Archive of Our Own

You come home late.

You don't know the actual time—your existence doesn't abide by its rules—but the clock in the hall says 3:30. Diana is waiting up for you, as she always does when she's forgotten that her son is dead. Which has been every day this week.

"What are you doing up?"

Maybe you ask because part of her is wondering the same thing, the part of her that knows, deep down, that the real Gabe is never coming home.

It's the same reason you tell her, "You've got to let go, Mom. I'm almost eighteen." Because there's a part of her, small and unheard, that knows she can't keep doing this. Can't keep holding onto something that's gone. Someone who died seventeen years ago. But she hasn't let go.

Otherwise you wouldn't be here.

Or—

You've been waiting in that grey fog, waiting for Mom to need you there, to pull you back in. You leave in the morning with your backpack swinging, ready for jazz band-class-key club-football practice, because Mom needs to believe you're still alive, and not the pale shadow you are. You can't go to school, because Natalie doesn't need you there. You can't follow.

So you step into the fog, and you wait. Sometimes you get pulled back when Natalie gets home, when Mom sees her and looks over her shoulder for you. Sometimes you get lost in the nothing, and it's hours-days-weeks before you find your way home.

You pretend it doesn't scare you, because you don't want to scare Mom. So you smile, and joke, and kiss your Mom on the head and tell her to stop worrying. And despite yourself, you remind her, "You've got to let go, Mom. I'm almost eighteen," because you know it hurts her, holding on. It hurts you to see her hurt. But it scares you, too, because what happens when she really does let go?

What happens to you when you're not needed anymore?

Will you ever come home again?

Another morning. Diana is fast and frantic, the lack of sleep only making her condition worse.

You smile. The weaker she is, the stronger you are. You greet Natalie with a "Morning, Sunshine!" because Diana wants to believe that you're a perfect family, and perfect families include siblings who love each other. You're the perfect son. It's why she can't walk away from you.

Diana spirals until she's making 12 sandwiches simultaneously on the kitchen floor. In a scared voice, you step forward and ask "Mom?" because she knows she's scaring her family, she knows it's getting bad again but she can't stop it. She insists, too loudly, that she's fine; you twitch backwards to confirm her fears. She is scaring you.

As if you're something capable of fear.

Or—

You smile, and you feel bad about it, but it's not enough to stop the smile. It's guilt and relief and hope and fear all at once. She's bad again, so she's hurting. She's bad again, so she needs you. She needs you, so you're alive.

You call out to Natalie, "Morning, Sunshine!" because you like to pretend that she can hear you. You like to pretend it doesn't hurt when she looks through you. She doesn't need you, just like Dad doesn't need you. You still have Mom, and that's all that matters.

And then Mom is on the floor, manic again, and the sick and heavy feeling swells in your stomach, blotting out your relief. You're scared, and you don't want to show it, but some animal part of you still flinches away from her. As if she could hurt a dead thing.

Kind of ironic that a ghost could still have survival instincts.

Diana is contemplating her pill bottles.

The last few weeks, you've been fainter than usual, less present. Not because Diana is happier exactly. She's steadier, yes, but no happier than before.

She turns the lid, begins to tilt the bottle over the sink—

"Are you sure about that, Mom?" you ask, smiling, and you ask because she is wondering the same thing.

"What, you think it's a bad idea?"

You turn thoughtful, because she's thinking, too. When you come to a decision, it's one she's already made. "I think it's a great idea," you reassure her. "I think it's brave."

"What will your father think?"

"Nothing… if he doesn't know."

She doesn't want to tell her husband. She doesn't want to be told she's wrong.

Or—

You feel that pull, and then you're there, at your mother's side. And she's about to tip her pills down the sink.

You laugh nervously. "Are you sure about that, Mom?"

She looks at you so desperately, like you have all the answers. "What, you think it's a bad idea?"

Your first instinct is to say YES, of course it's a bad idea, what are you DOING—

But since the pills, you've barely been here. Even when you are, you feel… flat. Thin. The world around you is lacking definition, a little out of focus, and everything you touch feels hazy and half there. Does she feel it too?

It was better before. For you, sure, but wasn't she happier? Maybe she was less… normal, less even, but is it really better to feel nothing?

"I think it's a great idea," you tell her, and it's only half a lie. "I think it's brave."

