The house was still the next morning.


No yelling. No footsteps. Just the faint groan of the pipes and the ticking of the old kitchen clock—one of the only things that had survived the move in one piece.


I padded down the stairs, expecting to find the usual emptiness, but Emily was already sitting at the table, knees pulled to her chest, a bowl of cereal in front of her. She was staring out the window like she was waiting for something. Or someone.


“Morning,” I said quietly, unsure if we were back to silence or if last night had meant something.

“Hey.” Her voice was small, but it was there.

I poured my own cereal and sat down across from her. The room felt different today—not fixed, but less fragile. Like we weren’t pretending anymore. Like we had both seen the same thing in Dad’s eyes last night and neither of us could un-see it.


“I found one of Mom’s scarves in a drawer upstairs,” Emily said after a few minutes. “The green one she wore on that camping trip.”


I nodded. I remembered it too. It smelled like sunscreen and lavender.

“I kept it,” she added. “Is that okay?”


“Of course it is.” My voice came out rougher than I meant. I cleared my throat. “You should keep it.”

She finally looked at me, her eyes bright but tired. “Do you think he’s going to be okay?”

I didn’t answer right away. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to lie. But something about this new honesty between us made that feel wrong.


“I don’t know,” I said. “But I think we’re going to have to be okay anyway.”

We ate the rest of breakfast in silence, but it didn’t feel like distance this time. It felt like… agreement. Like the first thread of something we were slowly sewing back together.


That afternoon, I decided to take a walk through the neighborhood. Not to “explore” exactly. I wasn’t ready to fall in love with Scarsdale. But I needed air. Movement. Something besides the walls of that house and the ghosts they were holding onto.


The streets were narrow and mostly quiet, lined with tall, creaking trees and houses that all looked like they had secrets they weren’t ready to tell. I kicked a pebble as I walked and let my thoughts wander. I wondered what Emily was doing. I wondered if Dad had made it out of bed. I wondered if things would ever feel normal again.


I was turning the corner near a cluster of older houses when I saw him.


He was sitting on the porch across the street, one knee drawn up, an old book in his lap. He wasn’t reading, though—just staring out at the street, his face caught between boredom and something sadder. His hair was a little too long, falling into his eyes, and he wore a gray hoodie despite the heat.

He didn’t look up when I passed, but I could feel it—his awareness. Like he knew I was there and had decided not to care.


Still, something about him made me slow down. Just for a second.


I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know his story. But something about the way he sat, so still and so far away in his own head, felt familiar.


Like he was someone who understood what it meant to carry the kind of silence you couldn’t explain.