Jack stood in the narrow hallway, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his jeans, his breath coming a little too fast for comfort. He kept his gaze fixed on the closed study door at the end of the hall, the weight of what was on the other side pressing in on him. He had to go in there, he knew that, but it didn't make it any easier. He couldn't even hear his father's voice inside, so he had no way of gauging his mood.

The door creaked open just as Jack was about to look away, and Graem stepped out. Jack could see the tension in his shoulders. He was holding a sheet of notebook paper at an angle that hid most of it from Jack's view. On the small sliver he did see, Jack noticed the jagged red streaks of his father's pen, bleeding through the back of the paper. Graem didn't meet Jack's eyes, but with a subtle tilt of his head, he gestured toward the study.

"You're up," Graem said, his voice flat.

Jack nodded, swallowing hard. "Right," he muttered under his breath, though Graem was already turning to head down the hall.

He stood there for a moment longer, the silence around him pressing in, before finally pushing open the door to the study.

There was a tightness between Jack's ribs as he slipped through the entryway. The study was as impeccably neat as ever. The wooden surface of his father's desk was glossy and unmarred, gleaming under the light of a single desk lamp. Papers were stacked neatly into labeled piles; Jack's diaphragm squeezed as he noticed one marked "funeral" in austere black ink.

His father stood with his back to the door, his silhouette looming over the room. Jack caught a whiff of cigar smoke, and his spine instinctively stiffened. His father only smoked when he was in one of those moods — when he left long silences that felt dangerous, as though he was waiting to lash out for something Jack hadn't even done yet.

The air in the room was thick and stifling, like it had been saturated with smoke for hours. Jack shifted nervously, weighing whether to speak first or wait for some kind of cue. Gingerly, he set down his paper on the desk, his fingers lingering on the edge as he noted the uncharacteristic tension in his father's back. He rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to ease the knot that was forming there.

"Dad?" Jack fought to keep his voice steady as he dug his heels into the sparse carpeting beneath him, anchoring himself to the floor. He cleared his throat. "Before we start…" He paused. The question that had been nagging at him for days pressed at the tip of his tongue, but now that the moment was here, the words stuck in his throat like wet clay. He swallowed hard, but couldn't manage to dislodge the lump, his words coming out thick and tangled, his voice half-choked and small. "Are you sure I should… do this?"

The air in the room seemed to solidify, as if the words had somehow pulled the temperature up by a few degrees. Jack's gaze lingered on the cigar, watching the faint glow of the ember in the dim light. His father's broad shoulders shifted as he exhaled slowly; tendrils of smoke snaked over his back. At length, he lowered the cigar and turned around to face Jack. His face was split into sharp angles by the feeble light, his eyes narrow, almost suspicious. "Of course," he said finally — matter-of-factly, as if the question had been absurd from the start. He tucked the cigar between his teeth again, his attention already drifting back to the ember.

The curt response left Jack hollow, stretching the cavities inside him until the silence echoed through his bones. Dad's tone had left no room for argument, nor explanation. Yet even as his father's certainty leaned in to squeeze him, something in Jack's gut pushed back stubbornly. The forces fought, one swelling his stomach, the other pushing to shrivel it. Finally, the words trickled out of him — wrung out of his very core.

"If it wasn't for me…"

A sour burn followed, going up his nose and throat, like this morning's orange juice had been pressed out of him too.

"She'd still… be alive," he finished in a hoarse croak. Somewhere along the line his arms had moved to cradle his stomach. He felt it deflate under his grip — no longer swollen with the weight of unspoken words, but streaked with nausea and tenderness, like his organs had been bruised.

For a long moment, his father didn't move. Then, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, he took another slow drag from his cigar. The smoke filled the room, swirling around Jack's head. With every breath, it sank deeper into his lungs.

His father flicked the ash off his cigar with a careless motion. "That's not the issue, Jack," he said evenly, his eyes never leaving the ember. He adjusted his grip on the cigar, rolling it between his fingers as if it were the only thing that mattered. "You're her son. You'll speak at her funeral because it's what you're supposed to do."

