The day I buried my mother, I ended up in the river. Even now, I don’t know if I slipped… or if someone pushed me. But when I managed to crawl out, I overheard my husband and my best friend talking — and what they said changed everything.
That whole day felt unreal. People came and went, offering condolences, hugging me, speaking softly, but it all sounded distant, like I wasn’t fully there. By evening the house felt suffocating, so I went outside to get some air and walked down to the river near our home.
It had rained earlier, and the ground by the bank was wet. I stood close to the edge, staring at the dark water — and suddenly the ground gave way beneath me.
Before I could even react, I was in the river.
The current was strong, my clothes got heavy, and for a moment I thought I wouldn’t make it out. Somehow, out of pure instinct, I forced myself to swim toward the reeds along the shore. I grabbed onto them and pulled myself onto the muddy bank, gasping for breath.
That’s when I heard voices above me.
I looked up through the reeds — and froze.
It was my husband and my best friend standing at the edge of the bank, looking down at the water.
“She won’t get out,” my husband said calmly. “Even a good swimmer would struggle here.”
My friend sounded uneasy.
“What if she does?”
“She won’t. And even if she did, everyone saw she drank a little after the funeral. They’ll think she slipped.”
My friend laughed quietly.
“I’ll say I saw her fall. I’ll say I tried to help.”
“Exactly,” my husband replied.
A horrible thought hit me.
What if it wasn’t an accident at all?
There was a short silence before my friend asked another question.
“And her mother… did you pay them?”
My husband answered without hesitation.
“Yes. Everything went as planned. Everyone believed it was a heart attack.”
My heart stopped.
My friend lowered her voice.
“So now that they’re almost both gone… why did you need to get rid of them at the same time?”
There was a pause.
“Because they knew something they shouldn’t have,” he said.
I lay there in the mud, barely breathing, as the truth settled in.
My mother hadn’t died naturally.
And the fall into the river… wasn’t an accident either 
