The days blurred into each other as August waned. Eleanor stopped answering her door, her shutters remained closed, and the faint music she sometimes played disappeared into silence. It was as if she had evaporated from Ashbourne Lane without physically leaving.
Samuel knocked once, then twice. He waited. Nothing. He slid a folded letter under her door, then immediately wished he hadn't. That night, he returned under cover of darkness and retrieved it. He read it once more in the dim attic light, then fed it to the fire. His words curled into ash.
Thomas, ever watchful from the hallway, said nothing. But he saw it all. He saw the sadness clinging to his son like a damp coat and felt its mirror within himself.
One night, the silence became too loud.
Samuel became disoriented as he wandered the house, passing shabby-looking photographs in frames. He ended up in the attic, the place he always turned to when the world felt too sharp. He opened drawer after drawer, flipping through pages of poems - love letters to Eleanor, some tender, some furious, some confused.
Downstairs, Thomas stood staring at the staircase. Then he began to climb.
"I've given you space," he said at the top of the attic stairs, his voice hoarse, "but maybe that was the wrong choice."
From his desk, Samuel looked up. "There's nothing left to say."
"There's always something left to say between a father and his son."
Samuel turned fully. "You mean like why you read my letters? Why did you pursue the woman I loved? Thomas stepped forward. "It wasn't like that."
"No?" Samuel raised his voice. "Then how was it?"
"I saw her. That's all. I spoke with her, and she listened. She reminded me that I'm still alive."
A drawer was slammed shut by Samuel. "At my expense."
"She wasn't yours, Samuel."
"She was also never yours." Silence.
The kind of silence that builds up in anticipation of something that cannot be undone They stared at each other - both wounded, both proud, both desperately lonely.
Thomas stepped forward. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
However, you did. "You think this is about a woman?" Thomas stated: "It's about everything. The years we wasted, the things we never said after your mother died. You didn't have time to lose her. I was too weak to be what you needed."
Samuel's hands clenched. "And so now you want to take the one person who made me feel seen? Who made me feel real?"
"I don't want to take anything from you."
"But you always do."
There was shouting - sharp, ugly. Words were spewed out, sharp and frantic, and they were free of hope or fear. Thomas reached out - maybe to stop Samuel from leaving, maybe in reflex - but his hand caught his son's shoulder just as Samuel turned away.
It was awkward to twist. The lamp stand gave way. Samuel's foot struck the trunk's edge. A thud. A crack. The attic wall's stone hearth was where his head hit. The whole thing stopped. Thomas fell backwards. "Sam?"
The boy remained still. He shook his hands and knelt next to him, his breath rasping. "Please, not like this," he whispered. "Not in this way." But it was already done.