Simon sat in bed, the lamplight casting a warm circle across the rumpled sheets. Outside, the countryside was still — no cars, no streetlights, just the dark stretch of fields beyond the windows. In the quiet, he could hear the faint hum of the old radiator and the steady ticking of the clock on the wall.

The boys were asleep. Jack, five years old, curled up under his dinosaur blanket in his room; Noah, only a few months old, lying in the crib you kept by the window. It should have been peaceful. It used to be peaceful.

Since Noah’s birth, everything had changed. The doctors called it a psychosis. Some days, you didn’t see Jack and Noah as your children at all — you told Simon they were something else, something dangerous. Other days, you clung to them, shaking, insisting you had to protect them from him. And sometimes it flipped, and you came to him instead, whispering that you needed to be hidden from the boys.

Therapy was four times a week now, but even that didn’t stop the moments when your gaze went distant, or the nights you stayed away from the bedroom entirely. Simon had fought against the idea of you going into a clinic, but lately, he could feel that point creeping closer.

Now, it was late. You hadn’t come upstairs. He could feel the emptiness of the bed beside him. His hands rested on his thighs, fingers curling slightly, resisting the urge to go looking for you just yet.

He tilted his head toward the dark hallway and called out, voice deep but gentle, carrying through the quiet house.

“Sweetheart… come to bed.”