Chapter 79: Bonus Chapter 7: The Last Light He Had Left

After he hung up, he sat in the chair.

Outside the window, the cicadas kept calling.

Again and again.

Tireless.

Downstairs, Mason called, “Dad, dinner’s ready!”

Nathan did not answer.

“Dad?”

He stood and walked to the window.

Far away, a cloud had caught the sunset. Gold burned through its center, rimmed with orange-red light, as if someone had brushed fire along its edges.

It was beautiful.

Chloe would have liked it.

She had always loved looking at clouds.

Every time they were in the car, she would lean against the window and stare at the sky.

“Nathan, look. Doesn’t that cloud look like a rabbit?”

“Doesn’t that one look like ice cream?”

“Doesn’t that one look like you?”

“Like me?” he had asked, laughing. “How do I look like a cloud?”

“You’re pale,” she had said, grinning. “And soft. Easy to bully.”

He remembered that afternoon.

The sunlight had been warm. The wind had been gentle.

Her hair had blown loose, a few strands brushing against his face.

They had tickled.

He had reached out and tucked them behind her ear.

She had lifted her face to him, her eyes full of light.

“Nathan, we have to stay together forever, okay?”

“Okay.”

Back then, he had thought forever meant forever.

He had not known that forever could sometimes be a very short thing.

So short there was no time to say goodbye.

Nathan stood by the window and stared at the golden cloud.

The corner of his mouth lifted.

But tears slid down his face.

Silently.

One drop.

Then another.

Then another.

They fell onto the windowsill and spread into small, dark stains.

“Dad!” Mason pushed the door open. “Why aren’t you-”

He stopped when he saw Nathan’s face.

“Dad, what happened?”

Nathan turned around and looked at him.

“Mason.”

“Yeah?”

“Your sister...” Nathan’s voice was very soft. “They found her.”

Mason froze.

“Found her? Where?”

Nathan looked at him for a long moment.

“In...” His voice thinned, nearly breaking. “In a place very far away.”

Mason stared at his expression.

And then he understood.

He did not ask anything else.

He only crossed the room and wrapped his arms around Nathan.

“Dad,” he said, his voice low, steady in the way children became steady when the adults around them had no strength left. “I’m here.”

Nathan held him and closed his eyes.

Outside the window, the sun sank lower.

The last orange-red edge of light disappeared from the horizon.

Night came down.

The cicadas fell silent.

The world went quiet.

“Okay,” Nathan whispered.

His hand rested on Mason’s back. Beneath his palm, Mason was warm.

Warm.

Alive.

Real.

In this world, Nathan still had Mason.

There was still one person he could hold.

For now, that was enough.

2025 · Fall

After Nathan returned from Pine Grove County, he changed.

Not for the worse.

If anything, he became calmer.

But that calm was not acceptance. It was concealment. Like a river with an unbroken surface and a current beneath it so deep no one could see the bottom. He pressed all his longing, all his pain, all his unwillingness into that dark water and let nothing rise where anyone could see it.

He no longer woke in the middle of the night.

He no longer called the number that had been disconnected years ago, over and over, waiting for a voice that would never come through.

He no longer stood by the window for hours, staring at nothing.

He began to eat on time. Sleep on time. Take his medication on time.

He smiled at Mason. He took Michael’s calls. He discussed work with Dawn.

Everyone thought he had finally let go.

Finally accepted reality.

Finally found a way to live properly again.

But Mason knew better.

Nathan had not let Chloe go.

He had only hidden her somewhere deeper.

Deep enough that other people could not see her.

But Mason could.

Whenever Nathan sorted through the old things in the house and came across Chloe’s red coat, his hand would pause.

Not for long.

Only for a second, as if something invisible had caught his fingers.

Then he would fold it, put it away, and continue as if nothing had happened.

His face never changed.

But Mason saw it.

He saw Nathan’s fingers linger on the coat for that one extra second.

Like a farewell spoken without sound.

Whenever they passed a Popeyes, Nathan’s steps would slow.

He never went inside.

He only looked through the glass.

Inside, ordinary people sat in orange plastic booths, eating sandwiches, drinking soda, laughing about ordinary things. Someone opened a sauce packet. Someone scrolled through their phone. Someone complained that the fries had gone cold.

The world was embarrassingly normal.

Then Nathan would keep walking.

As if nothing had happened.

But Mason saw that too.

He saw the light in Nathan’s eyes dim for a breath.

Whenever it rained, Nathan would stand by the window and watch it fall.

For a long time.

He said nothing. He did not move. He only stood there, still as a statue, while rain struck the glass hard enough to blur the whole world beyond it.

But Mason knew.

Nathan was listening.

Listening to see if, somewhere inside all that rain, there was her voice.

He was learning, that was all.

Learning how to go on living in a world without her.

Nothing more.

Then winter came.

In the winter of 2025, Nathan got sick.

Not in his body.

In his mind.

The doctor said it was a delayed complication from the surgery after the landslide, aggravated by decades of prolonged psychological stress. His nervous system had started to fail under the strain.

“His brain is trying to protect itself,” the doctor told Mason. “When reality becomes too painful, the mind sometimes creates a safer illusion.”

Nathan began to hallucinate.

He started speaking to empty air.

He started saying strange things.

“Chloe wants Popeyes today. I’m going to buy it for her.”

Then he put on his coat and truly went out.

Mason followed him.

He watched Nathan walk into Popeyes and order a Cajun chicken sandwich, four spicy tenders, and a large red beans and rice. Nathan took the tray to a seat by the window, sat down, and smiled gently at the empty chair across from him.

“Eat,” he said. “Didn’t you say you wanted this?”

Mason stood outside the restaurant, separated from him by a pane of glass.

He watched Nathan push the sandwich across the table.

Watched him smile at a person who was not there.

Watched him sit through the entire meal without taking a single bite himself.

Mason’s tears slid down his face without a sound.

In the winter wind, they went cold almost instantly.

He did not go in.

He only stood outside and waited until Nathan finished eating.

No.

Until Nathan finished watching the person across from him eat.

Then Mason followed him home.

After that, Mason began to play along.

He pretended Chloe was still alive.

Pretended Chloe had come home.

Pretended their family was whole again, happy and complete, the way Nathan’s broken mind had stitched it together from mercy and ruin.

Because this was the last thing Mason could still do for him.

The very last thing.