The curtains stayed drawn, and trays arrived and left untouched. The locket lived in his hand now, small and tarnished. He traced the dented surface with his thumb, memorizing imperfections he already knew by heart. It was the only tangible thing keeping him tethered to her.
Two soft raps sounded from the door. Jack slipped the locket into his breast pocket. “Come.”
Myrtle appeared at the threshold with a tray balanced on one arm and a look of disappointment that could curdle milk. Her copper hair, threaded now with silver, was pinned in its usual no-nonsense twist.
The untouched tray from that morning sat where she’d left it.
“Right.” She set the fresh tray on his desk with a deliberate clatter. “I’m tired of wasting food, Jack. Another meal, into the rubbish. Same as yesterday’s. And the day before that.”
Jack said nothing. His gaze drifted back to drawn curtains where a sliver of light leaked through. He waited for nightfall, wanting nothing more than to sleep.
“I won’t have it!” Her voice carried the sharp certainty of a woman who’d spent a lifetime refusing to be ignored. “You’re not eating. You’re not sleeping properly. You’re sitting in this room like a man waiting to be buried, and I won’t stand here and watch it happen.”
She stepped closer. “I know you like your space. God knows, I’ve learned that much. But this isn’t space. This is punishment.” She glared at him, then her voice cracked, “Please, Jack.”
She pressed her lips together and blinked hard, composing herself with the practiced efficiency of a woman who learned long ago that tears were a luxury.
“I can’t bear to see you like this. If you could just…tell us how to help you.”
He looked at her, but her lifeless expression didn’t shift. “No one can help me.”
Myrtle’s chin lifted as something ignited behind her eyes. Not pity. Conviction. “No. I refuse to accept that.” She planted her feet stubbornly. “You were near dead when you fell into my life. Skin and bone and bruises with barely a pulse to speak of. I nursed you back. Sat with you through fevers that should’ve killed you, cleaned wounds I couldn’t look at without cryin’ into the basin after. I didn’t give up on you then, and I won’t give up on you now.” Her jaw tightened, and her voice dropped to a tremor. “But God help me, I can’t handle a man who gives up on ‘imself.”
When enough seconds passed to confirm he wasn’t going to speak, she huffed and turned on her heel.
“You were more of a mother to me than my own Mum.”
Myrtle stopped, one hand resting on the doorframe, spine pulled taut. She didn’t turn to face him.
The silence needed time to breathe.
“Do you remember the day I finally went back home?”
She gave an almost invisible nod as her fingers whitened against the frame.
“I found her lying in her own waste.” His voice carried no inflection, flat as a coroner reading his findings. “I was so naive. Even then, after years of suffering through the nightmare she created, I clung to the fact that she was my mother. That I was a part of her. And mums are meant to protect their children.” His throat tightened. “Even if it means sacrificing themselves.”
Myrtle’s hand trembled into a fist against the doorframe.
“I don’t know what I expected to find in that rotting old flat. Compassion? Relief?” He remembered the last time he opened that battered door and the stench of hunger that greeted him. “When she saw me, she looked at me like one of the rats. Like something that stole from her and crawled out from a crack.”
Myrtle turned, tears glistened in her weathered eyes. Her chin wobbled. “Jack?—”
“They came to see her.” His voice hollowed. “Left a number for her to call.”
Myrtle’s eyes closed. Her chest rose with a single controlled breath as the meaning settled.
“She was going to turn me in.” The words surfaced like something dredged from deep water. “Her own son.”
A tear spilled down Myrtle’s cheek, tracing the deep lines that decades of living had carved into her skin.
“That was when I knew she never loved me.” His hand clenched. “I just didn’t know how to accept it.” A challenge that still tormented him today. “I burned that paper with the number, thinking it would somehow banish the pain of her betrayal—” His voice broke. He knocked his fist against the hard bone of his chest, where most of the pain was buried. “But it never leaves.” He looked up at her, his vision blurred and ruined. “I can’t fit any more pain?—”
“Oh, Jack.” She crossed the room in four quick strides and pulled him into her arms. His face pressed into her shoulder. Her fingers gripped the back of his head. Fierce. Unyielding. “I’m so sorry, love.” Her whisper fractured against his hair. “You deserve so much better than what this world’s given you.”
A tremor moved through him, escaping in a wet exhalation. He pressed his face deeper, into her neck, where her familiar scent was strongest.
A hug.
