Chapter Text
Shane was three.
His dad had stormed out hours earlier, after another argument. He had shouted terrible words and thrown things that his mother would have to clean up later. Shane noticed that whenever his father was gone, there were no screams or slammed doors in the house.
Maybe he wouldn’t come back this time.
In the kitchen, his mother stirred a pot for breakfast, seasoning it with spices… and with her own tears. After a while, she stopped and sank into a chair, pressed her elbows against the wooden table, and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders trembled as she cried harder.
Shane hated seeing her like that.
He turned off the TV playing cartoons and padded across the floor and crossed the living room. When he came close to the old mini-jukebox in the corridor, a faint hiss of static sounded, calling his attention.
One of its knobs was loose, and the speaker crackled even when it was silent. Most days, it barely worked at all.
Shane didn’t know how to make it work properly. His father had told him many times not to touch it.
But his father wasn’t home.
He reached up and twisted the dial carefully, almost by instinct. The static flared, sputtered, and, as if finally waking up, the noise softened.
The crackling faded, and a soft, almost magical rhythm filled the house.
Rachel lifted her head, startled at first. It was her favorite song. She hadn’t heard it in years:
Everywhere, by Fleetwood Mac.
The melody carried memories she thought she had lost forever.
“Can you hear me calling, out your name?”
Rachel turned and looked at her son.
His hair was messy, and one sock was missing. But his green eyes were bright and trusting, fixed on her. She laughed softly while standing up, and she gathered him into her arms and began to turn slowly in the middle of the kitchen, barefoot on the cool floor, letting the music guide her.
“I want to be with you everywhere.”
Shane laughed as she spun him around, and Rachel let herself drift, pretending that she could escape the weight of her mistakes.
“You know,” she said gently, “I used to listen to this with your Aunt Marnie, back in Pelican Town.”
Mother and son kept turning as the morning light poured in through the windows, laughing, dancing. They forgot everything else.
Then the music cut off abruptly.
Rachel’s head jerked up.
The jukebox had slipped out of tune again and the song vanished, replaced by harsh static and broken noise.
The old device crackled helplessly, and no other sound would come from there ever again and would be thrown to the trash next spring.
Both of them heard some familiar footsteps.
Hunter.
His steps approached the front door.
Rachel set Shane down quickly and hurried into the hallway. The door opened with one slam. Hunter stood in the doorway, swaying slightly, with a bottle of beer dangling from his hand. The amber liquid caught the sunlight, gleaming like a poisonous warning.
Rachel froze.
“I thought you’d gone,” she whispered.
“I thought you didn’t care,” he replied.
She lowered her eyes.
Hunter stepped closer, placed the bottle on the jukebox near Shane’s head, and wrapped his arms around her.
Rachel’s body went rigid but then she collapsed against him, and her sobs muffled in his chest.
“It’s okay, babe,” he murmured. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
His hand slid slowly from her back to her hair, fingers closing just a little too tight.
Shane knew something was wrong. It was too fast. Too sudden.
The warmth of some seconds before had disappeared. In its place, there was only a hollow cold like if someone let a window open.
Shane woke suddenly, and the pain was stabbing through his knee. He bit down hard, choking back a cry while a gust outside was roaring.
He stared at the ceiling, trying to recognize where he was.
The morning light slipped through the white curtains and fell over polished furniture and carefully arranged ornaments. It would be perfect to expose as a picture on social media if it wasn’t for the furious sound of the branches of a tree nearby knocking at the windows.
He wasn’t in the house in Roseview anymore. Neither in Erdnest farm at Pelican Town.
He was in the bedroom in Brookfield.
And somewhere in his mind, “Everywhere” was still playing.
He had spent the day buried in paperwork and phone calls and quiet condolences, arranging his mother’s funeral until exhaustion blurred everything together.
Even now, his body hadn’t caught up.
“Did it wake you again?” Gina asked softly.
He swallowed.
“Yeah. Like someone drove a nail into it.” He exhaled. “It’s… nothing. It’ll pass.”
Gina shifted closer and rested her hand over his knee, warm and careful.
“You always say that,” she murmured. “But it doesn’t pass, does it?”
Shane looked away without answering.
They went by car, the three of them. Both women wore black dresses, while Shane wore a suit that felt a little tight across his chest. Gina was driving. They passed once again through the Roseview neighborhood. The wind was moving the trash and the gray clouds above with rage, with walls covered in graffiti and broken glass scattered on the ground until they stopped in front of a small church of Saint Monique.
“Do you feel ready?” Gina asked.
Shane stared ahead for a long moment, then let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped in his chest for years.
“No,” he said simply. “But I think I’ve spent most of my life not being ready for things. So I’ll go anyway.”
