Sarah Coleman - Harrow’s Bend

Mara arrived on a night that seemed to bend the world in half. The rain had stopped, but the air still carried the weight of it, thick and humid, the kind of air that clings to your skin and drags you down. Elias was waiting by his truck, the engine idling, his face like the flat line of a fishing dock at dawn. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked, his voice soft, almost too soft for someone who had just pulled his boat back from the docks, fingers stiff from the cold, damp air.

She didn’t answer right away. Her hand gripped the door handle, and she paused, her face pale in the faint glow of the streetlamp above. “No,” she finally said. “But here I am.”

Elias didn’t need her to explain. He slid across the seat and made room for her, his legs spread out in a way that only someone who had been cramped in a small boat for days could manage. The truck smelled of salt, gasoline, and something sharp she couldn’t name. As they drove, the tires sang against the asphalt, and Mara stared out at the empty fields, the land stretching out like something half-remembered. They passed the church, its bell silent in the night, then the old marina, the docks sagging under the weight of time.

The hum of the road filled the silence between them. Every so often, she felt the truck bump over a divot or a broken piece of asphalt. It was like the town itself was crumbling beneath their wheels, and nothing could stop it. Nothing had ever been built to last here. Nothing ever would be.

“How’s your mom?” Elias asked, his voice still soft, but he was trying to make it sound casual, like they hadn’t been through this routine a hundred times before.

“Still pretending everything’s fine,” Mara replied, her words sharp and brittle, like glass shattering in slow motion. “She won’t leave. Not even now.”

Elias nodded, a slight movement that barely registered in the dim light. He knew, and she knew he knew. Justine was a fortress built on illusions, and it was only a matter of time before the walls started to crumble. But nobody talked about it. Not directly. Not ever.

They reached the house. Mara didn’t move for a moment. The porch light flickered in the distance, casting long shadows on the steps. It was the same as it had always been. Same worn-out furniture on the porch. Same faded curtains in the window. Same smell of mildew seeping out from behind the door.

“Guess I’ll go in first,” Elias said, and when she didn’t answer, he opened the door and stepped out.

Mara sat there for a moment longer, watching him walk toward the house, his back straight, his shoulders square. She almost wanted to tell him to stop—to turn around and just drive away. But she didn’t. Instead, she stepped out of the truck and followed him.

Justine was in the kitchen, the same place she always was when Mara came home. The room was full of light, but it felt hollow, like it was filled with the shadows of things that no longer mattered. The old woman sat at the table, a glass of wine in front of her, her eyes glazed, the faintest tremble in her hands as she brought the glass to her lips.

“Mom,” Mara said, her voice caught somewhere between a sigh and a scream. “I’m home.”

Justine looked up slowly, and for a second, there was nothing but silence. Her face tightened, then softened, as if she had to remind herself of who this was, standing in her kitchen after all these years. “You’ve come back then,” she said, her words drifting out, not quite meeting Mara’s eyes.

Mara wanted to say something sharp, something that would make this moment count, but instead she found herself sitting across from her mother, staring at the half-empty wine bottle, the flickering light from the stove casting long shadows on the walls. The smell of fish, diesel, salt water—they were all inside the house now, too. There was no escaping it, not even inside.

Elias stood by the door, watching them, his face unreadable. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen this scene unfold. It wouldn’t be the last.

Mara’s father was in the back room, silent. He hadn’t spoken since his stroke, but there was a presence about him, something heavy and unspoken that hung over them all. His chair sat empty now, the old recliner by the window, facing out toward the water, the faded family photograph still taped to the back of it.

Nobody acknowledged it. Nobody could.

And still, Mara couldn’t bring herself to leave. Not tonight. Not yet.

The storm was just starting to roll in, the wind picking up, the trees outside beginning to sway. It was going to be another long night in Harrow’s Bend. But that was the way things were here. Nothing ever changed. Nothing ever would.

Mara woke up to the sound of rain again, the steady drip-drip of it hitting the metal roof, relentless and thick. The morning light was gray, spilling in through the cracks in the curtains. The house smelled of mildew and fried food, a sharp contrast to the damp air outside that clung to everything. Her fingers were stiff from the drive, the cramped truck ride that had brought her back to this place she couldn’t ever quite escape. She stretched, the creaking of the bed beneath her almost too loud in the silence of the house.

She pulled herself up, avoiding the mirror by the door. The reflection would only tell her things she didn’t want to hear: the tired lines beneath her eyes, the slow slide of time she hadn’t noticed until now. She dressed in something worn, the fabric faded at the edges, and walked into the kitchen where the smell of burnt toast and coffee greeted her like an old friend.

Justine was there, of course, seated at the table as if nothing had changed. The boxed wine was still on the counter, half-empty, and Justine still held that faint tremor in her hands as she poured herself another glass. The pale, bruised light from the window made everything look more fragile than it was.

“Morning,” Mara said, her voice hoarse.

Justine looked up, blinking as though waking from a dream. “You didn’t sleep long.” She didn’t ask why, didn’t ask if Mara was tired. Just a statement, casual and distant.

“Had to come back eventually,” Mara muttered, her words thin, cutting through the stale air. She opened the cabinet and pulled down a mug, the porcelain chipped and dull. The house was full of these things—small cracks in the world that no one bothered to fix. She filled the mug with coffee, the smell filling her chest, offering some small comfort in this place.