Hesitant, Mom asks, "What will your father think?"

Dad will think it's stupid. He'll take her back to the doctor and get her even more pills, until she can't see you at all. He would rather you disappeared completely, and he doesn't care how miserable it makes Mom.

"Nothing… if he doesn't know."

She's manic again. Dan doesn't seem to notice, though whether that's true ignorance or denial is hard to say. Natalie probably suspects, or maybe just doesn't expect anything different, but she's barely at home these days.

You're more present than ever. You hover over Diana every moment, and she still can't acknowledge that you're not her son. Dan still won't acknowledge your existence at all, but it doesn't matter, because he feels your presence anyway. Even Natalie feels it. That's why she's avoiding the house.

You think this is better. Or you hope it is.

She's happier. Or maybe just faster.

You feel more real. Or maybe just more scared.

Sure, you have to drag her back when she decides she's going to retile the roof, but she lets you, so that has to mean something, doesn't it?

Natalie brings Henry around. Well, not intentionally, but Dan brings him inside, and Diana kisses him square on the mouth, and Henry doesn't heed Natalie's unsubtle hints to leave.

"Harry!"

"Henry," you correct Dan, or Diana corrects him—there's little difference.

For now, everyone seems happy. For now.

You only need to wait.

You think things are going well.

That probably should have been your first warning.

The family is all here, and your little sister's boyfriend too, and everything's moving so fast it's almost like you're really part of it, and then—

And then.

You go. Into the grey. You've always been so scared of it, of being gone, but you can't be here for this. You can't listen to your dad say, soft, so soft, "He's not here. Love, I know you know—"

In the grey, you can't feel the pain of it. You can't feel much of anything there.

But it doesn't last.

Your mom is pulling on that thread, pulling you back into the real world. She needs you.

Natalie and Henry have fled upstairs. You can't blame them. You want to follow, but you can't leave your mom like that, not when she's fracturing right in front of you, and your dad is trying to tell her how he's been there for her, but he hasn't been here, doesn't really see her, doesn't really see you—

"Hey Dad, it's me," you say, but he doesn't turn. He won't look at you. He never does.

You're supposed to be here for your mom, but she's forgotten in your anger, in your sense of rejection, and you're shouting over him, begging him to hear you, poking at every bruise you can reach.

"What should I do?" your dad asks, and you're asking him back, you're begging him—

"Look at me!"

But he won't. Or he can't. The semantics don't matter to you.

Or—

You echo Dan's words, his guilt. You remind him of what he can't bear to look at.

It's what you're here for.

And then you hold Diana, and you tell her that you're here for her. That you're the only one that's here for her.

It's what you're here for.

You're clinging to your mother, or she's clinging to you, and it's almost a victory. She still needs you; Dad couldn't convince her to leave you. It doesn't matter if he doesn't give a damn about you. You don't need him, either, as long as you have Mom.

A clatter of footsteps down the stairs. Your sister stands there, eyes red and wet, her hair a mess. You wonder how much of that she heard. If she might ever hear your voice.

She's shouting at Mom, accusing, bitter. For a moment, you feel protective, you want to tell your sister to back off, can't you see that Mom's upset—?

Except she's talking about you. Your sister, the one who never met you, is talking about you.

You know you shouldn't be happy about it. She's not complimenting you, not really—she doesn't believe you exist—but she's talking about you like you're real, like you're alive. You can't help but smile.

(You echo Natalie's words, speak over her. Diana clasps her hands over her ears, but she's can't block you out. You're too loud, inescapable.

You're so present, you're almost—)

Alive.

Diana goes back to therapy.

A new therapist, this time. No more medication. Talking therapy.

You follow. It's easier to stick around, now that she doesn't expect you to be at school, now that she knows you're dead. She'll get confused and forget again eventually, but for now, you don't have to act or pretend.

You can follow her anywhere. So that's better.

But she doesn't treat you like you're real. That's worse.

You like to be there for these sessions, to remind her that you're here, because this new therapist can sound pretty convincing. It's almost enough to make you doubt yourself.

(And who wouldn't wonder, from time to time? The only person who can see you is your mom, and she's… unwell. Who wouldn't wonder, just sometimes, whether hallucinations could have feelings? Whether hallucinations could feel like this? Like you?)

