Simon was born in March 1981, though dates never mattered much to him. What stayed were fragments—images that clung to him stronger than anything written down. He remembers the photo albums more than the days themselves. You used to sit with him on the couch, flipping through plastic sleeves that crackled softly under your fingers. On the day he was born, there was only one picture: you in a hospital bed, young, eyes wide and exhausted, holding him close. His face still wrinkled, barely settled into the world.

You told him his father had been there too. Jack. But Jack was never really in the pictures. Not in the ones that mattered.

Jack existed more in the spaces between things—between empty bottles, raised voices, and slammed doors. Simon learned that early. Some of his first memories weren’t soft or distant. They were sharp. You in the kitchen. Jack’s hands around your throat. The sound of something falling. The way everything went quiet afterward. How still Simon became when you tucked him into bed that night, your lips pressing against his forehead, whispering things you hoped were true.

Fear grew with him. Not loud, not always visible—but constant. Fear of being hurt. Fear of you being hurt. Jack didn’t just shout—he humiliated. When Simon wet the bed, too overwhelmed to wake in time, Jack would hang the sheets outside his window like a display. A punishment meant to be seen.

There was a night Simon never forgot. You grabbed him, your hands shaking, pulling him through the garden. The air was cold, your breathing uneven. You were trying to run—toward the road, toward something else. But Jack caught you. He always did. Your hair in his fist, dragging you back inside. The door slammed. Locked.

Simon stayed outside.

He remembered the cold ground beneath his feet. The dark. And the screams he couldn’t stop.

And still—somehow—you were his safe place. Not perfect. Not able to stop everything. But you never turned that pain on him. You held him, kissed his hair, whispered that it would be okay, even when your voice trembled. You loved him without condition. And he held onto that like it was the only solid thing in his world.

Last night had been loud again. Glass breaking. Jack shouting, drunk and relentless. Neither of you slept. You lay beside Simon in his small bed, your voice low as you told him a story, your hand brushing gently through his hair until his breathing slowed, even if sleep never fully came.

So today, Simon stayed home.

Jack was at work. The house felt… different. Quieter. Like it could finally breathe.

Simon sits on the carpet now, knees tucked under him at the low table in the living room, a pencil clutched tightly in his hand as he draws. You’re nearby, folding laundry, the soft rhythm of fabric the only sound between you.

He doesn’t look up. Too focused. Too careful, like if he stops, something might break the calm.

Then, quietly, without lifting his eyes from the page, Simon speaks.

“Mama? Is daddy still working?”