Gina didn’t press him further. She only nodded, then reached for his hand.
They climbed the stairs and walked through the doors. There were already about twenty people inside, surrounded by decorations of lilies and white roses.
Above the altar stood a statue of a saint. Her stone face was tilted slightly downward, in an eternal prayer. Some fine lines had been carved around her eyes, deepened by small traces of painted tears that glistened faintly in the light. One of her arms was wrapped around a boy pressed against her chest, and she was holding him from falling.
Sobs echoed against the walls, mixing with the blowing outside smoke of incense and the sound of the blowing outside. Gina and Shane were the youngest there.
They walked to the front row, and before sitting Shane felt something crawl up his spine the moment he saw the open coffin barely two meters to his left. Even though no one could see inside, Marnie let out a choked gasp, brought a handkerchief to her mouth, and began to cry.
“Rachel… why?” she murmured between sobs.
Shane remained too stiff in his seat, as if he were shutting down parts of himself to keep from falling apart.
He didn’t want to think about where he was. He couldn’t stand being there…
Then an elderly woman’s hand lightly touched his shoulder, pulling him back to reality. Shane turned and took a moment to recognize her, behind the deep wrinkles, the thinning gray hair, and the cloudy eyes. She was an old neighbor and a friend of his mother.
“Shane… it’s you? How you’ve changed!” she exclaimed, her eyes were red from crying. “My deepest condolences. I hope you’re doing well.”
He wasn’t doing well. And he didn’t think he ever wanted to be “well”. Not after his mother’s death.
“Thank you,” he replied automatically.
“Your mother was a wonderful woman… She always talked about you, she used to say that she missed you,” Shane felt a stab in his stomach. “If I can do anything for you, just ask,” the woman murmured before returning to her seat.
Do something?
The words echoed hollowly in his mind.
He had been the one who filled out the forms.
The one who signed the papers.
The one who chose the plot of land where she would rest.
He had done all of that.
And yet, it felt like nothing.
No one had helped him. No one had helped her.
Not when it had mattered.
His mother…Trapped in that house with Hunter for years.
Who had helped her?
No one.
None of the attendants who were crying there, not the neighbors who knew about his infidelities, not the people who smiled politely and looked away.
Not even her only child.
Shane inclined over his seat, why didn’t he do anything? Guiltiness inside him began to gnaw at his guts.
Why had someone like her been allowed to die like that?
Abandoned by everyone.
He heard the church door open somewhere behind him and a cold draft entered making Shane’s spine shiver. Someone slipped into a pew in the back. Shane turned slightly, but the priest had already begun to speak. His voice went through the room, but it sounded like it was far away and was covered by Marnie’s crying.
Shane caught only fragments.
Yoba’s mercy.
Mercy.
What mercy had his mother received during her life?
The body as a vessel.
A vessel. Fragile like ceramic.
Broken at twenty by childbirth.
Just the same age Shane’s own body had been broken, when his dreams had collapsed along with his knee.
From dust you come, and to dust you return.
Dust.
Tiny and meaningless particles floating in the air.
The eternal rest.
Could something like that exist? How could anyone grasp a word that meant forever, when even a single year had been too much for her to endure?
The priest allowed a friend to talk, talking about his mother’s life. He spoke of how she was always willing to help those around her, to shield the ones she loved, her smile forever charming.
Shield the ones she loved. Which ones? Not her own child.
The words drifted over Shane without reaching him. Nothing around him felt real. He refused to accept that his mother was there, about to be buried. The light from the stained-glass windows fell in pools of color across the stone floor, but it warmed nothing.
When the priest announced the final farewell his words echoed bouncing the walls, a knot formed in his stomach. The three of them stood and walked toward Rachel.
“I can’t see her, Shane” Marnie murmured, stopping halfway. “I just can’t… I can´t seein’ her lyin’ in that box…I don’t want to remember her like that!”
She turned back, sat down again, and cried even harder.
Shane had avoided that moment from the beginning and always found an excuse to not face it. But now he was there and this was the last chance to see her.
He walked forward, with Gina beside him.
Then he stopped.
For a moment, he thought he was looking at the wrong person.
The woman in the coffin looked like his mother.
Pale, wrinkled skin. Hair that had once been reddish, was now completely gray. Her green eyes were closed forever.
His breath caught in his throat. His vision trembled, as if he wanted to turn away, to run, yet he couldn’t stop looking.
Shane pressed his lips together until it hurt. He leaned on the edge of the coffin, until his knuckles got white, and his body got rigid. His breathing became uneven, with hurt.
No words came from his mouth. He just stood there, swaying between stepping closer and stepping back.
A tear finally slid down his cheek, he lowered his head almost ashamed, and stepped back.