He lowered himself slowly into the high-backed chair behind his desk, the leather creaking under his weight. Only then did he lock his eyes on Jack, his gaze unflinching, as though making sure there would be no more protests.

Maybe I should speak.

The idea surfaced slowly, reluctantly, as though it had been lingering at the edge of Jack's mind all along.

Maybe he needed to answer for what had happened. Maybe, as wrong as it felt, it was the right thing to do: stand up and face the people who would be there.

Maybe he owed it to them. Maybe — just maybe — he owed it to her.

The more Jack thought about it, the more it seemed like there was no other choice. He dropped his gaze, admitting defeat. For a moment, the tension in the room eased, just a little — and then the rustle of paper sent fresh jitters through his nerves.

His muscles coiled tightly, bracing for verbal blows. He'd noticed the way Graem had left the study before him, shoulders hunched, eyes downcast. And that was Graem, the master of flattery, who always knew the right thing to say to keep their father satisfied. When it came to his own eulogy, Jack knew it was only a matter of time before Dad's favorite pen emerged, its sharp end staining Jack's words with trails of blood-red ink, like so many wounds on pale skin.

But as the moments stretched on, the pen remained untouched. Dad simply scanned the page, slowly, methodically, his face unreadable. The cigar in his hand burned steadily, casting a faint glow in the dim light. As he took another slow drag, the ash at the tip of the cigar grew longer, trembling slightly before it broke loose. It fell, drifting down in a soft, gray cascade, landing with a puff of dust on the paper Jack had written — right on the delicate words he had so carefully chosen.

For a moment, Jack thought his dad would do something to minimize the damage — brush off the debris, maybe — but he only gave the paper a halfhearted swipe. The ash expanded even further, conquering more and more of the page, descending haughtily over the edges as though it owned every grain and thread.

Something caught in Jack's chest as he watched the sooty mess slowly take over the page. The sharp marks of his pencil were blurring, smeared by debris. Word after word softened, his handwriting losing its shape, stretching into something barely recognizable. He winced as he heard a faint sizzling sound, imagining the paper beneath the smoldering ash — each fiber cracking, warping, crying out for help. A thought plucked at his stomach with a sharp pincer: what if the heat started a fire? The image felt all too real: the paper crumbling, blackening, screaming under the flames until all that remained was a pile of rubble that might as well have been scraped from his father's ashtray. A shudder washed over him; his insides writhed sickeningly, struggling to endure the thought.

He couldn't look away, though part of him wanted to. The thin stream of smoke wound its way across the page, curling over the eulogy's meticulously crafted lines. His hands, clenched tightly at his sides, twitched with the impulse to reach out, to snatch the paper back. To shield it from the ash, the smoke, the nagging itch of his father's gaze as it lingered on the most vulnerable corners of Jack's creation. He wrapped his arms around himself defensively, fighting the irrational urge to scrub at his skin — as though that would somehow erase the stain of the ash. As though there were any way to keep the thick, bitter scent of cigar smoke from seeping into the parts of him that he'd only ever shared with Mom. From crowding out the gentle fragrance of her perfume.

Finally, his father lowered the eulogy, the paper now sullied and scarred. Its edges drooped, buckling under the weight of an iron will. The ember of the cigar glowed brighter, casting harsh shadows across Dad's face. Without a glance at Jack, he exhaled a long, steady stream of smoke, letting it hover in the air. Then, abruptly, he gave the paper a dismissive flick — the same casual, yet deliberate motion he often used to clear the ash from his cigar. As the impact landed, Jack felt its sharp sting strike a tender spot in his heart.

"I'm afraid you'll have to rewrite this."

"Of course," Jack muttered under his breath, the words tasting like ash. Why not? It's ruined now. Might as well rewrite the whole thing. He didn't even know why he'd bothered in the first place. What was the point of trying to capture something real when his father would just slice it up, piece by piece, until it was nothing?

