And so the household sank into gloom.
Family dinners, once affairs full of laughter and the clatter of multiple conversations happening at once, became silent and strained.
Movie nights were canceled one after another, the empty couch where Mika should have been sitting too painful to look at.
The sisters tiptoed around each other, unsure how to bridge the growing chasm that had opened in their family.
Charlotte watched it all with a growing sense of horror.
She had done this. She was the cause of all of it. If she had just listened to Mika, if she had just stopped exploring dangerous dreams like he asked, none of this would be happening.
Her family wouldn't be falling apart. Mika wouldn't be walking around like a ghost.
Her mother and aunts wouldn't be walking around with those hollow, guilty expressions.
For the first time in her life, Charlotte felt helpless.
She had always believed that she could get anything she wanted.