They talk in circles. They talk about you, but not really, because Mom is talking around your existence. You wonder if Dr Madden even knows your name.

Sometimes you're scared you're going to forget it yourself.

Unlike Diana and Dan, Dr Madden names you.

He calls you Grief.

After a few weeks of no change, Dr Madden suggests hypnosis.

You can't help but laugh, and you can see Mom trying to suppress her own snort. Sometimes you think that these psychiatrists are crazier than your mom ever was.

Or—

You laugh because Diana wants to laugh. You're sceptical because she's sceptical.

But it turns out she didn't need to be.

If you were capable of worry, you might have felt something like it here. But Grief doesn't worry. Grief is inevitable.

Your laugh dies a quick death. You feel far away, suddenly, and Mom is far away too, in her own head somewhere. She talks about the past in a way she never has before.

She goes home and cries.

She goes back, four times each week.

Four times a week, she cries.

Dr Madden tells her it's time to let you go. She's been so sad, so distressed, that you almost agree. You're not ready, you don't think, but maybe you never will be.

Diana goes through the box of Gabe's things, and you're not there, or you're not visible, but you're so, so there. In every breath, in every beat of her broken heart, you're there.

You're in the toy car and the tiny shoe and the yellow onesie.

Most of all, you're in that music box.

You feel the pull, and you know that tinkling tune, just as well as you know this is a goodbye. You try your best to smile, and it might even be convincing, because Mom smiles back at you. She's cradling the music box in arms like she's holding a baby. Your backpack is already slung over your shoulders, but you leave it at the door for now.

You hop up onto the counter, and your mom puts the box beside you whilst she follows you up.

You pick up the music box. You think you remember it, but you're not sure if the memory is from before, from when you were alive. If you ever were. Mom hums the familiar tune under her breath. The ballerina turns, leisurely, reflected in the glass behind her.

Your reflection isn't there. It never is.

Fighting the wobble in your smile, you put the box down, and offer a hand to your mother.

And you dance.

Mom lays her head on your shoulder. You don't remember when you got taller than her. Her breath shudders.

She takes a step back.

You reach out and tuck yourself into her, making yourself small. Not yet, you think. Please, not yet. She presses a kiss into your hair.

This time, when she pulls back, you let her, steeling yourself. You dart away to pick up your bag, swinging it back onto your back.

Time to go. It's time to go. But there's time for just this: you run back to her, and kiss her head, one last time.

She fusses over your hood, the straps of your bag, like she's dressing a fussy toddler. Always a mother.

You turn to the door and step away.

Time to go, you think—

But she catches your hand before you can.

She's made up her mind before you even turn back around.

She might not say it; she'll wait for you to convince her. She wants to believe what you're saying. She wants to believe in the place where there's no pain, the place where she can finally be with her son.

You take her hand, and show her just where.

You can't say you didn't know what you were doing. What you asked Mom to do.

You knew it would hurt her, but she was already hurting—she has been hurting for as long as you could remember. So had you.

It would hurt, but then she would be free, you both would. She wouldn't suffer through living, and you wouldn't be alone anymore. You would never be alone.

It had seemed like a good idea until you saw the blood, and by then it was too late. You couldn't stop the bleeding. You couldn't call for help. All you could do is wait, and hold her until the end, whatever kind of end that might be.

And when your dad finally, finally finds her, you could swear that for a split second, he looks right at you.

You've waited for him to look at you for so long, but now you find you can't look him in the eye.

He presses down on her wounds as he calls the ambulance, and you slip back into the shadows.

Then you feel a tug, and it's not your mom, who's unconscious or dying or maybe dead (Would you know? Would you feel it, if she died? What if she can't find you, in the after, in the grey, what if—?). For a split second, you're somewhere new.

You're in a crowd. It's maybe more people than you've ever seen in one place, and they're sitting in rows, all facing a stage. And on the stage, your sister sits in front of a piano. And she's searching the audience, like she's searching for you, but she won't see you, she never does. No, she's not looking for you. She's looking for your parents, who promised they would be here, and instead they're riding in an ambulance somewhere, because you convinced your mom to try to—

They're not here.

A second later, you aren't either.

Diana is sedated and hospitalised. It's the only time she can truly escape you; she's too heavily medicated to even dream.

