The illness is not what makes this hard. Every act of protection in it is also a subtraction — the doctor, the son screwing plates onto the door, the line about there being no more stairs. Each one is reasonable, and each one removes the only room where something was still growing. The padlock doesn't change what Jason does down there. It changes who holds the key to it.
The reassurance works like the oatmeal: a formula that comes back every fifteen minutes and settles everything, until it stops sounding like comfort and starts sounding like containment.
Your P.S. interests me more than it should. A revision that was well meant and ruined it — my guess is that it explained the flowers.
Thank you for your comments! I tried to make the story be too much and make it easier to digest. This one can be jarring but to ease that was a mistake.
The illness is not what makes this hard. Every act of protection in it is also a subtraction — the doctor, the son screwing plates onto the door, the line about there being no more stairs. Each one is reasonable, and each one removes the only room where something was still growing. The padlock doesn't change what Jason does down there. It changes who holds the key to it.
The reassurance works like the oatmeal: a formula that comes back every fifteen minutes and settles everything, until it stops sounding like comfort and starts sounding like containment.
Your P.S. interests me more than it should. A revision that was well meant and ruined it — my guess is that it explained the flowers.
Thank you for your comments! I tried to make the story be too much and make it easier to digest. This one can be jarring but to ease that was a mistake.
This one hits directly in the feels. Thanks.
Thank you!