"Fine," he said aloud, his voice strained. "I'll rewrite it." There was no point in arguing, no reason to stand here, allowing the cloying smoke of the cigar to slowly drown him. No point in trying to salvage what he'd written, because his father had already destroyed it, turned it into something hideous and beyond repair. He didn't even know how to begin again—how could he? The words would never come out the same. They couldn't. Not after this.

His father leaned his arm over the desk, thrusting the eulogy towards Jack, like a king waiting for his servant to clear his empty plate. Jack's eyes caught on the small band of pale skin where Dad's wedding ring should have been. The ring was gone, just like everything else. Yet, even in its absence, the first knuckle of Dad's ring finger was clean and pure. It seemed to had been shielded from the ash — preserved from the ruin, even if everything else had to burn.

Jack shrank back from the proffered eulogy, struggling to even look at its battered face without glancing away. It felt so delicate, like any wrong move might shatter it — as if his fingers were too heavy to be trusted with something so fragile. As though if he held it too tightly, it could fade into dust. But if he didn't take the paper now, if he didn't shield it from whatever came next… the pictures flashed through his mind, each one worse than the last. It could end up crumbled in a trash can, surrounded by used tissues and rotten banana peels. Fed into one of those machines at his dad's office that would shred it into hundreds of tiny strips. Used to kindle a fire or scrape a squashed bug off the bathroom mirror, coming away stained with a trail of green sludge.

Enough. Jack's hands closed perhaps too tightly around the paper — just in case his father changed his mind and yanked it back. More ash was building at the tip of the cigar, and Jack turned away, squaring his shoulders and locking his spine as if to hold back the smoke with the sheer force of his bones. He held the paper at arm's length, supporting its underside with one hand like it was a newborn baby. It was his again, now — ruined, yes, but his. His responsibility. Even if it was beyond saving, even if he could barely bring himself to look at it. The thought of letting it fall apart any further was unbearable.

He could feel his father's eyes on his back, pushing him forward, out of the room. But his body felt heavy, weighed down by the smoke and ash that clung to his fingertips, his chest, his soul. The door was only a few steps away, yet each one seemed to drag the smoke deeper into his lungs. His feet barely lifted from the carpet, sticking to it as if it were coated in tar. The eulogy was the only thing keeping him moving, his only fragile connection to the world outside. He had to get it out of here. Had to get it away. The distance grew shorter; he could almost reach the doorknob now. Just a few more steps…

A click.

He'd recognize that sound anywhere: his father's lighter flicking on.

Jack froze.

His breath caught. Chest tight. Heart racing.

Leave.

But his feet wouldn't move.

Just go.

But something kept him there. Something had snapped inside him, some final straw. He'd had it. With the smoking. The arrogance. The apathy. This was it. No more.

"What's wrong with it, anyway?"

The words shot out of him before he'd fully turned around. A frustrated tremor hovered underneath them, but the snarl hid it well. Jack's eyes had narrowed to slits as the smoke attacked, pricking and stinging. It blurred everything — the gleam of the polished wood, the sharp lines of the furniture, even the angles of his father's face. Only the flame of the lighter stood out, refusing to be swallowed by the haze. It burned brighter, dancing, teasing, pressing closer until he could feel it scorching through his clothes, searing past his skin.

"What's wrong with it?" he repeated, louder this time, and heard his voice echo as it bounced off the wood-paneled walls. "You think I want to go up there and tell all those people that…"

He gulped, choking on the words. the paper slipping slightly in his grip as his fingers lost their hold. He tightened his grasp, then thought better of it. It felt too cruel, smothering something already too fragile to survive.

"This doesn't even matter to you. It's just something you need to check off your list." Jack's gaze dropped to the neat stacks of paper on the desk — funeral tucked crisply between business cards and housekeeping. Jack's voice rose further, teetering on the edge of a crack. "Why can't you just focus on the flowers and the… the… coffin and just let me handle this?"

He hadn't meant to say it. He hadn't meant for coffin to slip out, to make it sound like it was just another task on his father's list. His eyes flicked to the desk again, to the paper — the word funeral staring up at him like a silent accusation.

"You want to know what's wrong with it?"

