I recollected the day in my mind. I don't know why I did this, but I guess it's just something you do when you have been scared- you relive the fear of the moment.
"Try not to think about your day, I know you've been through a lot but try and focus on positive things. The answers to the suspects, perhaps?" Martha shook my shoulder to try and wake me from my daze. My eyes had been stretched to the opposite sides of my head and I could feel a migraine coming.  The car had been driving for 30 minutes but it had felt like hours as if we were slowing down. The temptation to know the truth was too great. Who could it have been? My parents? My friends? Me? There was a whole list of options. I was both excited and afraid. If it was me, the truth would haunt me for the rest of my life. The image would haunt me for the rest of my life. His death would haunt me for the rest of my life. 'You killed him, you killed him.' I couldn't cope with waking up to that phrase every day. It couldn't have been me that did it. It just couldn't have.

At long last we turned down my street and pulled up outside the remains off my house. This time police tape was there and several scientists examining the dirt. I got out of the car and searched the scene for the Investigator. He was nowhere to be found.
"Allora, over here. He's over here." I turned around and saw the investigator sitting on the ground. He, like the scientists, was wearing a white lab coat that was stained with dirt. He seemed to have been stunned or in a trance, for he sat with one leg bent and splayed out, the other raised like an arch. One hand was on the ground supporting his weight, and the other was lazed on his knee.
"Investigator? It's me, Allora. I've... come back from school."
"Allora... Allora. Allora, Allora." He tried out my name as if testing to see if it suited his voice.
"Oh good God," Martha clasped her hands to her mouth.
"What? What has happened? What's wrong?"
"Allora... he's been stunned. Something has shocked him. He needs medical attention immediately. At this stage, there is getting no information out of him." My eyebrows raised with accusation.
"Aren't you a nurse?"
"Yes, yes... but I specialise with children. I have not been taught how to deal with these situations."
"Allora... Allora. Allora, house..." The recognition hit him like a brick.
"House. House... suspect." He began, and he kneeled in front of him to try and get him to recognise my face.
"You... you... house... suspect." This remark made me both afraid and confused. Was he telling me I was a suspect or the suspect?
"Sir, please listen to me. You- were- finding- the culprit- or- at- least- the- suspects." I said very clearly to make him understand me.
"Truth... truth..." His hands began to shake and he gripped onto me.
"You. You. Not you. Close to you. Close to you." He suddenly went still apart from his hands and stared hard at the ground.
"Come on, Allora. We'll take him back with us. He's in a state of shock- but he'll soon be okay. Soon we will know the answer." I nodded my head and guided him with soft words to the car. He continued to look at the floor muttering 'close. Close.' before we got in the car and drove away from the scene.

And then... he was silent.

***

As soon as we arrived into the hospital, Martha hurriedly guided him through the entrance doors and to the emergency room. With my plans now changed, I decided to visit my mother.
She was in the same place as usual. She looked healthier than usual, lying there in with the light of the window behind and her pink quilt wrapped tightly around as if she was being mummified. Her hair was dry and in a sloppy bun and she was wearing her compulsory, spotty white hospital night dress. She had bruises on her cheeks and her eyes with bulging with exhaustion (or sadness, I couldn't really tell the difference), but when she saw me she lit up like a firework.
"Allora! How was your day at school?" Just then, she noticed the graze on my cheek and frowned with sadness.
"Was it the burn?" She said kind-heartedly as if she was okay with me not telling her. Nonetheless, I nodded.
"Oh Al, I'm so sorry with everything that's happened. This is not your fault." There were those words again. Not your fault. But it could've been. It could've been my fault as much as hers, and we were both denying the truth. We were being optimistic.
"I suppose," I nodded glumly and faked sighing to simmer any suspicion.
"Did you identify the suspect?" Mother asked (after unfortunately recognising the melodramatic sigh),
"No... the investigator was stunned somehow and refused to tell us what happened. He knows. I know he knows. I wish he would tell me. The truth is killing me." It was one of those moments where you feel the urge to get everything off of your chest and lay the burden on someone else.
"Me too, me too."
"What if it's me?"
"What?" She seemed startled,
"What... if it was me that caused the fire."
"And what if it was me? Accidents happen, Allora. You are just as likely as me to have caused that fire. This is one long battle and mystery, but we will find the light at the end of the tunnel." I groaned at her poetic language and we shared one of our old smiles like we used to when our lives weren't in disarray.
"Life was beautiful wasn't it? It was so beautiful until everything was changed." A lurch of sadness spursed in my heart. An ache for comfort, for belonging, for home.
"Don't be so pessimistic, Al. Life... is full of karma. We give and we get. Yes, I wish we were still back in our beloved home as one family, just watching the world through the window... but here we are in a hospital.  That's how life works. Nothing is laid out for you... you just have to improvise."
"I wish none of this had ever happened. I don't want to lose father."
"I'm the same kiddo, I'm the same. It will be hard. Very hard. But I bet... we will be stronger than ever. By the end of this journey we will step into the sunshine- well, I'll stumble."
"Remember you are going to have a full recovery..." I had doubt for a few moments because I didn't want more bad news throughout all that had happened.
"Not... exactly. The doctors say that my left leg is paralysed. I will have to have crutches."
"But- everything we were going to do! The world trip! The England tour." I could feel my heart sink further and further. It was like quick sand that had no escape; you are almost free and then you slip and sink faster.
"I think... things may be put on stand still for a while."
"A while?" I queried,
"A long while." She sighed.
"Is there any good news?" I crossed my fingers behind my back in the way I did when I was a child. I wanted to retain my childhood for as long as possible before becoming having to look after my mother for the rest of my life.
"There is one thing..." She put her bandaged finger to her chin. "Your father's awake- and very anxious to see you."

I was running before she could finish her sentence.