Elias showed up not long after, a little early for his usual rounds. His boots hit the porch with a solid thud, the kind of sound that belonged to someone who had always lived in places like this—solid, dependable, like the land itself. He leaned against the doorframe, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. “Boat’s still a mess,” he said, his voice barely above a murmur. “Gonna take a while longer to get her back in shape.”

Mara didn’t look up. She didn’t have to. She knew what he meant. The boat, like everything else in Harrow’s Bend, was slowly breaking apart, and the more Elias tried to hold it together, the more the town slipped through his fingers. “Maybe it’s time to let go,” she said, quieter than she meant to.

Elias shifted his weight, not meeting her gaze. “Let go of what?”

“The boat, the town, the whole thing,” she said. The words tumbled out before she could stop them. She hated the way they sounded, the sharp edge of them that didn’t belong. “Nothing’s holding here anymore, Elias. Not the way it used to.”

He took a step forward, but it wasn’t a challenge. His eyes were tired, too. “Maybe you’ve already decided, but some of us don’t get to choose. Not the way you can.”

Mara didn’t say anything to that. She couldn’t. It wasn’t a question to answer, not really. She just watched him, her coffee cooling in her hands, and felt the weight of the room press down on her. There was something in his voice, something that clung to the air around them, that told her he didn’t think he had any other choice. He wasn’t ready to let go of the town, of his life here.

Justine made a noise, low and drawn out, the wine glass rattling against the edge of the counter. “You think you can leave, Mara?” Her voice cut through the quiet, a hint of something sharp underneath the calm. “You think you can just walk away from all of it and leave the rest of us behind?”

Mara turned to her, her mother’s face pale, her features stretched tight, the lines deepening with every year. She didn’t answer right away. The words wouldn’t come, not the way she wanted them to. Instead, she looked at her mother, at the woman who had tried to hold on to everything that was slipping away, and she felt the ache of it. The ache of knowing she wasn’t the one who could fix it. Not anymore.

“I’m just trying to figure out if I can breathe here again,” Mara said, her voice quiet, broken somehow.

Justine didn’t respond, just picked up her glass and swirled the wine, watching the dark liquid spiral inside, the edges of her eyes softening like she was seeing something in the distance. She was always looking for something she couldn’t name. Something lost. Something she could never hold onto.

Outside, the tide was coming in. The water crept up against the docks like it was testing the land, licking at the edges of the shore. It was a slow, inevitable pull, like everything in Harrow’s Bend. Always coming, never stopping.

Elias stood there, a few feet away, watching Mara, watching Justine, and in that moment, it felt like the whole town was holding its breath. The air heavy with salt and diesel and things that couldn’t be said.

And for a second, just a second, Mara thought maybe the flood was already here. Not in the water, but in the silence between them. In the way things were slowly sinking without anyone realizing.

The morning slipped into afternoon, but it felt like no time at all had passed. The sun was still hidden behind a thick veil of clouds, the sky a dull, featureless gray. Mara stood in the yard, the ground beneath her soft from the rain, the grass damp against her bare feet. The house was behind her, the distant sound of her mother moving around inside, but it was all too far away. It felt like she was watching her life unfold from a great distance, like the spaces between the past and the present had become too wide to cross.

Elias’s boat sat on the shore, its hull cracked, the engine half-disassembled on the grass. The quiet hum of the town felt oppressive now, a reminder of what had been lost and what would never be again. She hadn’t meant to come back like this—hadn’t meant to come back at all. But there she was, standing in the middle of Harrow’s Bend, watching the water rise and fall, as if it were breathing.

She wasn’t sure what to do. The idea of staying, of trying to make something of this place again, felt too heavy. But leaving, really leaving, seemed impossible, like walking away from a part of herself she wasn’t ready to lose. The indecision sat in her chest, a weight she couldn’t shake.

Elias appeared beside her, holding a tool in one hand, his other resting on the railing of the porch. His face was smudged with grease, but his eyes were still clear, almost too steady for someone living in a town that was slowly suffocating.

“You’re thinking about leaving, aren’t you?” he asked, as though he’d read the thought in her face.

Mara didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she let her gaze wander out to the horizon, where the marshes met the sky in an endless, indistinct line. “I don’t know what I’m thinking,” she said at last, her voice barely above a whisper. “I just know I don’t belong here anymore.”

Elias chuckled, but it wasn’t a laugh. It was something else, something deep and resigned, like a man who had long since given up on understanding the world around him. “You’re wrong about that,” he said. “You belong here, Mara. This place doesn’t let you go, not really.”

She turned to him, her brow furrowed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not the person I was when I left.” She didn’t want to say it aloud, but the words came anyway: “I don’t want to be the person I was when I left.”

Elias didn’t argue, didn’t try to convince her otherwise. Instead, he looked down at the boat, the rusted engine parts scattered across the yard. “I never thought this place was dying,” he said after a moment. “I thought… I thought it could keep going. The fish would come back. The people would stay. We’d fix it, like we always have.” His voice trailed off, and for a second, Mara thought she saw something like sadness in his eyes, but it was gone too quickly for her to be sure.

“You’re still holding onto that,” she said softly, but there was no accusation in her tone. “You’re still hoping.”

He nodded slowly, his hands tightening around the tool he was holding. “I don’t know how to stop.”