Gina brushed his hand discreetly.
He didn’t respond.
He kept staring at the floor, refusing to look up again.
“Why did you never come…?” he whispered. “I was in Pelican Town… it’s just an hour away.” His voice was broke.
Why didn’t I come here? he thought.
He looked at her again.
Her voice singing lullabies and laughing at bad TV shows, her hands wet from wringing a towel. Those same hands had stroked his hair after bedtime stories; that same voice had lied to doctors about his broken arm; those eyes had cried tears of joy and fear. And those lips… those lips had stayed silent before Hunter.
Silent. Always silent.
One hour. Just one damn hour!
If one of them had taken that road…
Which Rachel would have survived?
Not only had she died, but all those possibilities had also died with her.
Every future where she was free and safe.
Every future where she could have lived happily.
Gone.
A sudden surge of anger burned in Shane’s chest.
She could have left.
She had had chances.
The doors at Pelican Town were always open for her.
Her parents tried, her friends tried, Yoba knows how many times her sister tried…And she had always turned back!
Always gone back to Hunter, to the shouting, the broken bottles, the cheating, the insults…Back to the life that crushed her!
She had chosen him. Over and over again!
Over peace, over herself, over her own son.
She had chosen to let him grow up hurt and afraid…he was a kid, why didn't she step between him and Hunter?
Shane hated himself for thinking it. He hated himself for blaming her. Hated himself for feeling angry at a woman who had been a victim long before she had been a mother.
One hour away.
He had been so close, and he hadn’t.
He also had stayed away.
He had chosen to live comfortably at Erdnest farm rather than save his mother.
Because it hurt too damn much to admit he wasn’t her priority. That his love hadn’t been enough to pull her away. That he hadn’t even tried.
The anger turned inward, wrapping around his ribs and squeezing.
He had failed her.
Just like everyone else.
Just like she had failed herself.
Shane stared at her face again.
He was surprised by how peaceful she looked. Finally, the world had finally stopped hurting her.
He dared to touch her hand.
He expected the skin to still hold some warmth. Or at least lukewarm.
But no.
It was cold, lifeless.
Death.
Like Jack.
Like Inés.
The same disturbing emptiness.
The same impossible thought:
That body wasn’t really them.
A shiver ran through him.
She was gone. For eternity.
He couldn’t take it anymore. He turned away and walked off. He needed air. He brought the same hand he had touched his mother with to his face, trying to ease the pain and stop more tears.
Marnie stood up, holding a handkerchief, and walked with him outside.
He needed to feel something that wasn't the coldness of her hand, he preferred to feel the fury of the wind than to stay in that silent church…anything to remind him he was alive, before going back in and facing what was waiting.
Before burying…
The three of them stepped outside. Shane felt the wind whipping his hair around, forcing him to squint to keep the dust out of his eyes. Gina clung to his arm, one hand pressing down on the skirt of her dress to keep it from flying up. Marnie held her handkerchief up to shield her face. Her eyeswere red and glassy from crying inside.
They stood frozen on the cracked concrete landing, backs to the heavy oak doors, coats flapping like ragged flags in the gale.
Shane felt the suit squeezing him, making it hard to breathe. He would have torn the collar open if not for the biting cold that seeped straight through to his bones.
All three of them felt it at the same moment: the church door opening behind them.
The faint creak of hinges behind them, the slow groan of the church door swinging open. Something colder than the wind outside slipped out, and some heavy steps approached.
Shane’s shoulders stiffened. He recognized those steps immediately: The pace of something that knows that the prey is cornered by grief and exhaustion
“Took you long enough to show your face.”
It was a voice he hadn’t heard in years. Dry and sour. Soaked in alcohol and bitterness.
They turned slowly. If it hadn’t been for Shane’s tense posture and Marnie’s clenched fists, Gina wouldn’t have recognized the old man with gray hair and icy blue eyes. His sharp, sunken face twisted between grief and contempt.
“You’ve got some nerve,” Hunter said. “Coming here now. After all these years. Pretending you gave a damn about your mother.”
Shane’s eyes burned with restrained anger. Gina touched his wrist.
“You didn’t call her or visit her. You left her to rot in this neighborhood, like the ungrateful coward you are.” He stepped closer. “You are a bad son, Shane. You always were.”
“Don’t talk about her like you loved her.” Shane shot back.
He stepped forward, gripping Gina’s hand tighter. She kept her eyes on Hunter.
“Say what you want about me. I’m not staying for this.”
Shane turned to leave, but Hunter spat his next words.
“She married you? A foreigner?” He smirked at her mahogany Gotorian curls, his eyes were glinting with cold satisfaction. “You need a desperate woman with no other options to settle for a worthless piece of shit like you.”
