I love you, my little one. I didn't mean to kill you; I can't believe your little head had so much blood. Somehow, I like the taste of it in my mouth, coating my tongue, metallic and warm. My hands are sticky with it, my palms painted red where they cradle your little body. You look so small curled up like that, your cheek pressed to the floor as if you’ve simply fallen asleep. If I close my eyes, I can almost believe you are still breathing. Almost.

  The rain outside is heavy, drowning the world in its hum. It seeps in through the cracks of the house, slipping under the door, whispering against the windows. The dim light flickers, casting your shadow long across the room. Your arm is bent at a strange angle. Your fingers twitch once, then still. I watch, waiting for something, anything, but there is nothing left.

  Your breath does not rise. Your fingers do not curl into your palm like they do when you dream. Your lips, slightly parted, do not release that soft sigh you make when you turn over in your sleep. I wipe my face with the back of my hand. My skin is wet, not just from the rain, but from tears I don’t remember shedding. They taste like salt and iron, like sorrow and sin.

  You were standing there just moments ago. You had walked into the room, barefoot, your nightgown brushing against your knees. You always shuffled your feet when you were sleepy, rubbing your eyes with tiny fists, looking at me with that quiet, knowing gaze. "Daddy?" you had said, voice thick with sleep.

  I remember the way you tilted your head. The way your arms folded across your chest, just like she used to do when she was frustrated with me. You sighed, long, tired. Just like her. The way you stood, the way the dim light hit your face. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

  Even now, I can’t tell where Isabella ended and you began. It had been happening for so long, her slipping into your skin, her voice curling out of your mouth, the way you blinked too slowly when you were thinking, like you were weighing something heavy in your little head, the way your fingers traced the hem of your nightgown absentmindedly, just like how she used to do with the edge of the sheets when she couldn’t sleep, the way you sighed, not a childish huff, but deep and quiet, like you carried a sadness too big for you.

  But then it became unbearable. You started saying things she used to say. Looking at me the way she did before she left. I would blink, and you weren’t my daughter anymore. You were her, standing in the doorway, watching me with pity, with disappointment, with that tired, cruel patience.

  And that night, oh, my little one, that night, I swear I didn’t mean to… I just wanted her to go away. I didn’t even realize the gun was in my hand. I just needed the voice to stop, the eyes to stop burning through me.

  But it wasn’t her, was it? The realization crashes over me, but it does not bring me back. I cannot change what I have done. I cannot undo the silence that has settled over this house, over my chest, over the world itself.

  The storm in my mind has quieted, the shadows no longer shifting in the corners. She is gone. The ghost has been exorcised, the whispers silenced. I feel light. Weightless. It’s just me now. And the world is so, so quiet.

  I lay down beside you on the blood-warmed floor, closing my eyes. The house does not creak. The walls do not whisper. The ghosts do not linger. For the first time in so long, I am free, at peace.