They stood there for a while longer, the silence between them growing, stretching thin like the mist that hung in the air. The tide had started to rise, the water inching toward the dock with a quiet inevitability. Mara could feel it, too—the pull of the place, the way it held her even as it tried to drown her. There was no escaping it. Not now. Not ever.

She glanced back at the house, where the faint sounds of her mother’s footsteps echoed through the walls, hollow and uncertain. Justine was inside, still pretending, still holding onto whatever fragments of her life she could grasp. The woman who had always been more illusion than truth, clinging to the last of her beauty and pride, as if the world could still see her that way.

Mara’s chest tightened. The house, her mother, this town—they were all connected in ways she hadn’t wanted to admit. They were a part of her, as much as she was a part of them. And yet, every part of her wanted to leave, to run, to break free.

But she couldn’t. Not yet. There was a strange sort of peace in the knowing, in the quiet acceptance that sometimes you had to stay, even when you didn’t want to. Even when staying felt like suffocation.

Elias took a step closer, his voice low, almost hesitant. “Maybe you don’t have to fix anything, Mara. Maybe… maybe you just have to let it be.”

She didn’t look at him, but his words settled over her like the tide itself, slow and steady. “Let it be,” she repeated to herself, tasting the words on her tongue. They felt strange, foreign, like they belonged to someone else. But they also felt true.

The boat, the house, the dying docks—they were all part of the same thing, part of the same slow unraveling that had started long before she returned. Maybe the answer wasn’t in leaving, but in surrendering to the inevitable.

The sky darkened, and the first droplets of rain began to fall again, soft at first, then heavier, as if the world was exhaling, releasing something it had been holding too long. Mara stood there, feeling the weight of the water on her skin, the pull of the town, the suffocating grip of Harrow’s Bend.

She wasn’t sure what the next step was. She wasn’t sure there would be one. But for the first time, she didn’t mind waiting for the flood. It would come. It always did.

Mara had almost forgotten what it felt like to be truly still, to not be rushing toward something or trying to outrun something. She sat on the porch steps, the rain soft now, falling like a whisper, steady but not overwhelming. The air smelled of salt and wet earth, the way it always did after the rain, but it felt different now. There was no urgency to it, no immediate need to escape. The town seemed to slow, too, as if it were waiting for something—waiting for the flood, perhaps, or waiting for nothing at all.

She had told herself she would leave, that once her father had passed or once the town had fully rotted, she would walk away, leave it all behind. But now, watching the marsh grass sway in the wind, she wasn’t so sure. The place had seeped into her bones, deep in a way she hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t just the smell of the sea, the constant hum of the water rising and falling, it was the people, too—their faces, their voices, their quiet insistence that this was home, that it would always be home, even when everything around them was breaking down.

Justine, her mother, moved in and out of the kitchen, the creak of the floorboards almost musical in its predictability. She hadn’t said much all day, except for the occasional murmur, something about needing to run errands, needing to see someone. She was still pretending that the world outside hadn’t changed, that the house hadn’t started to sag under the weight of years spent untouched, as though all the things she had accumulated in her life—those small, delicate things—would somehow keep her grounded, keep her tethered to some version of herself that still mattered.

Mara was sitting with that thought when Elias showed up at the porch, his boots splashing in the puddles. He paused at the base of the steps, his hand on the railing. There was a strange hesitation in his movement, like he didn’t know if he should come any closer, like he didn’t know if she wanted him to.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice rough from the wind.

Mara didn’t answer right away. She could feel the pull of him, the way he was always there, always trying to hold things together. But she couldn’t figure out what she wanted from him, from any of them. The town wasn’t hers anymore, not in the way it once had been. It felt like a place full of ghosts, shadows that moved just out of sight, but always there, pressing in. And the people, the ones she had known her whole life, they seemed more like actors in a play she couldn’t follow.

“I don’t know,” she finally said, her voice almost a whisper. “I thought coming back would make things easier, but it doesn’t. It’s like I can’t remember who I was when I left, and I don’t know who I am now.”

Elias sat down beside her, the wet grass soggy beneath his jeans. His gaze followed the lines of the docks, the boats anchored in the mud, leaning sideways against the pull of the water. “It’s not about who you were, Mara,” he said, his words soft but steady, like he was trying to convince her of something he’d convinced himself of long ago. “It’s about who you are now. Right here. Right now.”

Mara didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure what to say to that. The truth was, she hadn’t been able to let go of the person she used to be, of the girl who had left and thought she would never look back. But there was no going back, not anymore. The town had a way of getting inside you, of making you feel like it was the only thing you could hold onto, even when it was falling apart.

“Maybe I’m just tired,” she said after a moment. “Tired of pretending I have control over anything.”

Elias turned his head to look at her, his eyes steady but with a softness in them she hadn’t seen before. “You don’t have to have control, Mara. Not here. Not with this place.”

“But I’m not here,” she said, almost before she realized the words had left her mouth. “Not really. I’m just… waiting. Waiting for something to change. For something to tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

Elias didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached for her hand, not in a way that seemed forced, but just in a way that made the space between them feel smaller. She didn’t pull away. His fingers were warm, steady, and for a second, it felt like everything else had stopped moving—the wind, the rain, the water—it was all still.

“I’m here,” he said softly, his voice almost lost in the wind. “And this place is here. It’s not going anywhere.”

