Chapter 28 The house of holding breath
While Elena was finding a momentary escape in the gilded gardens of the Blackwood estate, the air inside her childhood home remained heavy, stagnant, and thick with the residue of her morning outburst. The silence that followed the slamming of the front door had been absolute, broken only by the distant, rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
In the kitchen, the remains of breakfast sat untouched. Martha sat at the small wooden table, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea that had long since gone cold. Her eyes were fixed on the empty chair where Victor had sat only twenty-four hours earlier. She looked like a woman who had seen a ghost and was now waiting for it to return and explain itself.
Her husband, Joseph, stood by the sink, his large, calloused hands gripping the edge of the counter. He was a man of quiet strength, a man who had built a life on the tangible—wood, nails, sweat, and hard work. For thirty years, he had been the anchor for Martha’s drifting soul, but today, the anchor was dragging.
"She’s right, Martha," Joseph said, his voice low and gravelly, not turning around. "Elena is right. You’re pushing too hard. You’re reaching for something that isn't there, and you’re bruising the ones who are."
Martha didn't flinch. She didn't even blink. "You saw him, Joseph. You saw the eyes. You saw the way he looked at that photo. Even he couldn't deny the likeness."
"Likeness isn't life, Martha!" Joseph turned around now, his face flushed with a mixture of exhaustion and rising anger. "Coincidence happens in this world. There are thousands of men out there who might share a jawline or a brow with a boy who went missing in a war zone thirty years ago. But Victor Blackwood is a man with a documented life. He has a father. He has a history in Paris. He has a different birthday, for God’s sake!"
"Dates can be changed, Joseph. Records can be bought by men with enough power," Martha countered, her voice eerily calm. She finally looked up, her gaze piercing. "I am his mother. I carried him. I felt his heart beat against mine before the world ever saw his face. Do you think a calendar or a French accent can erase that? When I looked at him, my soul didn't see a billionaire in a wheelchair. It saw my baby."
Joseph let out a long, frustrated breath, running a hand over his face. "This is exactly what Elena was talking about. This... this obsession. It’s a sickness, Martha. It’s been three decades. We mourned. We cried until we had no tears left. We raised two beautiful daughters who have spent their entire lives in the shadow of a brother they never knew. Don't they deserve a mother who is present? A mother who isn't always looking over their shoulders for a ghost?"
"I am present!" Martha snapped, finally showing a spark of the fire that usually defined her. "I love my girls. I would die for them. But how can I be whole when a piece of me is still out there in the dark? Last night, that dream... it wasn't just a dream, Joseph. It was a warning. He is close. If he isn't Victor, then Victor is the key to finding him. He is the bridge."
"There is no bridge!" Joseph shouted, his patience finally snapping. He slammed his hand onto the counter, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the small room. "There is only a woman who is refusing to heal and a family that is falling apart because of it. You hurt Elena this morning. You made her feel like she wasn't enough. Again. You made her feel like her brother’s memory is more valuable than her own living, breathing happiness."
Martha flinched then, her composure cracking. A single tear escaped and ran down her cheek, but she didn't look away. "I didn't mean to hurt her. I just... I needed her to understand."
"She understands all too well, Martha," Joseph said, his voice dropping to a stern, commanding tone. He walked over to the table and sat opposite her, his presence looming large. "She understands that her mother is choosing a fantasy over her family. And I won't have it. Not anymore."
"What are you saying?"
"I’m saying that you need help," Joseph said firmly. "I’ve been patient. I’ve held you through the nightmares for thirty years. I’ve let you keep the room, keep the clothes, keep the hope. But it’s turned into something ugly. It’s turned into something that’s driving our children away. I want you to see someone. A professional. Someone like that trainer, Vane, mentioned—someone who understands how the mind gets stuck."
Martha recoiled as if he had slapped her. "You think I’m crazy? You think your wife is losing her mind?"
"I think my wife is hurting so badly she’s blinded herself," Joseph replied, his voice softening with a flicker of the love that had sustained them. "But I also think you owe your daughter an apology. A real one. Not one of your 'I’m sorry you don't understand' apologies. A real admission that you overstepped."
Martha looked down at her cold tea, her lips trembling. "I was just trying to keep him alive."
"He is alive, Martha. In our memories. In the stories we tell. But he cannot be the guest at every dinner. He cannot be the reason our daughter leaves for work in tears on the week of her birthday." Joseph stood up, his tall frame casting a long shadow over the table. "Today, when the kids come back—when Elena and Maya are home—you are going to sit them down. You are going to apologize for the tension you’ve caused. And you are going to promise to let this 'Victor is Jacob' thing go. Do you hear me?"
"Joseph, I can't promise to stop feeling—"
"I’m not asking you how to feel! I’m asking you how to act!" Joseph’s command was absolute. "I am the head of this house, and I am telling you that we are going to have peace tonight. You will apologize, and you will show your daughters that they are the center of your world. No more ghosts. No more dreams. Just us. Or so help me, Martha, I don't know how much longer I can keep this house together."
Martha looked at her husband, seeing the genuine pain and the iron-willed exhaustion in his eyes. She realized, perhaps for the first time, that she was on the verge of losing the man who had been her rock. She saw the cracks in the foundation she had taken for granted.
"Fine," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "I’ll apologize. I’ll... I’ll try to be better."
"Don't try," Joseph said, turning to walk toward the living room. "Do it. For Elena. For Maya. And for me."
He left her there in the kitchen, surrounded by the remnants of a life she felt was incomplete. Martha sat in the silence, her mind still racing. She would say the words. She would offer the apology. She would play the role of the recovered mother. But as she reached into her pocket and felt the corner of the faded photograph she had tucked away, she knew the truth.
An apology wouldn't change the blood in her veins. It wouldn't change the way her heart had leaped when Victor smiled. She would say what Joseph wanted to hear to keep the peace, but in the secret, dark places of her soul, she was already counting the hours until she could see that face again.
The house was quiet, but it was the silence of a held breath, a temporary truce in a war that was far from over. Outside, the sun continued its path across the sky, indifferent to the secrets of mothers and the ghosts of sons, while Martha waited for the evening to come, rehearsing a lie she hoped would look like the truth.