What’s the Most Intense Full-Circle Moment You’ve Seen?

She laughed. Her laugh echoed in our living room, bouncing off the family photos that lined the walls.

There were photos of Evan and me on our honeymoon in Maui, at his sister’s wedding, and building our first snowman together outside this very house. The gun collection she mentioned was a fabrication.

I owned exactly one firearm, a small handgun Evan had insisted I keep for protection after a break-in at our neighbor’s house last year. It stayed locked in a safe in our bedroom closet, untouched except for the one time Evan had taken me to a shooting range to learn how to use it properly.

My stomach dropped. Had she poisoned Evan against me and made him believe I was turning into her?

“He didn’t believe you,”

I said. But doubt crept in.

Had Evan seen the similarities between my rules for my mother and her rules for me? Had he been frightened by what he saw?

Evan knew some of my history with my mother—the sanitized version I’d shared over late-night conversations early in our relationship. But I’d never told him everything.

I never described the washing liquid burning my throat, or the matches singeing my hair, or the hunger pangs that kept me awake at night. I’d been too ashamed, too afraid he’d see me differently.

Now I wondered if that silence had created the perfect gap for my mother to fill with her own twisted narrative.

“Didn’t he?”

She smiled, her thin lips curling upward like a snake preparing to strike.

“Why do you think he was so eager to meet me alone that night to hear my side of the story?”

Her smile was the same one she’d worn when I was a child and she caught me in some minor transgression. It was a mixture of triumph and anticipation for the punishment to come.

She sat with perfect posture in our armchair, her small feet barely touching the floor and hands folded primly in her lap. The magazine she’d been reading was one of Evan’s automotive journals, open to an article about classic car restoration, his passion project for the vintage Mustang sitting in our garage.

I felt sick. Had Evan gone willingly with her?

No. I refused to believe it.

Whatever happened, she had done something to him. The scratch marks on the driveway and the watch behind the trash can proved this wasn’t a voluntary disappearance.

I’d noticed those scratch marks that morning—four parallel lines in the concrete of our driveway as if someone had dragged something sharp across it. At the time I’d thought nothing of it, assuming neighborhood kids had been playing, but now they took on a sinister significance.

And Evan’s watch—his grandfather’s vintage Omega that he never took off. I’d found it partially hidden behind our outdoor trash can when I had taken out the garbage that evening.

The leather strap was torn and the face was cracked, as if it had been ripped from his wrist during a struggle.

“I’m going to find him,”

I said, gathering my evidence.

“And when I do, you’ll regret ever coming back into my life.”

Her smile never faltered.

“Good luck with that, dear. I’ve had decades of practice covering my tracks.”

The confidence in her voice sent chills down my spine. What exactly did she mean by covering her tracks?

Had there been others before Evan? I thought of her friend who had finally kicked her out after a year of broken promises and wondered if something had happened there, too.

I gathered the watch, placing it carefully in a plastic bag like I’d seen detectives do on TV shows. I took photos of the scratch marks on the driveway with my phone, the flash illuminating them starkly against the dark concrete.

I even checked our security camera, only to find that the footage from the previous night had been deleted. This was something that required our household password.

That night I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake replaying every interaction with Evan in the days before he disappeared.

Had he seemed distant or concerned? I couldn’t remember anything unusual.

We’d been happy and normal—at least, I thought we had been. Our last morning together had been ordinary in every way.

Evan had kissed me goodbye as he always did, his lips tasting of coffee and the mint toothpaste he preferred. He’d been wearing his blue dress shirt, the one I’d ironed the night before, and the tie I had given him for his birthday last year.

We talked about dinner plans while he packed his lunch, agreeing to try the new Thai place that had opened downtown. He texted me around noon with a silly meme about paralegals that had made me laugh out loud in my quiet office.

Nothing in his behavior had suggested fear or concern. Nothing had hinted that our life together was about to be shattered.