Parker nodded slowly.

"Yes."

"The old one."

She looked toward the hallway, trying to picture that evening clearly.

"The strange thing is..."

"I saw her wearing it that night."

Mark frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"It was very warm outside," Mrs. Parker explained.

"I remember because I even joked about the coat."

She paused.

"She came into the building wearing it..."

"...but she stayed downstairs."

The room fell completely silent.

"She handed me the coat and said she'd come back for it later," Mrs. Parker continued.

"At the time, I thought she was going somewhere again."

Michael watched her carefully.

"But she never came upstairs?" he asked.

Mrs. Parker slowly shook her head.

"No."

Nobody spoke.

Michael's thoughts were racing now.

The coat.

The timing.

The conversations.

The emotional distance Alicia had carefully created during the last few months.

None of it felt accidental anymore.

Mrs. Parker shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

"The next morning, I brought the coat upstairs because I thought she'd forgotten it," she explained softly.

"But by then..."

"...she was already gone."

Silence settled over the apartment once again.

Mark looked down at the table, his face caught somewhere between guilt and disbelief.

"We never really knew her," he whispered.

Michael didn't answer.

Because for the first time...

He wasn't sure Alicia had ever wanted them to know her completely.