Chapter 2 — The Father’s Recollection of the Empty Room
Jordan stood in silence beside the heavy oak table.
He replayed his exact movements from just moments before.
He had walked out of the kitchen carrying a stack of mail.
He had walked past the exact spot where the shattered frame now lay.
The grandfather clock in the hallway showed 3:14 PM.
The loud crash had rattled the room at 3:16 PM.
That meant barely two minutes had elapsed since Jordan walked right by that table.
He remembered looking at the family portrait as he passed.
The heavy glass and brass frame had been sitting securely in the dead center of the wooden table surface.
It had been pushed at least a foot away from the outer edge.
Samantha had been sitting quietly across the room reading a paperback book.
She had not been standing near the furniture at all.
Vincent crossed his arms tightly across his chest.
“I know what I saw,” Vincent insisted, his voice hardening.
“She was standing right next to it when it went down.”
Jordan looked back at his father.
“Dad, I walked past here two minutes ago,” Jordan said quietly.
“The frame was sitting securely in the center of the wooden table.”
“It was nowhere near the edge.”
“Samantha was sitting across the room reading a book.”
Vincent scoffed and shook his head.
“People get clumsy,” Vincent muttered.
“She knocked it off, and now she is lying about it.”
Jordan did not argue back with words.
Instead, he knelt closer to the carpet to examine the scattered debris.
The shattered glass fragments were not distributed evenly.
Most of the heavy shards lay clustered in a strange crescent shape several feet away from the table base.
Jordan reached down to touch one of the larger pieces.
He noticed an unusual pattern in the scatter of the broken glass shards on the carpet.