Mara didn’t pull her hand away, but she didn’t say anything either. She let the silence stretch out between them, the sound of the rain filling the spaces that her words couldn’t reach. The feeling of being tethered, of being anchored to something that wouldn’t let her go, lingered in the air like the salty fog that crept in from the marshes.

She didn’t know what that meant—didn’t know if it meant anything at all. But for the first time, she wasn’t sure she needed to. Maybe that was enough. Just to be there, in the quiet, in the weight of the moment. Just to let the world unfold, even if she wasn’t sure how to make sense of it.

The water was rising again, the tide creeping up the shore, slow and steady, and Mara knew, deep down, that no matter what happened, no matter how hard she tried to fight it, the flood would come. And when it did, she would have to let it take her. All of it. The town. Her father’s absence. The weight of her mother’s denial. Elias. All of it.

But that was later. For now, the rain fell like a promise, and for the first time since she’d returned, Mara felt like she could breathe again.

The days blurred together after that. The rain came and went, but it always felt the same: a constant reminder of the place they were all stuck in, a reminder that nothing ever really changed in Harrow’s Bend, no matter how hard they tried to make it look like it did.

Mara found herself wandering the streets more often than she used to, as if the movement would shake something loose inside of her. The town, though quiet, was never empty. There was always someone at the docks, always someone hauling in the day’s catch, no matter how slim the pickings were. The air was thick with the smell of saltwater and fish, and the horizon always seemed just out of reach, like a memory fading.

Elias was always there, too. He was fixing the boat again, or talking to the other fishermen, or staring out at the water like it might speak back to him. But Mara couldn’t help noticing how his optimism was starting to wear thin. There was something about him now, a heaviness in his gaze that hadn’t been there before. The town had a way of eroding things slowly, quietly—like the tide washing against the shore, bit by bit, until everything was just… gone.

Justine had been quieter than usual. She spent more time inside, staring out of the kitchen window with a glass of wine in hand, watching the rain or the stillness of the marsh. Mara couldn’t tell if her mother was waiting for something or if she had just given up waiting altogether. She didn’t seem to care what anyone else was doing, least of all Mara. It was as if her mother had locked herself inside her own world, a world made of broken promises and faded dreams.

One afternoon, Mara sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of her. Justine was at the counter, her back to her, fiddling with the cork of another wine bottle. The house smelled faintly of mildew again, a familiar, sinking smell.

“Mom,” Mara said, her voice low, hesitant. “What are we doing here? Really. What is all of this?”

Justine didn’t turn around, didn’t answer at first. Her fingers worked the cork slowly, almost deliberately, as if she could pretend the question hadn’t been asked. When she did speak, her voice was tight, careful. “We’re surviving, Mara. That’s what we’ve always done.”

“But surviving isn’t living, is it?” Mara’s words came out sharper than she meant them to. “All we do is hang on. We’re holding onto something that isn’t real anymore.”

The silence between them stretched long and thick. Justine’s hands froze around the wine bottle, and for a moment, Mara thought she might actually say something, something real. But then Justine spoke again, her voice soft but full of something old and heavy. “You think you can just walk away from all of this, like it doesn’t matter? Like it wasn’t enough to keep us going for so long?”

Mara looked at her mother, at the way she stood there, still clutching the wine bottle like it was all that kept her upright. There was no real anger in Justine’s words, only resignation. But it was the kind of resignation that was contagious. Mara felt it creeping into her own bones, threatening to settle there, too.

“I’m not walking away,” Mara said quietly. “I’m just trying to figure out if there’s anything left to stay for.”

Justine finally turned, her face unreadable, the wine bottle still in her hands. “Then you’re just like him,” she muttered. “Like your father. Always thinking there’s something else out there. Always thinking that leaving will make everything better.”

Mara opened her mouth to respond, but the words caught in her throat. She didn’t want to be like her father. She didn’t want to become someone who had to disappear to be free. And yet, part of her felt like that was the only way out.

The afternoon drifted on, the sky darkening with another storm. The sound of the rain outside was like a drumbeat, a rhythm that pushed her toward something she wasn’t ready for. Something had to give, but Mara wasn’t sure what it was anymore.

She found herself walking to the docks later, as the wind picked up and the water began to churn. Elias was there, standing near the edge, his hands shoved into his pockets. He didn’t look at her when she approached, didn’t even seem to notice her presence until she was standing beside him.

“The boat’s almost ready,” he said, his voice distant, like it didn’t matter.

“How long have we been saying that?” Mara asked, her words carrying a weight they hadn’t before.

Elias didn’t answer, but she saw the way his shoulders slumped, the way his eyes refused to meet hers. The town had worn him down too, just like it had worn everyone else down. But unlike her, Elias hadn’t given up yet. He still believed in something—believed in the possibility that things could change, if only they tried hard enough.

Mara didn’t know what to believe anymore. She had spent so much of her life running from Harrow’s Bend, convinced that leaving was the answer. But now, standing here beside Elias, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the place had never really let her go. It was a part of her, tied to her in ways she couldn’t untangle.

The wind howled again, and the first raindrops fell like stones, splashing against the water and the earth. Mara stood there for a long time, the rain soaking through her clothes, her hair sticking to her face. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak.

Maybe it was the rain that made her think of it, the way everything was washed clean, if only for a moment. Or maybe it was the way Elias stood beside her, like they were both waiting for the storm to pass, waiting for something to change. But when it was over, when the rain stopped, they would still be here—on the edge of the town, on the edge of something else.

