Little Ghosts

One moment my beautiful daughter, her face flushed from the sun, her curls still wet from splashing in the ocean, was waiting in line for a strawberry ice cream, the next she was gone… As I sit in her dimly lit bedroom, surrounded by flickering candles, I feel the crushing weight of my daughter’s absence. It's been two years since Layla was murdered. The police have searched tirelessly for her killer, but they've found nothing – it's like whoever did it vanished into thin air. My once-perfect marriage is falling apart, we can hardly look at each other anymore. Our ten-year-old son Gale is struggling. He’s changed since she died. He’s more secretive and also… I can’t quite put my finger on it. They were so close, is this Gale coming to terms with her death? Still, unease creeps over me as I watch him. He just stares past me at something I can’t see. Then one day, as I butter his toast for breakfast, my son tells me something that stops me in my tracks. " I know who killed Layla .” I can barely get the words out to ask how. Looking at me with his serious little boy expression, he puts a hand on my arm. “She told me.”