But Dan—

Dan is back home, and he won't look at you, but he can feel you there. He is still grieving his son, but now he wonders if he will have to grieve his wife, too.

There's blood on your hands.

Your father is soaking up the pool of red with old towels. Your toy car is left in the sink, its wheels sticky and congealed. And there's blood on your hands.

You want your dad. You know you don't deserve it, don't deserve comfort for your sins, but with Mom sedated in the hospital you feel so alone, so untethered.

Dad puts the bag of bloodied towels at your feet.

It's where he lays the blame, too.

Right where it should be.

Diana wakes up. She's slow and groggy, but she's conscious. Which means her reprieve from you is over. Absently, she looks down at her bandages, her hospital gown. The ends of her hair are crunchy and smell of soap from where one of the nurses tried to get the blood out.

She looks at you without feeling. She's hollowed out, empty.

Then her psychiatrist comes in and recommends a new treatment.

Then she's not so numb anymore. The fear comes instead.

And you reflect that fear right back at her.

"…and it's really very safe," Dr Madden continues on, even as your Mom rubs at her temples like his voice his hurting her.

"Mom, you don't have to listen to him," you tell her. This is your fault. She wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, and now the doctors want to fucking electrocute her, they want to hurt her, as if she hasn't been hurt enough already.

"I- I don't know," says Mom, pale under the fluorescent lights. Her voice is shaky and weak and totally unlike her. "Aren't there… side effects?"

"A minority of patients have reported some memory loss," he says, "but it's usually not much memory."

Your stomach flips. You're so afraid of being forgotten. "How do you know how much memory you've lost," you retort with rising hysteria, "if you've lost it?"

She shakes her head, looking a little more alert, a little more sure of herself.

"Patients have said it's like becoming a new person!" the doctor adds, like that's a good thing.

You don't want a new person; you want your mom.

"No, no way," she says, standing from her hospital bed. "I'm leaving. I'm walking out."

The relief is so acute, you think you flicker out of existence for a moment.

Then Dad is walking in, and you're ready for him to get Mom out of here, drive her home.

But that isn't what he's here for.

You don't watch the procedure.

Instead, you watch yourself fade away.

With no memories of her son, Diana has nothing left to grieve.

But memories don't die.

You're still there. Or you're almost still there.

Do you still exist if no one can see you?

How can you feel if no one can feel you?

But you do feel things. The emotions are distant, vague shapes through the gloom, but they're there. You feel hurt, and scared, and betrayed.

Mostly you feel alone.

Through the fog, you get glimpses, moments of clarity. Dad, taking Mom home from the hospital. Natalie's horror. Mom's confusion.

19 years, gone.

You're gone.

Just like Dad always wanted. They've erased you, and you can scream and cry, you can laugh and rage, but nobody can hear you. They're living in some other world, where you never existed and they're a perfect loving family. Where nothing ever hurts.

There's no room for you in that world.

And the longer you're in the grey, the deeper you get lost in the fog. You wonder if there's any way out now. If this is what death is meant to be like, and the other stuff was an anomaly.

For a few uncertain weeks, you're almost absent.

Diana has forgotten her son, and Dan is doing his level best to follow suit.

Almost absent, but not quite.

Dan's deep denial doesn't quite match up to ECT induced amnesia. Even if it did, Natalie's inherited grief is enough for a hint of you to linger in the home. Enough that Diana can sense it, even without her memories. Enough to drive her mad searching for the source.

With every glimpse of their world, you wonder how this is so much better than what it was. How this cure is worth it.

The longer it goes on, the more you wonder if it would be better to just… fade away completely.

To let yourself fall.

Diana searches and searches.

She finds you in the music box.

The words find you first.

In the grey, it comes. Your mother's voice. Tight with recognition and remembrance. "How could I ever forget?"

It hurts, like a rush of blood to numb fingers, or the cold burn of ice. Sensations you've never known. Her voice stings.

"Just eight months old… that hospital room…"

And then your father: "Diana, you think that this will help, but it won't."

Even now, he wants you to stay gone. He's talking about going back to the doctor, new pills, more ECT, and your Mom is demanding, "What was his name? What was his name?"

And you realise that you don't know. You've forgotten it too.

