The storm rolled in from the west, a tide of wind and water that battered the shutters and flooded the garden path. The Granger home's rooms were dimly lit, the electricity flickered, and the air was charged. Upstairs, Thomas heard footsteps above - the attic. He climbed slowly, each step hurting his joints. Dusty and drenched in sweat, Samuel threw notebooks into an open trunk while standing in the half-dark. "Are you leaving?" Thomas asked.
"No," Samuel replied. "I'm accumulating what's mine." "You think you own her?"
With wild eyes, Samuel swiveled. "No. Yet you act as though you do. You're just an old man clinging to someone who made you feel seen again."
"And you're a boy," Thomas snapped, "writing poems about a woman you barely know."
She knows me more than you have ever known me. That was the moment. The spark.
Accusations and old grievances erupted into shouting as words flew. The weight of long-unspoken emotions - Samuel's resentment for growing up without his mother, Thomas' guilt for withdrawing after her death, and their parallel loneliness never quite aligning - made the room appear to shrink. Samuel acted too quickly. Thomas reached out to him, perhaps to stop him or to make him think again, but the movement veered off course. Samuel slipped on a loose floorboard. There was a sickening crack.
Time fractured.
Thomas sat down next to his son. Blood pooled from behind his skull. Through the shattered window, the storm howled. He repeated over and over, "Sam." "Sam, please..."
But there was no reply.
-
When the police arrived, Eleanor stood across the street