Seattle, Washington
August 2025
Two months after the deaths of Kindred Matthews and Brett Foster
Sean stands on the steps of the courthouse. His throat is tight, but loosening his blue necktie does not help him breathe easier. The afternoon sun batters him with its rays, but he was sweating through his dress shirt before he stepped outdoors. Being inside a courtroom again, the banging of the gavel, that dusty smell that hangs in the air—it reminded him of his own trial, which was one of the Five Worst Days of His Life until today knocked it off the list.
Daniel pled guilty. To everything.
And when the judge sentenced Daniel to life without parole, Daniel's shoulders slumped, like he had melted under the ill-fitting suit Sean and their father had bought him from JC Penny. Baby-faced Daniel not looking back as the bailiff cuffed him, as he walked head down to be locked up with murderers and rapists—that image will always be tattooed in Sean's brain.
Like, fuck.
Sean fumbles in his pocket for a package of cigarettes. The cellophane crinkles as he unwraps it, and he taps the box against his palm.
Dad appears, almost from nowhere, like he was camouflaged by his sadness. "Did you start smoking again, Sean?"
"I picked these up at a gas station near my hotel," Sean says. "Not sure why. I haven't smoked a cigarette since college."
"It has been even longer for me," Dad says. "Do you mind if I have one?"
Sean hands his dad a cigarette and lights it for him. Dad smiles, maybe his first smile in two months, seeing the Puerto Lobos lighter Sean cups in his hands, the lighter given to Sean over a decade ago. Sean lights and drags his own cigarette, but the smoke burns as it claws its way down his throat.
This is the most Sean has talked to his dad outside of short text messages in two months. Back in June, Sean lost his brother and father, the two people he would have burned the world down to save. And so there are dozens of things Sean wants to say from I'm sorry to Do you hate me? but simply sharing space with his father feels like a fragile gift.
However, there is something about smoking a cigarette with Dad that feels wrong, like swearing in front of preschoolers.
Dad releases a long, black cloud of smoke from the depths of his lungs that curls above their heads until it dissipates in the breeze. "I told you that you did not have to come today, Sean."
"I needed to be here," Sean coughs, and he bends down to snuff his cigarette against the concrete. He tosses it into the trashcan at the bottom of the stairs near the sidewalk, and he watches the cars of the mid-day Seattle traffic move through the stoplight in front of him.
Whenever Sean got locked up, it felt like time stopped. But time didn't. People are out here going about their lives, going to work, going to lunch. Nothing stopped just because his life did.
The world doesn't even notice that Daniel's life is over, and that is fucked up.
Dad finishes his cigarette and tosses the butt into the trashcan. The gray of his hair has overtaken the black, and messy stubble covers his face. His eyelids sag, and he looks old, beaten down. But he is too nice to say that he does not want to be out here with the son that fucked up while his other son is locked up, so he stares at the traffic too.
"So, uh, is it cool if I call you next week?" Sean says after a while. "Maybe we could video chat."
"Of course you can call," Dad says. "It is your birthday. I want to talk to you on your birthday."
"Okay. Cool. Thanks." Sean pulls out his cell phone and opens the Lyft app to call a ride. "I should let you get home to rest."
"I think we should go out," Dad says. "Right now. For your birthday."
"We don't have to," Sean says, surprised. "I mean, I would love to spend time with you, Pops, but . . . "
"I will not get to see you next week on your actual birthday."
"Are you sure? I get that this is a weird day. It's cool if this is not the best time."
"We both need to eat," Dad says. "And I could use a drink. You only turn twenty-five once, and maybe we can do something to make this not be the worst day. Come on. I will drive, mijo."
The keys jingle as Dad flips them around his finger, and Sean feels his dad's palm against his back, except it lacks any energy or real affection. But Dad calls him "mijo," and Sean was not sure his dad would refer to him as "my son" ever again, so . . .
So he agrees to get an early-birthday dinner with his dad on the day his little brother is condemned to life in prison.