Then a CRACK.

The music box smashes against the kitchen floor.

Grief floods out.

They're still talking. The sounds are resolving into something clearer, but you're not listening anymore.

Feeling is returning. It rushes through you, filling you up with all the hurt, all the fear and rage and betrayal that you've been unable to fully feel in the void.

They left you there.

But you're coming home now—whether they want you or not.

With her memories back, Diana has no defence against you. The more she dregs up those painful memories, the weaker Dan's walls are.

You're coming back now—whether they want you or not.

Tears are already rolling down your face as you emerge from the fog.

You call out, and Mom reaches back. She still wants you, you tell yourself. She didn't remember, before, but she still needs you.

And then she turns and runs. She's calling your sister's name, not yours.

Relief sours and twists in your gut.

All you're left with is your father and your anger.

Dan sinks to the ground, clutching his chest like he can feel his heart breaking in two. Maybe he can. You stand over him, shouting and taunting, all the words he was so afraid to hear.

He's still pretending to be deaf to you, but there's a crack in the wall.

Eventually your words peter out, even if your resentment lingers. You're left exhausted and weak. Without the anger, it's harder to ignore the pang of rejection, the humiliation of being ignored.

He won't listen. He never listens.

You follow Mom, instead.

She's in Dr Madden's office. It's probably after usual office hours, and he looks caught and worried, which is probably understandable considering the look in your mother's eye. Like she's going to burn the world to the ground and spit on the ashes.

She's accusing and desperate; he's all steady reassurance on the surface, with barely concealed anxiety underneath. He doesn't have the answers she needs.

But maybe she does.

Because she's asking what happens if it was never a problem with her brain, never a problem with circuity or chemistry? What if, this whole time, this wasn't a disease of body, but a wound in her soul?

What if the only sickness inside of her was you?

She looks at you.

For the first time, without flinching, she really looks at you. Looks into the eyes of her grief, and with total clarity, accepts it.

She doesn't just look at you; she sees you.

She looks at you.

She reaches for you.

You flinch back.

The shame of it would kill you, if you weren't already dead.

Clarity, you think. This is clarity.

You can see, now, all the hurt you've dealt. Not just her attempt, but every day before and every day since. She didn't want to move on, and you fed that delusion, because you didn't want to move on either. You justified it every way you knew how, to pretend it wasn't just for you, that you were helping, and you have tried to help, in your own way, when you could, but it doesn't balance out.

You've kept her stuck. Stuck in her own suffering.

Despite it all, she reaches out with a kind hand, and lays it on your face like you're something precious and lovely.

A sob catches in your throat.

She pulls you in, and you duck your head so that you can hide in the crook of her shoulder.

When she pulls back to talk to the doctor, you don't ask for more.

With a frankness you've never heard from him, Dr Madden says, "Diana, you have a chronic illness. Like diabetes or hypertension, if left untreated it could be catastrophic."

Mom says, "I understand."

You slip into the dark corners of the room. Not gone, but unseen, unheard. A shadow in the shadows.

Diana and Natalie talk.

Not around things, but through things.

Together, they shine a light on all the things left unsaid, and you're banished to the darkness.

"Seventeen years ago, your brother died of an intestinal obstruction. He was eight months old."

The words tear through you.

It's not like you didn't know, but hearing it now, the words hit like you're hearing them for the first time. You've never heard it said so bluntly. For all your dad has insisted, over and over, he's not here, it was always easy to dismiss, because here you were.

For the first time, it doesn't sound like a story, like it happened to someone else.

It was you. You died. At eight months old, you died of an intestinal obstruction.

You're dead, and you can never really come back from that, no matter how much you might wish to.

Natalie goes to her dance. The normality of it, on this day of monumental change, is almost funny to you. Your entire worldview has been crushed and left in rubble, and your little sister is going to her school dance. Good for her.

Your mom walks home. It's not the shortest of distances, but she leaves the car for Natalie. Mom's not really supposed to drive, anyway. You follow a step behind. She doesn't look for you; her eyes are on the path ahead.

She goes upstairs. Packs a bag. Tells her husband, "So anyway, I'm leaving."

She's speaking to Dad, but you think this might be for you, too. You can't blame her. Maybe you're more like your dad than you'd like to admit, because you've both hurt Mom in your attempts to help: him by denying her grief, and you by denying her reality.

