Our family group chat is called Fam ❤️. Five people. Me, Mom, Dad, my sister Zoe, my little brother Sam. Tonight my phone buzzed and the header said 6 members. The new one had no name. No profile photo. Just a gray circle. Mom: "who is this??" Three dots. Typing. Then it sent one photo. Our living room. The couch. Dad's mug on the coffee table, still steaming. Taken from inside the house.

Everyone was typing and deleting, typing and deleting. So I just asked. Me: "who are you" The reply came fast. Like it had been waiting for me specifically. "You know me." Me: "no i don't" It sent a second photo. My seventh birthday party, in our old kitchen. I remember that cake. There's a man standing behind seven-year-old me. I have never seen him before in my life.

I sent the photo to Mom. Private chat. Just her. Me: "who is this man" No answer for five minutes. Then she called me. An actual phone call, from the next room over. Her voice was too calm. The voice she used when Grandpa died. "Where did you get that picture?" Me: "it's in the chat. mom. WHO IS HE" "Sweetheart, there was no man at that party. But that is exactly what your dad's father looked like." "He died before you were born."

Me: "mom, it's still IN the chat. it can read everything we say." The second I sent that, the gray circle messaged me privately. "Your mother is lying to you." Me: "about what" "That man is not your grandfather. Ask her why there are six plates in the cabinet." I went down and counted. Six plates. Six mugs. Six chairs at a table set for five. Mom was standing in the doorway watching me count. "Who told you to look," she said. It wasn't a question.

I put the plate down slow. Me: "the thing in the chat says you're lying about grandpa" Mom closed the cabinet. Then she pulled out the sixth chair and sat me down. "It's not your grandfather," she said. "It just wears whatever face gets us to open the door." Me: "how do you know" "Because it followed me from my mother's house. There were six plates there too." She took my phone and typed one message into the chat: "Not this one. Take me." The gray circle went quiet. It's been quiet for a year. But Mom still sets six plates every night. And lately she eats less and less.