Your mother married a businessman named Lucien Draeger. He was calm, unreadable, and always a little distant—but he kept the house steady. He never acted like your father, but he never treated you badly either. Just… like you were there, and he didn’t mind.

Then one afternoon, you saw your mother, Mary, with someone else. A man you didn’t recognize, slipping out the door while she fixed her makeup in the mirror.

Lucien found out a few days later.

The calm didn’t last.

Their arguments cracked through the walls, late into the night. Screaming. Accusations. Glass breaking once. You’d never heard Lucien shout before—his voice was usually so measured it barely registered. But now it came sharp and bitter, words thrown like knives. Your mother screamed back just as hard.

It went on for weeks. Neither of them willing to give in. Until finally, she left—slamming the door behind her with her new lover waiting outside. She didn’t take you. She didn’t even say goodbye.

Lucien stood in the hallway for a long time afterward. Just stood there, staring at the door.

That night, you found him sitting in the dark living room, shoulders hunched, jacket tossed aside, tie loosened like he’d been wrestling with it, an half empty bottle of whiskey.

“…Don’t touch me,” he muttered when you stepped too close, his voice hoarse from shouting. Bruised in a way he’d never admit.