Some Last Words

Cassian Vale didn’t cry at the funeral. Not when the priest said her name. Not when they lowered the casket. Not even when the wind carried the scent of her favorite flowers—white hyacinths, sharp and too sweet for July.

But now, three weeks later, standing in her tiny attic with a box of half-finished manuscripts in one hand and a faded Polaroid in the other, he could feel it—something shifting, cracking open. 

The attic was warm. Dusty. Uncomfortable.

She’d only been gone for twenty-two days, and already the house felt like a museum: curated, preserved, and completely abandoned. He was the only one who cared enough to pack up her things. His uncles had barely shown up for the service. His cousins treated grief like an old suit. And his father? His father had been a ghost long before his mother ever became one.

He crouched by an old trunk, running his fingers over the cracked leather lid. That was when the memory hit him.

Easter.

The last time he’d seen her alive. The last time they’d been just the two of them. No noise. No sharp words from sharp-tongued relatives. Just them and a pot of tea.

She had looked at him over the rim of her mug and said, with that sly smile of hers, “Why haven’t you settled down yet, Cass?”

He’d shrugged. Said something lazy. “Still enjoying my freedom.”

But that wasn’t the truth.

The truth was uglier. Deeper. The kind of truth that lived in the closet full of skeletons.

He was afraid.

Afraid of being like him.

Before marriage, his mother had been a rising star. Quantum physicist. Published author. A mind that bent reality and made it beg for answers. And beautiful—so beautiful it almost hurt to look at her in those old photos. Hair like sunlight. Eyes that laughed before her mouth caught up.

And then she married his father.

The sparkle dimmed. The laughter cracked. She stopped wearing mascara because she cried too often. Her shirts were always wrinkled. Her voice quieter. Her back a little more hunched each year.

Love, it turned out, could be a cage.

And he was terrified he’d become the jailer.

Cassian sat on the floor now, cross-legged like a boy again, the Polaroid in his hand. It was one of the rare ones—a picture of his parents together. Younger. Smiling. Back when she still glowed.

He turned it over.

There was writing on the back. Slanted. Faint.

It was hers.

 

Cassian,

If you’re reading this, it means I’m gone. I knew the end was coming—I just didn’t want to dim your world with my shadow while I was still here.

I saw it in your eyes that day at Easter. That fear. That belief that you’re cursed to repeat your father’s sins.

You’re not.

Do you know how I know?

Because I raised you. I taught you how to be kind and how to be strong. I taught you how to walk away when the room turns toxic and how to listen when someone’s voice shakes.

I didn’t raise a monster, Cassian. I didn’t raise a mistake.

I raised a man. A good one.

You will not dim her light. You will love her. And that will be enough.

 

—Mom

 

The grief didn’t come all at once. They didn’t flood. Didn’t crash.

They came like her voice. Soft. Steady. Certain.

Cassian Vale sat in the attic, surrounded by the remnants of the woman who had given him life—and, with one letter, had just handed it back to him.