After two years of avoiding my hometown, I finally returned to visit my father’s grave, hoping to find some peace. But instead, I found something chilling—a tombstone just a few feet away with my name and photo on it, as if I had died too. Shocked and confused, I called my mother. Her voice was calm—too calm—as she confessed, “After your father died and you stopped coming home,

it felt like I lost both of you. I needed something to grieve. So I made that headstone.” It was unsettling, but something didn’t sit right. Memories surfaced—her giving me unprescribed pills,