Shane stopped.
“Don’t you dare talk about her!” he shouted.
“Shane,” Gina whispered. “It’s okay. Don’t.”
“No, it’s not okay,” he growled. “He doesn’t get to talk about you like that.”
“Let’s just go. Let him rot,” she said.
But Hunter continued.
“That’s it. Just go. You’re just a piece of trash floating in the air.”
This time, Gina stopped.
Just a piece of trash floating in the air.
The words hit her like a slap.
She remembered. That rainy spring night. The trail of empty cans. The cliff. Shane curled up on the floor, crying.
“I’m nothing. Just a piece of trash… floating in the air…”
She had always thought those words came from his own despair…from the alcohol, the pain, the losses.
But no.
Tears filled her eyes, her breath catching sharp. Those weren’t his words.
They were his father’s.
He had learned them here, in this neighborhood, year after year, from that same voice.All this time, Shane hadn’t just been fighting himself.
He had been fighting his father.
She turned slowly, her hands shook, not with fear. With fury.
“You…” she said, her voice low and trembling. “Those words…You Monster!”
Hunter frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
“You taught him to hate himself,” she went on. “You told him he was nothing. That he was worthless...”
Shane’s breath caught. She had never said it like that before. Never so clearly.
“And you did it when he was a child,” Gina continued. “When he trusted you. When he needed you.”
Her voice cracked.
“You broke him.”
Hunter scoffed.
“Don’t start with that nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense,” she snapped. “He almost died because of you.”
For a moment, Hunter had no answer.
He looked away and then back at her. His jaw tightened in the same way Shane does.
“That’s not my fault,” he muttered.
“You were his father,” she said. “It was your responsibility.”
Silence.
He shifted his weight and scratched his neck. Anything to avoid her eyes.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snapped weakly. “You don’t know anything about how it was raising a family here.”
“I know you are a terrible man!” she replied.
Hunter’s face reddened, and his lips curled.
“Why should I listen to you?” he spat. “You’re just some foreign slut he bought to forget how worthless he is. Bet you only stay for the pity fuck.”
That was it.
Shane snapped completely.
He lunged forward, his fist connecting with Hunter's jaw in a sharp crack that echoed through the air. Hunter staggered back, blood already trickling from his split lip, but he recovered with surprising speed for a man of his age. He swung back wildly, his knuckles grazing Shane's cheek and drawing a red spot.
Shane grunted; the pain was fueling his rage. He tackled Hunter to the ground, the two men tumbling onto the rough gravel outside the church. Dust and trash were floating around them as fists flew…Shane landed a solid punch to Hunter's jaw, while Hunter clawed at Shane's face, his nails raking across his son's eyebrow and drawing more blood.
"Get off me, you worthless bastard!" Hunter gasped, his voice hoarse as he kneed Shane in the stomach.
Some attendants began to get out due to the noise, while father and son kept fighting.
Marnie rushed forward; her cries were piercing the chaos. "Stop it! Shane, stop! You'll kill him!" Someone from the church bolted out, yelling for help, while another attendant was already dialing emergency services.
Gina darted in, grabbing Shane's arm mid-swing. "Shane, enough! It's over!" she cried, her voice trembling from the adrenaline. Marnie joined her, pulling at Shane's shoulders until they managed to haul him off.
Shane's chest heaved, his breaths were coming in ragged bursts, his suit was ripped, while the blood dripped from his lip, his eyebrow, his knuckles…His fists trembled, still clenched, as the red haze of rage slowly cleared from his eyes.
Hunter lay on the ground, bleeding from his nose and mouth, one eye already swelling shut. He stared up at Shane, humiliated, but there was a twisted, satisfied smile creeping across his battered face…like he'd finally provoked the monster he'd always claimed was inside his son.
“You’re done, Hunter!” Marnie shouted.
The wind stopped dead, and a single shaft of pale sunlight broke through the clouds and struck Marnie, turning her gray hair silver into gold, almost unearthly like the only thing still standing after a long storm.
She lifted one trembling finger and pointed it straight at his swollen, bloody face.
“Rachel never deserved a minute of the misery you gave her,” she said, each word with rage, like she’d been saving them for decades. “You’ll rot slowly, Hunter! All alone with yourself as your only company, there won’t be a single soul who cares enough to step foot inside. And that’s all the mercy you’re ever gonna get!”
Then the wind roared back, tearing at coats and hair. Black clouds boiled in from nowhere, swallowing the light, and the first distant growl of thunder rolled low across the city.
Hunter stayed on the ground, mouth half-open, and the twisted smile finally gone. For once, he had nothing left to throw back.
Marnie turned away without another glance, shoulders squared, walking off. She’d just finished burying more than one person that day.