# # #
When Sean was a teenager, Dad would use car rides to pry into Sean's personal life. How was your math test? How was the concert with Lyla? What were you and Ellery laughing about? Any girls you are interested in? As a kid, he found the barrage of questions irritating; now, he would give anything to break the silence as Dad drives to the wings place a few blocks away . . . because the lack of talking feels suffocating.
At the restaurant, Sean and his dad sit in the bar section. It's past the lunch hour and not quite dinnertime, so only a couple of tables have people, one with guys in dusty overalls and another with a man and a woman in baseball jerseys. Sean and his father are in shirts and ties, so Sean feels out of place. Who dresses up for bar food? They probably look like they have come from a funeral, which isn't far from the truth.
Sean pushes one of his hot wings around in its sauce. Normally, Dad would be complaining that the food is not spicy enough and Sean would tease him about ordering from the 'medium' section of the sauce menu. These moments with Dad feel precious and fleeting, and Sean wants to talk but has nothing Dad would want to hear. Most of Sean's personal life is his friends checking in on him and him lying about being 'okay' when really he is getting high too frequently. Work is kinda shitty. The show has lousy ratings, and there's a rumor his supervisor Jared is looking for another job. And some conservative asshole made a blog post about how the show employs the brother of a cop killer, so they keep getting these poorly-written letters from dickheads demanding Sean be fired. Jared says he has Sean's back . . . but if Jared leaves, who knows what happens. And worst of all, Sean cannot talk to his therapist about any of this. He told her about the other life, that he went to jail for his brother after their dad died—how can he now say his brother is the one going to prison and that things are tense with their dad?
It's a lot of shit that he wishes he could talk to his father about, but his dad is staring at the bottom of a beer, oblivious to even his favorite baseball team playing on the televisions above their heads.
"So . . . Toby got offered a job at Disney," Sean says.
"Is this the Toby that you dated in school?" Dad asks, his finger drawing a line through the condensation on his beer mug. "I liked Toby. I was sad when you broke up."
"I was sad too," Sean says. "But we broke up because we worked in different cities. So if we both work in Los Angeles, then. . . I guess it doesn't mean we will get back together, but—"
Suddenly, Dad sets his forehead in his hand, and his body shakes with a sob. He apologizes, takes a breath, but another sob wracks his body. And then he is crying, hands covering his face, trying to hold back tears that pour out of his eyes and into his messy beard like a storm drain overflowing.
Sean walks around the table and embraces his father. Dad feels like bones wrapped in paper, and he trembles against Sean's arms and chest. So Sean hugs him harder, presses his face into the back of his dad's neck as the handful of people in the sports bar stare.
"Esta bien, papito," Sean whispers. "Esta bien."
"No esta bien, hijo," Dad mutters. "Nada esta bien."
And Sean sighs. Because Dad is right—nothing is okay.
But it can be.
Sean can make it okay.
# # #
When Sean gets to his hotel room, he throws his tie onto the shitty green carpet and yanks the sketchbook from his backpack. The sketchbook's familiar, beat-to-hell cover is smooth against his fingers, and he sits down on the bed and turns to the image he drew of his childhood bedroom on October 28, 2016.
And he does what he has done every night for the past two months:
He stares at the image. Traces every line with his eyes. Absorbs every detail.
And he swears that tonight, he is really going to do it. He is going to go back in time and fix everything back to the way it was.
And like always, he doesn't.
Tonight, Daniel is spending his first night in prison. Sean knows how cold and frightening that first night is; on his own first night, he felt a chill that drilled into his organs, was unable to sleep as each noise sounded like a threat. But Sean had also spent over a year in juvie, had been hardened by the difficult shit that had happened to him on the run. Daniel is going into a world of concrete walls and brutal guards without any scars, no calluses to shield his heart. Daniel is naïve and vulnerable, and prison preys on the naïve and vulnerable.
The world preys on the naïve and vulnerable.
Hot bile rises in Sean's throat, and he barely makes it to the bathroom in time to vomit hot wings and beer into the toilet.
And when he comes back, a bitter acid taste in his mouth, the sketchbook is still open on the bed. The past and the solution, staring up from the pages at him.
He knows exactly what he needs to do to save his brother.
But, like every night for the past two months, he is not brave enough to do it.