Jack's grip on the eulogy faltered, his fingers stiff and numb, as if the very act of holding it was leeching the warmth from him. The chill spread through his chest, freezing the sweltering mass of cigar smoke into something brittle and sharp. Why should his father have to choose the coffin, anyway? Why should he have to clean up the mess Jack had caused?

"None of these stories really work," his father began flatly. "The one about her building your playground is bad for the family dynamic. That's the kind of thing a father usually does with his son."

Jack barely heard him. Earlier, he'd convinced himself that there was no question, that he was doing what he was supposed to do — but now the doubt was back. The doubt and the cold and the smoke, and its icy tendrils that carved out spaces under his ribs.

His father's voice droned on — as always, steady, sure of itself. "The one with the vase is simply bad parenting. It'll only make you sound like a spoiled brat."

Jack's head snapped up. Bad parenting? He recoiled, a flicker of heat against the ice. He'd expected Dad to come down on him — to criticize his words, his choices, his handwriting even. But he was making this about her — about the moments Jack had shared with her. About her tenderness that his father would never understand. About twisting that tenderness into something harmful or wrong.

"And the one about the Russian tapes." Jack sighed, already anticipating the issue Dad would find in this part. "How many times have I told you not to tell anyone you speak Russian? You know how this country feels about communists."

It was insane. How could anyone become a communist just by listening to a tape in a language they didn't even understand? His father was grasping at straws, doing anything to tarnish what Mom had done for to Jack — what she had sacrificed. A cold crunch cramped his stomach at that thought. Without him, she'd still be alive. How could he be the one to control how she was remembered? And yet, how couldn't he, when her own husband was intent on tearing her down? It was sick. All of it. Sick. Jack tucked the eulogy behind him, hiding it. If he was going to vomit, he'd rather it splatter his father's floor.

But he didn't even have a moment to retch; his father was already moving on, as if the air between them hadn't just snapped. "By the way," he drawled, unbothered, "the one about your wrestling team is just a lie. I was never going to make you quit. All I said was that schoolwork had to come first. And the uniform still looks ridiculous."

Jack's teeth clenched. He could hear the words, but he wasn't listening — not in the way Dad had intended. He had heard the truth one night, lying awake in the dark. It was during that time when his father had taken the door off his room, so every whispered word had wafted, unrestrained, up the stairs to his bed. He'd heard Mom win that argument — for him — but now Dad was trying to take the credit. Jack huffed; the air tasted rotten, poisoned by the lie.

"And then this part at the end. You don't need to announce to the world that you're sorry for getting her sick. That's the first rule of writing a eulogy: don't give too many details about the death. It's undignified."

Jack bit down hard on his tongue. He knew that if he said anything now, it would include the kind of word that would earn him a trip to the bathroom for a mouthful of soap.

The first rule of writing a eulogy. Why would there be rules for this? How could a moment as raw, painful, and vulnerable as a eulogy be bound by some mechanically stamped code of conduct? Grief wasn't neat. It was messy, ugly; it tore at you from the inside. It wasn't a performance for an audience — it was something you felt: an ache in your bones, a tug in your heart, a weight deep in your stomach.

Why was it so important to sanitize everything? To pretend Jack's guilt didn't exist, because it was too uncomfortable, too inconvenient for a crowd that hasn't known her half as well as he had? And who ever decided that acting dignified was more important than telling the truth? There had been nothing dignified about the way Jack's mother had died: her body ravaged by sores, her skin swollen, her blood thick with medicines that did little to dull the agony. Nor had it been dignified of Jack to get her so sick that all her doctors could do for her was gently close her eyes. So why was dignity so important now?

But there was no point in questioning it. The adult world — his father's world — had rules for everything. Unwritten, unspoken rules, floating just beneath the surface, ready to be wielded against Jack when he least expected it. Rules that appeared without warning, mutating and twisting so that he was always left one step behind, never sure what would get him in trouble next. It was like there was an invisible rhythm to the world, one that everyone else moved to without thinking, while Jack stumbled through it, awkward and out of step. Every time he thought he was starting to learn, it shifted again, just out of reach.

