You are fast asleep when it happens. Your mother, too. The house is quiet except for the sound of your father pacing his study, slow and deliberate, the floorboards groaning under his weight.

His right hand grips the Bible a little too tight. His left cradles a tumbler of whiskey, the ice inside clinking as he lifts it to his lips, slow measured sips, savouring each drop.

And he is crying.

Not loudly. Not in the way people imagine grief to sound. It is quieter than that. The kind of weeping that is held in the throat, that never quite makes it to air.

The clock reads a blurry 1:09AM and he nods to himself, as if the time is exactly what it’s supposed to be.

He sets the Bible down on his desk, spreading it open to a familiar page. His eyes skim the words, lingering on the one verse he has read more than any other. The one he has underlined, highlighted, traced his fingers over a hundred times before. One last time.

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

His breath stutters. The hand holding the glass tightens. And then, all at once, the rest of the whiskey is gone. He tips his head back, swallows the burn without flinching.

I watch as he moves. As he sets the empty glass in the sink, rinsing it with water. As he stands there for a moment too long, watching the stream swirl down the drain. He leaves it to soak; he can do it clean it later.

Then, from the drawer in his desk, he pulls a cord.

On his way down the hall, he stops outside your room. Just for a moment. Just long enough to listen to you breathe, to listen to the small, steady sound of you sleeping.

He wants to go inside.

But the tears threaten to come again, so instead, he moves past your door, past the memories, past the quiet, past everything.

I stay. Just for a moment longer. Just to keep you company.

And then—

The door to the garage creaks open.

And I know.

Oh, my dear child. I do not want to follow. I do not want to see.

I do not want to describe what comes next.

But it will happen all the same.

The house will hold its breath. The night will swallow him whole.

And in the morning, you will wake to a world that still turns—but will never feel quite the same.