Chapter 30 The smoke of memories
The bus ride home felt like a transit between two different dimensions. I leaned my head against the vibrating glass of the window, the world outside blurred by the persistent drizzle and the onset of dusk. My headsets were clamped over my ears, drowning out the screech of brakes and the chatter of commuters with a playlist of slow, soulful jazz.
But the music was merely a backdrop. My mind was a chaotic gallery of images from the last hour: the way the light had caught the gold in Victor’s eyes just before he leaned in, the devastating pressure of his lips against mine, and the word Paris—a word that felt like a shimmering, distant star. I could still feel the phantom heat of his hand on my neck. I was a girl caught in a riptide, being pulled away from the shore of everything I had ever known toward a horizon that was both terrifying and beautiful.
As I walked up the garden path to my front door, I tried to smooth my hair and adjust my expression. I needed to be the "reliable Elena" again. I needed to face the fallout of my morning rage.
The moment I stepped inside, the weight of the atmosphere hit me. It wasn't the chaotic energy of a normal Thursday evening. There was no sound of the TV, no clatter of pots from the kitchen. My mother, father, and Maya were all seated in the living room in a semi-circle, their faces grave and expectant.
"Good afternoon, everyone," I said, my voice wavering slightly as I closed the door behind me.
"Afternoon, Elena," my father said, his voice unusually formal. He gestured to the empty armchair next to Maya. "Can you be seated, please?"
I sat down, my eyes darting to Maya. She looked back at me with a mixture of confusion and a strange, quiet relief. I felt my heart hammer against my ribs. I expected another lecture, another defense of a ghost, or perhaps a final ultimatum from my father.
"Your mother has something she wants to say to both of you," my father said, turning his gaze toward Martha.
My mother looked different. The frantic, wild light that had been in her eyes that morning had been replaced by a weary, hollowed-out clarity. She looked like a woman who had spent the day looking into a mirror she didn't like. Her hands were folded in her lap, trembling slightly.
"Maya... Elena," she began, her voice cracking on the first syllable. She cleared her throat and tried again. "I’m really sorry. For everything. I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting lately, and for years before this."
I held my breath, the air in the room suddenly feeling very thin.
"I’m sorry for prioritizing a son who is not even here over the two beautiful, living daughters who are," she continued, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. "I’ve spent thirty-one years looking at the door, waiting for someone to walk through it, and in doing that, I’ve failed to see the two of you standing right in front of me. I’ve made you feel less loved. I’ve made you feel like you were second best to a memory. And for that, I am so deeply ashamed."
I looked at Maya, and I saw her lower lip tremble. The anger I had carried since the morning—the rage that had propelled me into Victor’s arms—began to dissolve into a painful, empathetic lump in my throat.
"I’ve decided to bury the whole Jacob narrative," Mom whispered, wiping a tear with the back of her hand. "No more dreams. No more searching for his face in strangers. I’m sorry, my angels, for the stress I brought into this house. I want to be a mother to the children I have, not a mourner for the one I lost."
The silence that followed was heavy, but it wasn't the suffocating silence of before. It was a silence that felt like a fresh start.
Without a word, Maya and I stood up at the same time. we moved toward her, sinking onto the floor at her knees and wrapping our arms around her. We sat there as a trio of women, weeping quietly in the fading light of the living room.
"We understand, Mother," Maya said, her voice muffled against Mom’s shoulder. "We’re just glad you’re taking the first step. We missed you, even when you were right here."
"You can't do the healing alone, Mom," I added, pulling back to look her in the eyes. I thought of Vane, and I thought of the resources I now had access to through the Blackwoods. "I’ll get you the best therapist. Someone who specializes in this. We’ll help you overcome this memory together. You don't have to carry the ghost by yourself anymore."
My father stood by the window, watching us. For the first time in weeks, the tension in his shoulders seemed to break. He looked at us—his family—and he finally saw peace.
After a few minutes of comfort, Mom stood up. She had a look of grim determination on her face. "If I’m going to do this, I have to do it completely."
She led us to the back of the house, to the hallway closet that had always been a "no-go" zone for Maya and me. From the top shelf, she pulled down a battered blue cardboard box. It was the reliquary of Jacob’s existence.
We carried it out to the small concrete patch in the backyard. The rain had turned to a light mist, the air smelling of wet grass and evening woodsmoke. Mom opened the box. Inside were the tiny remnants of a life interrupted: a pair of knitted booties, a small yellow rubber duck, a tattered picture book about a train, and the small wool sweater he had been wearing the day they last saw him.
She hesitated for a moment, her hand hovering over a small silver rattle. She pulled out a few small photographs—the ones that looked so much like Victor—and tucked them into her apron pocket. "I’ll keep these," she whispered. "A mother needs to remember the face. But the rest... the rest belongs to the past."
My father brought out a metal bin and a canister of lighter fluid. One by one, we placed the items into the bin. The yellow duck, the booties, the tattered book.
My father struck a match.
The flame flared up, bright orange and blue against the gray twilight. We stood in a circle, the heat of the fire warming our faces as the smoke began to curl up toward the rainy sky. I watched as the blue wool of the sweater darkened and curled, turning to ash. I watched the plastic of the toy melt and disappear.
It was a funeral thirty-one years late.
As the box itself began to catch fire, a strange sense of lightness washed over me. The "Jacob" who had been a wall between me and my mother was being reduced to carbon and smoke. I looked at the fire and thought of Victor. I thought of his promise to meet me in Paris. I thought of the way he looked at me not as a sister, not as a nurse, but as a woman.
The smoke drifted upward, disappearing into the mist. We stood there until the flames died down to a dull, glowing red ember in the bottom of the bin.
"It's done," Mom said, her voice stronger now. She looked at us, and for the first time in my life, she wasn't looking past us. She was seeing me. "Let’s go inside. I think it’s time we finally had a birthday dinner that’s just about Elena."
As we walked back into the house, I looked over my shoulder at the thin trail of smoke rising from the bin. The first step of healing had been taken. The past was ash. But as I touched the gold locket around my neck, I knew that while one ghost had been laid to rest, the fire Victor had lit in me was just beginning to burn.