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My husband and I had a huge fight.
He insisted on burning the new yellow dress I'd just bought, his voice edged with obsession.
"There can't be anything yellow in this house, or we'll all die!"
I thought he was talking nonsense. We snapped at each other for a while, then I shut myself in the bathroom to cool off.
But when I finished my shower and came out, the house was full of police.
Six bodies lay in the living room.
My mom and dad, my in-laws, my husband, and my five-year-old daughter. All of them dead.
Every face was frozen in terror, as if they'd seen something unspeakable in the moment before they died.
In my daughter's little hand, she was still clutching that yellow dress.
On the floor was a line of crooked words written in blood.
*Mommy killed us all.*
1
When the police stormed in, I still hadn't caught up with what was happening.
It wasn't until I saw my daughter collapsed beside the couch that I screamed and threw myself toward her.
"Nina!"
She was holding that yellow dress against her chest, her face drained of every trace of color.
I dropped to my knees, my hands trembling as I reached for her cheek.
"Nina, Mommy's out now."
"Didn't you say you wanted to sleep with Mommy tonight?"
"Stop playing. Open your eyes and look at Mommy."
There was still a little warmth left in her hand.
Like it was the last straw I could grab, I turned and cried out to the police:
"She's still warm!"
"Please, save her, she has to still be alive!"
The medical examiner crouched down, checked her for a moment, and gently shook his head.
I refused to believe it. I held my daughter's tiny body and called her name over and over.
Even when the police pulled me away by force, I was still fighting them.
As I struggled, my bare foot came down on the broken glass on the floor, and blood welled up instantly from my sole.
But I couldn't feel the pain.
All I could see was the white cloth covering my daughter's face.
Then my parents, my in-laws, my husband.
Six people in all.
I cried until I couldn't breathe, and finally I knelt on the floor, gagging.
The police sealed off the scene fast.
None of the six had any visible injuries, and there was no sign of a struggle in the house.
The medical examiner found vomit near several of their mouths and noses, and their first suspicion was poisoning.
But the door had been bolted from the inside.
Every window was shut, and the security bars hadn't been forced.
The camera at the entrance, from dinner all the way until the police arrived, hadn't caught a single outsider going in.
In this house, I was the only one still alive.
The detective in charge of questioning came over to me.
"Where were you when it happened?"
"The bathroom."
"How long were you in there?"
"About half an hour."
"Can anyone confirm that?"
I opened my mouth.
The people in this house who could have vouched for me were all lying on the floor.
I froze, then asked back, my voice hoarse.
"Why would I kill them?"
The detective didn't answer. He only asked:
"Before your shower, you argued with your husband?"
My eyes fell on that yellow dress.
"He insisted on burning the dress."
"He said there couldn't be anything yellow in the house, or we'd all die."
"I thought he was talking nonsense, so we snapped at each other."
The neighbor across the hall was soon brought in to answer questions.
She stood in the doorway in her pajamas, not daring to look into the living room.
"They really were fighting hard."
"The whole floor heard it."
The detective asked, "What did she say at the time?"
The neighbor hesitated and glanced at me.
"She said…"
"'It's just a dress. If you're all so afraid of dying, then just go die!'"
