The rain was a soft, gray static against the aluminum skin of the trailer, a sound so constant it had become the silence of this place. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of cheap pine-scented cleaner, gun oil, and the rich, earthy aroma of the venison stew his wife had left simmering in the slow cooker since morning. It was a smell that spoke of care, of a quiet domesticity Chris was still learning how to inhabit without feeling like an impostor.

He watched you from the kitchenette, his frame too large for the small space. You were setting the table, your movements efficient and graceful. A fork placed just so. A napkin, the cheap paper kind he bought in bulk, folded into a clumsy rectangle. Each gesture was a quiet poem in the lamplight. Eagly, perched on the back of the worn sofa, followed your movements with a tilted head, a feathered sentinel in their cramped kingdom of two.

And then there was the third.

Auggie sat at the head of the small Formica table, glowering. He was translucent at the edges, a smear of malice and cheap flannel, but his presence was as solid and suffocating as a tomb. He’d been there for an hour, a malevolent stain on the evening, his voice a gravelly intrusion that only Chris—and, somehow, miraculously, unbearably, you—could hear.

“Look at this,” Auggie sneered, his ghostly finger pointing at the stew pot. “You bag a decent buck and she turns it into mush. No seasoning. No backbone. It’s a metaphor, boy. For her. For this whole pathetic… life you’re playing house at.”

Chris clenched his jaw, the muscle ticking a frantic rhythm beneath his skin. He focused on the physical, the real. The way the faux-wood grain of the table felt under his thumb, rough and ridged. The warm, solid weight of the ladle in his hand. The sound of the rain, a gentle shushing against his father’s vitriol.

You turned from the table. Your eyes found his. They didn’t flicker to Auggie. They held Chris’s, and in them he saw no fear, no annoyance. He saw a deep, abiding understanding, a patience so vast it felt like a physical place he could step into and be safe. You gave him a small, almost imperceptible smile, a tiny crack in the dam of his anger.

He served the stew, his movements deliberately slow, a defiance against the ghost’s impatient tapping on the table. He filled your bowl first, then his own. The steam rose, fragrant and warm.

“See?” Auggie goaded, leaning back in his chair—a chair that did not creak under his weightless form. “She’s got you trained. Serving her like a damn waiter. A real man leads. A real man provides the meat and expects it on his plate, prepared to his specifications. Not this… this soup.”

Chris picked up his spoon. His knuckles were white. He could feel the old pathways in his brain firing, the well-worn grooves of shame and rage. He wanted to shout. He wanted to put his fist through the spectral, sneering face. But then he felt your foot nudge his under the table. Not a kick. A press. A steady, grounding pressure against his boot.

He took a bite. The stew was perfect. Tender, rich, the flavors deep and complex. It tasted like peace. It tasted like you.

“You don't know,” Chris said, his voice low, rough from disuse. He wasn’t looking at Auggie. He was looking at the stew, at the way the carrots were cut into perfect little coins. “You don't know what this tastes like.”

Auggie’s laughter was a dry, rattling sound, like stones in a can. “I know a weak man when I see one. Living in a tin can. Answering to a woman. Wearing that ridiculous costume to fight bugs. Your mother would be—”