“Maybe it’s not about leaving,” Mara said, her voice barely audible against the wind. “Maybe it’s about staying. But staying doesn’t mean we have to be the same people we were before.”

Elias turned his head toward her, his expression unreadable. “You think we can do that?” he asked, his words hanging in the air between them like smoke.

“I don’t know,” Mara said, feeling the weight of it all. “But I’m willing to try.”

The wind had settled by the time they left the docks, the storm easing into the usual heavy silence of the town. The streets were slick with rain, puddles reflecting the pale light of the streetlamps. Mara walked beside Elias, their footsteps muted by the wet ground, the space between them no longer so wide, though neither of them spoke much. The quiet felt like a kind of agreement—unspoken, but understood.

Inside the house, it was warmer than outside, but it still smelled faintly of mildew and neglect. Justine was in the kitchen again, the radio murmuring softly in the background, an old tune that was familiar but distant. The way she moved, slow and deliberate, almost felt like she was still a stranger to herself. The house had become a museum of things that no longer held meaning—a half-finished puzzle on the table, a picture frame with a cracked glass that had been there for years, still waiting for someone to fix it.

Mara didn’t want to acknowledge the way it all felt—stuck, frozen in time. But it was hard to ignore. She could feel the weight of the past pressing on her as soon as she stepped inside, and it made her chest tighten, as if the air itself were too thick to breathe.

Elias stopped by the door, his gaze lingering on Justine, who hadn’t yet noticed them. She was focused on the wine glass in her hand, swirling it slowly, the motion almost hypnotic. He hesitated for a moment before clearing his throat. “How’s everything, Justine?”

She didn’t look up, just took another slow sip, her movements mechanical. “Same as always,” she muttered. “Nothing changes here.” Her voice, soft but brittle, caught Mara’s attention. “But you two wouldn’t know that, would you? Always running off somewhere, leaving everything behind.”

Mara winced at the words, but said nothing. She couldn’t argue with her mother’s bitterness—it had become part of the landscape of Harrow’s Bend, just like the saltwater and the rotting docks. The town, in its way, had taught them all how to survive. But survival was no longer enough. Not for Mara. Not for anyone.

“Justine,” Elias began gently, his tone the way it always was when he tried to reach her, “you don’t have to drink so much.”

Justine’s eyes flicked up to him for the first time, her face hardening with something close to anger, though her lips remained tight around the wine glass. “And what else is there to do, Elias?” she snapped, her voice raw. “You think you’re going to save me? Save this place? You think it’s going to matter, in the end?”

The words hung in the air, heavy and accusing, and Mara felt a pang of something deep in her chest—guilt, maybe, or resentment. She didn’t know which, only that she couldn’t bear the look on her mother’s face. It was a look that said she had already lost, that she knew there was no way out anymore.

“You’re right, I can’t save you,” Elias said quietly, his gaze steady but his voice laced with the weight of truth. “None of us can save this place. But that doesn’t mean we can’t keep trying to save ourselves.”

Justine didn’t respond. Instead, she lowered her gaze, her fingers tightening around the glass like it was the only thing keeping her grounded. The silence between them felt like the end of something—something too large to name, but so palpable it nearly suffocated them all.

Mara stood there, caught between the two of them, and for the first time in a long while, she felt completely adrift. She had thought that by coming back, she could find something to hold onto. But now she wasn’t so sure. Harrow’s Bend, her mother, Elias—none of it felt like something she could grasp anymore. It was all slipping away, slowly, silently.

“I’m going for a walk,” Mara said suddenly, her voice rough as she turned away. She didn’t wait for a response, just walked out the door before anyone could say anything else. The night air hit her like a shock, the coolness of it washing over her, sharp and clean. It felt like a small act of rebellion, like taking a breath she hadn’t allowed herself in too long.

The town felt different in the quiet of the night. The streets were empty, the only sound the distant hum of the sea and the occasional creak of an old building settling under the weight of years. She walked, not sure where she was going, only that she had to move, had to get away from the house, away from the tension that clung to every corner of it.

She found herself by the old marina, the docks stretching out into the water, leaning crookedly, half-submerged in the mud. The boats were abandoned now, rotting away, just like the rest of the town. And yet, there was something about the scene that felt oddly familiar, comforting even. The way the water lapped gently against the posts, the way the moonlight caught the edges of the decaying wood. It was as though everything had settled into its own rhythm, accepting the decay, the slow erosion, as part of the natural order.

Mara sat on the edge of the dock, her feet dangling just above the water, and for a moment, everything felt still. There was no past. No future. Only the present, the feeling of the night wrapping around her like a blanket. She let herself close her eyes, just for a second, and let the sound of the water fill her ears. She was here, in this place, and that was all she could be. Everything else, all the expectations, the frustrations, the past—it could wait.

And as the night wore on, the rain began to fall again, soft and steady, and Mara let it wash over her, let it cleanse her, just as it always had.

The rain had started again by the time Mara returned to the house, but it felt different this time. The weight of it wasn’t the same. It didn’t press on her chest or fill the space around her with that familiar sense of doom. It was just rain, falling because that was what it did. She stepped inside, the air heavier now, saturated with the scent of earth and salt and wood. The quiet of the house seemed to swallow her whole, but it wasn’t the same quiet as before. It wasn’t thick with expectation or old grudges. It was just empty.

