When Mom was diagnosed with late-stage kidney failure, Dad didn’t hesitate for a second; he emptied the savings he had spent half a lifetime building just to cover her treatment.
Afraid she wouldn’t get enough nutrition after the surgery, he took on three jobs a day just to buy her the best supplements money could buy.
Watching him push himself like that, Mom would tear up with heartache.
She often told people at the hospital that she was the luckiest woman alive to have married a man like him.
And every time she said that Grandma would smile warmly and reply, “My son’s the lucky one; he married you.”
Grandma always said Mom was the kindest, most gentle person she’d ever known.
While other families bickered over petty things, their relationship was rare, like true mother and daughter. They were so close that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.
So when Mom was hospitalized, Grandma, despite her age, went to the hospital every single day.
She fed her by hand and wiped her body clean, never once complaining.
Mom noticed everything. She often said to me that Grandma treated her even better than her own mother did.
And my brother, he was the pride of our whole family.
Ever since he knew Mom wasn’t well, he worked hard without a word of complaint, even from a young age.
After getting accepted into Princeton University, my brother threw himself into studying medicine with an unshakeable focus.
He once said he wanted Mom to live a long and healthy life so our family could be spared the pain of sickness and loss.
When Mom was diagnosed with kidney failure, he didn’t hesitate; he gave up his chance to study abroad without a second thought.
And just like that, he donated one of his kidneys to her.
On the day of the surgery, Mom clung to him, sobbing uncontrollably, torn between overwhelming gratitude and the weight of guilt.
Even the other patients in the ward couldn’t help but praise us, saying we were the most loving and united family they had ever seen.
But that same family, once admired by all, once held together by love, was torn apart by Mom’s own hands.
I simply couldn’t make sense of it.
We had never even argued, not once.
During her stay in the hospital, she had been deeply moved by everything we did for her.
She even said, more than once, that our home held everything she ever treasured in life.
Then why did she end up killing the very people she loved most?
That question burned through my chest like wildfire, spreading pain with every breath.
I got up and began searching the house, desperate for any clue, anything at all, that might explain what went wrong.
On Mom’s bedside table, I spotted Dad’s hangover pills, the ones he always kept on hand after those exhausting business dinners.
On Dad’s bedside lay a well-worn guidebook on post-kidney transplant care, filled with his careful notes and highlights.
Above the bed hung a framed photo from their twentieth wedding anniversary.
In it, Mom clung sweetly to his arm, her face glowing with joy as she leaned against his shoulder.
Both of them looked so happy as if they had the world in their hands.
Grandma’s room was neat and simple, just like she had always kept it.
Inside her nightstand, the bracelet Mom once gave her rested quietly, tucked away like a treasure too precious to wear.
My brother’s room brimmed with information about kidney failure.
His books and handwritten notes were filled with hopeful scribbles, prayers and wishes for Mom’s recovery, written in the margins like spells of hope.
I turned the whole house upside down, searching every corner.
But there was nothing.
No clue, no sign, no reason to explain why Mom would suddenly slaughter the family she loved so dearly.
In the end, I opened the home surveillance footage again.
I re-watched the video of the murders with trembling fingers.
I had already gone through it once, back when I first heard the horrifying news.
There had been no signs of tampering.
In the footage, Dad, my brother, Grandma and Mom sat around the table, eating a meal together.
Everything had seemed so normal until it wasn’t.
Halfway through, Mom quietly stood and walked into the kitchen.
While the others remained unaware, she pulled out a kitchen knife, then, without warning, began slashing at them in a frenzy.
Her movements were swift and terrifying.
None of them had time to react before collapsing one by one.
Even their screams didn’t stop her.
In the video, her face was twisted with fury as she swung the knife over and over again like she wasn’t the same woman who once held us in her arms.
