Jeannette, the eldest sister, takes up the story: how the House of Happiness lost its light.
My name is Jeannette, and I am the eldest of three children. With my parents, my little sister Régine and my younger brother Ike, we live in a lovely house in the Odza neighbourhood. This house, once nicknamed the “House of Happiness”, was our haven of peace, a place where we always felt safe, surrounded by love and laughter. It rang with bursts of joy, games and family moments, under the kindly watch of our loving parents. But for some years now, that light had gone out, replaced by an oppressive shadow. Our home, once synonymous with happiness, had become the epicentre of strange and disturbing phenomena. My siblings and I, young as we were, felt these changes deeply, this heavy atmosphere that had insidiously settled in.
I had a fairly happy childhood, cradled by carefree days and games. But overnight, everything changed. I found myself becoming more rebellious, less tolerant, and above all more anxious. It wasn’t just the turbulence of adolescence. No, it was something else, something deeper. I could clearly see that my parents’ relationship had deteriorated, wearing away until it was a pale imitation of what it had once been. The looks they exchanged, once full of tenderness and complicity, were now heavy with mistrust and pain. A constant tension hung in the air, a heavy silence that spoke of unspoken resentments and invisible wounds.
The story continues in the book.