Justine was in the kitchen again, but she wasn’t sitting at the table this time. She was moving slowly around the counters, as if her body had forgotten the rhythm of normal life. The wine bottle was gone, but the scent of it lingered. She didn’t look up when Mara entered. She hadn’t even noticed her return, which felt oddly like permission for Mara to be herself in the space.

Elias, as usual, was nowhere to be found. That was the way he had been lately—disappearing, leaving Mara and her mother to navigate the space between them. Not that she minded. There was a part of her that understood why he was retreating. It wasn’t about abandoning her or the town, though it felt like that sometimes. It was about survival. About finding the margins of the world where you could still breathe without suffocating on all the weight of things that were never said.

Mara closed the door behind her and stood there for a moment, feeling the silence settle in her bones. She wanted to say something to her mother, wanted to speak the words that had been lodged in her throat for years. But they never came out. Instead, she took a few steps into the kitchen, her movements almost automatic.

“Where’s Elias?” she asked quietly, not because she cared, but because she needed to break the silence, needed something to anchor her to the moment.

Justine didn’t look up. She kept moving around the kitchen, her hands steady but her motions sluggish. “Out,” she said, her voice thin. “Doesn’t matter.”

Mara nodded, even though she knew the words weren’t meant to be a response. They never were. Justine had stopped trying to keep track of where anyone was or what anyone was doing. Maybe it was easier that way. Maybe it was easier to stop expecting people to be anything other than what they were: fleeting, absent, broken.

“I went to the docks,” Mara said, still standing by the door, unsure what to do with herself. “I thought I could make sense of things there. But it doesn’t make sense, Mom. Nothing does.”

The room was still, the ticking of the clock on the wall the only sound. Justine didn’t respond. Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she had already said everything there was to say. Or maybe it was just easier to let Mara speak into the quiet, as if that would change anything.

Mara couldn’t help herself. She moved closer to the window, her hand resting on the cool glass, and looked out at the rain. The streets were empty, the dim light of the streetlamps casting long shadows across the puddles. She was waiting for something to change, waiting for a sign or a shift, something that would make it all feel less suffocating, less like they were all just trapped in this place with no way out.

She turned back to her mother. “I don’t think I can stay here anymore.”

Justine’s eyes flicked toward her, just for a second, but then she looked away, as if the weight of Mara’s words was too much. As if she could no longer face the truth that had been sitting in the room for so long.

“You can’t stay forever,” Justine said, her voice barely above a whisper. “None of us can. But you can try. You can try to keep pretending. Just like I’ve been doing.”

Mara swallowed, the sharp edge of her mother’s words cutting through her, through everything she had been holding back. Justine wasn’t wrong. She had been pretending. They had all been pretending. And now, they were all just waiting for the inevitable, for the thing that would end it all, the thing they couldn’t control.

But the flood was coming, not just in the form of water but in everything they had been avoiding, everything they hadn’t said. The flood would be the thing that stripped away the pretense, that washed the town clean of its ghosts and its lies.

Mara wanted to say something to her mother, wanted to reach out and tell her that she didn’t have to pretend anymore. But the words wouldn’t come. And maybe, in some way, Mara knew they never would. Justine had made her choice long ago. She had chosen to stay, to hold on to what was left, even if it was nothing more than an illusion.

Mara turned away and walked toward the door, her feet light on the wooden floor, as if she were trying not to disturb the stillness that had settled in the house. Outside, the rain continued to fall, steady and unyielding. She stepped out into it, feeling the coolness of the water against her skin, the weight of the air pressing in on her.

She wasn’t sure where she was going. She wasn’t sure if she was running or if she was finally staying. All she knew was that for the first time in a long while, she felt like she could breathe.

Mara didn’t know how long she had been walking when she found herself by the old cemetery, the one on the edge of town where the stones leaned crookedly in the grass, worn smooth by years of wind and salt. The graves here were forgotten, neglected. It had been a place she’d avoided for years, but tonight it felt different—there was something strangely quiet and peaceful about the stillness, something that allowed her to pause and finally let go of the tension that had been building inside of her for so long.

She sat down on one of the stones, the cold of it seeping through her jeans, and for the first time in days, she allowed herself to be still. Her thoughts were like the tide, pulling her in different directions, but she didn’t try to control them. She didn’t try to sort through the mess in her mind. Instead, she just let them come, one after another, like waves crashing against the shore.

Her mother’s voice echoed in her head, the words sharp and brittle: “You can try to keep pretending. Just like I’ve been doing.” Mara had never known her mother to be anything but strong, even when she was crumbling. But Justine had always known how to bury things—how to hide them under layers of pretense. Maybe that was why she couldn’t see the way everything was breaking down. Maybe that was why she couldn’t see Mara slipping away, piece by piece, every time she tried to convince herself that this place, this town, was anything other than a slow, suffocating death.

And Elias. He was still out there somewhere, somewhere in the thick of it, trying to fix things that couldn’t be fixed. He was stubborn in a way that Mara both admired and resented. She could feel his loyalty to this place, but it felt misplaced, like trying to salvage a boat that had already sunk. He had his own reasons for staying, just as she had her reasons for leaving. And yet, here they both were, tied to this broken, dying place, unwilling to let go, even when it was clear that there was nothing left to hold on to.