And no one would explain it to him. They all seemed to think that he should already understand, that he shouldn't need any help. It was almost like they enjoyed watching him squirm.

Wasn't there another rule that said to apologize if you did something wrong? Even if it hurt? Even if it was hard? That, at least, was a rule that Jack could understand — a rule that made sense. But Dad had thrown it away, replacing it with another — the first rule of writing a eulogy. There was something smug in the way he'd pronounced that phrase, in the way he'd left spaces in between the words that lingered just long enough to remind Jack that he was missing something obvious. Something everyone had already recognized, except for him. It was as if the rules themselves were a weapon, something to hold over Jack's head in a subtle reminder that he wasn't measuring up. That he should have known better.

Now that he thought about it, though, Jack realized his father had never followed the rule about saying you were sorry. He always had some excuse at the ready — it didn't happen, it wasn't a big deal, it was your fault, you deserved it. Maybe that was why Dad navigated through the tangled web of rules with such ease — because most of them didn't apply to him. And he could change them at will — shift the goalposts just a little, then try to convince Jack that they had been there all along.

"What exactly do you want me to write, then?" Jack spat the question out through gritted teeth, his tongue numb on both sides where he'd chewed on it. He was tired of playing this game, jumping through hoops he couldn't even see.

His father pursed his lips slightly, pretending to consider the question. "Look," he said, "I can't write this for you. Think of something. Make something up, for all I care. But don't make it a spectacle. People don't want to hear that things are painful and bleak. They want comfort, they want stability. They want to leave that church thinking everything is fine. Everything is under control."

Jack blinked. "Control? Is that what's important here?"

"Listen to me." His father folded his hands over the desk, leaning forward with a long-suffering look. "It's a misconception that funerals are for grieving. Grief? That's something you handle in private, tastefully. Funerals are to show the world that we, as a family, are strong in the face of tragedy. Poised. United. And frankly, after the stunt she pulled about refusing resuscitation, we need to manage the narrative. If word gets out about that, people will start asking all the wrong questions."

"Is that what matters right now?" Jack couldn't believe it. Manage the narrative? That was something Dad could do when negotiating a contract. Not when planning a funeral for his wife.

"You know what they say, Jack. Funerals are for the living."

"Right. Got it." Jack snorted softly, his words clipped and sharp. "I'll keep it clean." He brandished the paper, showing off the ash stain his father had made. "I'll keep it perfect. We're all doing fine here."

His father nodded, choosing to ignore the sarcasm. "That's all I'm asking for."

Jack stood there for a moment longer, every muscle in his body rigid, wanting to lash out. Then he turned towards the door again, glad to put his father's face out of his line of sight. They weren't even in the same conversation anymore, just two people speaking past each other about the only thing that should have brought them together. A burden they were meant to share, but Jack couldn't shake the feeling that he was carrying it alone. His father certainly wasn't acting like he'd lost the woman he'd chosen to share his life with — the woman he was supposed to have loved.

"One more thing," his father said casually to Jack's retreating back, seemingly oblivious to any tension that lingered there. "Add something religious at the end. You know, something about how she's in a better place. People will expect that."

"You don't understand her, do you?" Jack tossed over his shoulder before he could think it through. Had his father not noticed the slow, quiet unraveling of Mom's faith, which had terrified Jack almost as much as her illness? Of did he simply not care?

"Watch yourself." The tone was sharp, warning.

"I got it, Dad. Whatever you say." Jack crossed the threshold, at last breathing air that didn't smell stale and burnt.

He would play his father's game. He'd rewrite the eulogy to fit every one of his father's cold, calculated demands. And then, at the funeral, when he stood before the crowd — before the people who had never really known her — he would speak the truth.

The thought of writing what Dad wanted made his stomach churn, but he couldn't see any other choice. He had no power in this room, in this house, under his father's watchful eye. But when he stood before them — at the funeral, in front of everyone who had come to pray, grieve, or just pretend — he would tell them what had really happened. What had really mattered. What they had lost. And no one, not even his father, would be able to stop him.

Until then, all he had to do was survive.