"And so… goodbye," Diana says. She says goodbye to her husband, to the cycle of grief she's been trapped in all these years. She's leaving you behind.

She's leaving Dan behind with you.

You're on your knees, watching your mother leave, and a gaping sadness yawns open in the pit of your stomach.

Your dad stand there, hands open and empty, finally alone. Alone with you.

And you're going to make him listen.

The facade of the perfect family has been too thoroughly cracked now; there would be no repairing the wall.

Dan watches his wife leave him alone with the silence. With the grief he's refused to feel.

When he refuses to turn to face you, you grab him from behind, hold him in a choking grip, one that he can't escape. Not without looking back.

You know he can see you; you know he can hear you.

"Dad," you say. "Dad!"

He shakes his head, as if he could shake you off. He can hear you, you know it.

"I'm here," you tell him. "I've always been here. I know you told Mom that I'm not worth a damn… but I know you know who I am."

"No," he says—but with just one word, he's already lost.

"You know who I am."

"Can't you just leave me alone?"

You're so close, but he still won't turn around, still won't look. "Dad—"

"Why didn't you go with her?"

Because she doesn't need me anymore, you think. But you haven't left me yet. You still need me. And I need you. I need my dad.

So you grab on, and you hold on for dear life—or, the closest thing you have to it.

Dan whips around and grabs you. It's not clear whether he's pulling away or pulling you in, but he's looking at you.

"Gabe," Dad says through tears and gritted teeth. "Gabriel."

Something settles in you. Yes. Gabe. That's who you are.

"Gabe. Gabriel."

The name of a dead child, unspoken these seventeen years. As if not saying it would allow him to forget. As if it would allow him to escape you.

All those years, wasted in resentment and hurt, seem to wash away. "Hi, dad," you say, and it means I love you. It means I can forgive you, can you forgive me?

Because you could forgive your father of anything, as long as he keeps looking at you like this. Like you've come home at last, like you could finally be a family.

With a shaking hand, he reaches out to touch your face. A sob shakes its way through you.

"Dad?"

He freezes. Takes a few hasty steps back. Takes that hand away.

Natalie is home. You wish that meant your family could be together. You wish it didn't have to be one or the other.

"Why are all the lights off?" she asks worriedly. "Where's Mom?"

Dad looks between the two of you, breath hitching. "She's—" He sinks into a chair, looking like his legs couldn't hold him up a second longer. "She's—"

"Gone?" guesses Natalie. She looks beautiful, almost glowing in the dim moonlight filtering in through the windows. She looks so alive, with her red nose and messy hair, so real.

"Yeah," breathes Dad, almost noiselessly.

"So…" she sidles closer, hesitant, as if poised to fly away. "It's just me and you, for now?"

Pain cuts through you, so sharp and searing that you wonder if dying could have possibly hurt more.

Your dad looks up at you. You want to beg, but you don't know what for. To say no? To say, Gabe is here too—Gabe, that's your brother's name, your big brother. To say, it's just the three of us now.

But Dad just looks at you and says, "Yes."

You can't blame him. That's the worst part. You want to be angry, to feel that familiar burn that blots out all the sadness. Then you could scream and scream, until you couldn't be ignored any longer.

Except he's not just turning from you. He's turning towards Natalie. Your little sister, the one who's never felt the sun because she's always been in your shadow. The one so alive that her mascara runs when she cries, and the tears fall onto her pretty dress and leave stains there.

Your tears don't seem to go anywhere at all.

You slip off the kitchen counter soundlessly, without protest; you know how to recognise a goodbye.

But before you go, you reach out and touch Natalie's hand. Your baby sister.

Goodbye.

Dan looks his grief in the face, and makes space for something else. Something new.

As you leave, Natalie feels you, just for a moment. She feels her father's hidden guilt, her mother's delusion, her inherited burden, and she feels as you leave the room.

Dan folds, but Natalie remembers to turn a light on.

So you watch from afar as your family works out how to heal, how to live. And you realise that you never needed to be so scared of letting go. Of letting yourself fall.

Because you're not falling—you're flying.

You're not gone.

You'll never really go away.

Your family will always miss you.

They'll always grieve.

So you'll never really die.