Mara let out a breath, the sound of it escaping her like a whisper in the wind. She thought about her father, about the silence he had carried with him ever since the stroke. He had become a shadow, a presence that loomed over everything but never spoke, never moved. His absence was felt in the house, in every room, in every corner. His silence had become the loudest thing in the house, a constant reminder of what could have been, what should have been.

The wind shifted, the rain now falling in a steady drizzle, and Mara pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders, but the cold didn’t bother her. There was something comforting about the discomfort, something grounding in the realization that the world would go on, regardless of what she chose to do. The world didn’t need her to fix it. It didn’t need her to make sense of it. It simply was.

She looked up at the sky, the gray clouds swirling above her like a thick fog. There were no stars tonight, no light from the moon, just the endless stretch of clouds pressing down on the town, on her, on everything. The weight of it was suffocating, but it was also somehow liberating. It was as if the storm, the flood, had already arrived in every corner of her life, and she had no choice but to ride it out.

She stood up slowly, her legs stiff from sitting on the stone, and glanced back at the cemetery, at the crumbling gravestones that had witnessed the passing of time in a way that no one in the town had. They didn’t pretend to be anything other than what they were—markers of a life that had once been, of memories that would fade into the earth. There was a strange sort of peace in that. Maybe it was the peace of letting go, of accepting that things didn’t have to be fixed, that some things were beyond repair.

Mara walked back toward the town, her footsteps soft in the wet grass. The rain had slowed, but the air was still thick with the remnants of it, heavy and damp. The streets were empty, as they always were at this hour. The quiet felt different now, as though the town had shifted, or maybe it was just her. Maybe she had shifted, finally able to see things for what they were, instead of clinging to the illusion that they could be something else.

As she passed the edge of the docks, she stopped for a moment, her gaze resting on the water, the boats bobbing gently in the mud. They seemed to stand there like abandoned memories, lost and forgotten. The water lapped at the shore, quiet and patient, as though it had been waiting for her to arrive, for her to see it. The tide was always coming in, always pulling things away, but it was never violent. It never rushed. It was just there, steady, inevitable, and silent.

Mara turned away from the water, her eyes drawn back toward the town, toward the house that waited for her. She knew what she had to do. The flood had come, but it wasn’t the one she had been expecting. It was something quieter, something that had crept up on her without her realizing it. She wasn’t going to fix anything. She wasn’t going to stay or leave. She was simply going to let it all happen, let it all wash over her, because the truth was, she couldn’t fight it anymore. It had already taken everything from her.

The flood was here. And for the first time, Mara was ready to surrender to it.

The house felt different when Mara returned. It wasn’t just the stillness of it or the way the rain outside made everything sound muffled, as though the world had shrunk to the size of a memory. It was the way the house seemed to hold its breath, as if it were waiting for her to make a decision, to take the step that she hadn’t yet been able to take.

Justine was still in the kitchen, but now she was at the table, not moving, not making any of the familiar gestures that usually accompanied her time there. The wine glass was absent this time, and for a moment, Mara wondered if her mother had finally stopped pretending, if the weight of it all had finally gotten to her.

But when Justine spoke, it was in that same soft, practiced tone she always used, as if she were trying to sound like everything was still okay, like nothing had changed. “You’re back early.”

Mara didn’t answer immediately. She just stood there, in the doorway, staring at the figure of her mother, slumped over the table like a shadow that had overstayed its welcome. “I needed to get away,” she said finally, her voice small but firm. “I needed some space to think.”

Justine didn’t respond. She didn’t even look up. The silence stretched between them, thick and heavy. Mara could feel it pulling at her, could feel the way everything that had been left unsaid was weighing on her, on both of them.

And then, without thinking, she found herself walking into the room, crossing the space between them. Her steps were slow, but purposeful, the sound of her shoes on the wooden floor echoing in the quiet. She stood behind her mother, just for a moment, watching the faint rise and fall of her shoulders.

“You never told me what happened to Dad,” Mara said, the words slipping out before she could stop them. “Why did he stop speaking? Why did he become this… this thing, this shadow?”

Justine’s hands trembled slightly, the motion barely perceptible, but it was enough. Enough to remind Mara of the years of silence, of the weight that had settled in the corners of the room and in the lines of her mother’s face.

Justine finally lifted her eyes, not meeting Mara’s gaze, but looking at the space just beyond her, as if she could see something far away, something that Mara couldn’t. “It wasn’t sudden,” she said, her voice softer now, as though the words were something delicate, something that could shatter if spoken too loudly. “He just… stopped fighting. He stopped trying to pretend. And once you stop pretending, you just fade away. It’s not something you do intentionally. It’s just how it happens.”

Mara stood there for a long moment, her fingers brushing the back of the chair where her father had once sat. She felt the absence of him more acutely now, the way his silence had hung over them, a constant reminder that no one was ever really here, even when they were.

“Is that what happened to you?” Mara asked, her voice thick. “Did you stop pretending too?”

Justine didn’t answer, but the look on her face told Mara everything she needed to know. The quiet surrender in her eyes. The way her mother had stopped fighting the pull of the town, the pull of the life that had been built around lies and promises that no longer held meaning.

For a moment, Mara felt something shift inside of her, a tremor, like a tide that was pulling at her own feet, urging her to move. “I don’t want to be like this,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t want to disappear like you did. Like Dad did.”

Justine looked at her then, her eyes full of something Mara couldn’t quite read. “You won’t,” she said quietly. “You’re stronger than that.”

Mara shook her head, her chest tight with frustration. “I don’t feel strong. I feel… lost.”

“You’re not lost,” Justine said. “You’re just waiting for something to change. Something outside of you. But the truth is, Mara, the only thing that changes is what you choose to carry with you. Everything else stays the same.”

The words settled around Mara like the rain settling in the earth, soft but heavy. She felt them sinking into her, sinking into the spaces she hadn’t let anyone see. The spaces she had kept hidden, even from herself.

The flood was coming. She knew that now. It wasn’t some storm on the horizon or some dramatic event that would wash everything away. It had already started, creeping in through the cracks, through the spaces they had ignored for so long. And maybe that was the point—maybe the flood was inevitable, but it didn’t have to be something to fight. It could be a release, a way of finally letting go.

Mara took a deep breath, the air thick with the scent of rain and salt and something else, something she couldn’t name but felt all the same. She was tired, so tired, of fighting it, of pretending that she could fix something that was already gone.

“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted softly, her words heavy with the truth she had been holding back for so long.

Justine looked at her then, really looked at her, her gaze sharp but full of something else, something softer. “Sometimes, Mara,” she said, her voice low, “you don’t have to know what to do. You just have to let it happen.”

And as Mara stood there, the rain tapping lightly against the windows, the flood was already starting to wash away everything they had been holding on to—everything that wasn’t real, everything that had been keeping them trapped.

The night was still, the air thick with the scent of wet earth and sea, and Mara stood in the doorway, watching the rain fall in quiet sheets. The town was drowned in it, the streets glistening like slick mirrors beneath the lamplight, the sky a low, suffocating weight. Everything outside seemed suspended, caught between the pull of the ocean and the weight of something else, something older than the storm.

Justine was asleep in her chair, the quiet lull of her breath filling the room. The house was, for the moment, empty of all the things it had once held—expectations, resentments, unfinished conversations—and in their place, there was something else. Something that Mara couldn’t name but could feel, deep in her bones. A kind of stillness, but not the kind of stillness that suffocates. It was the kind of stillness that precedes something, the quiet before a shift, before a letting go.

She stepped outside, the cool night air biting at her skin, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was familiar, like the town itself—sharp, weathered, raw. She walked down the road, the path lit only by the occasional flicker of a streetlamp, the world around her swallowed in shadow, and everything felt like it was waiting. Waiting for the next step, for the moment when things would finally fall into place, when the flood would take everything and leave something new behind.

The water lapped at the docks, quiet and inevitable, rising just a little higher with each wave, and Mara stood at the edge, watching the boats sway in the dark. They weren’t just objects; they were vessels of memory, of things that had already been carried away. Some of the boats had sunk, others had been left abandoned, their wood rotting at the edges, the paint peeling like the walls of her childhood home. The flood was coming, but it wasn’t the water that would change things. It was the letting go. The acceptance.

The sound of footsteps behind her made her turn. Elias was there, his figure a silhouette against the dim light of the street, his eyes unreadable in the shadow.

“You’re out here,” he said, his voice calm but heavy with something unspoken. “In the rain.”

Mara didn’t answer immediately. She just looked at him, seeing the weight of everything he had been carrying, everything they had all been carrying. The town, the people, the weight of expectation and broken promises. It all seemed so small in the stillness of the night.

“I thought about leaving,” Mara said after a long pause. “But I don’t know anymore. I don’t know if it’s about leaving or staying.”

Elias didn’t speak, just stood there beside her, his gaze following the water, following the slow, inevitable rise of the tide.

“I think,” Mara continued, her voice soft, “I think it’s about letting it all go. Letting the flood take it. Letting everything that was once here disappear, because it was never meant to stay.”

There was a long silence, the only sound the hum of the rain against the earth and the gentle lapping of the water against the docks.

“I don’t know what comes after,” Mara added. “But I don’t think it matters. I don’t think we have to save anything anymore.”

Elias finally turned to look at her, his expression still unreadable but softer than it had been in days, in weeks. He didn’t try to argue, didn’t try to convince her that there was still something to hold on to, that there was still hope. He just nodded, as if he understood that some things couldn’t be fixed, that some things weren’t meant to be saved.

For a long while, neither of them spoke. They just stood there, watching the water rise, watching the tide pull things in and let them go, one after another. It was the kind of silence that Mara had been waiting for, the kind of silence that didn’t need to be filled with words.

When Elias finally spoke again, his voice was soft, almost reluctant. “You’re right,” he said. “Maybe it’s not about what we leave behind, but what we let go of.”

Mara nodded, her chest feeling lighter than it had in days. Maybe that was it, after all. Maybe the flood wasn’t the end of everything. Maybe it was just the beginning of something else, something she couldn’t see yet, something she didn’t need to see. It wasn’t about the town. It wasn’t about the boat or the house or the ghosts of the past. It was about what was left, what she could carry forward.

The rain began to ease up, the sound of it thinning out, and the world seemed to exhale, as if it, too, had been waiting for the moment when everything could finally fall away.

Mara took a deep breath, and for the first time in a long while, she didn’t feel the weight of the past pressing on her shoulders. She didn’t feel the need to fix anything, to make sense of it. She was standing in the flood, and it was okay. She could feel it—the release, the letting go. And she knew, without needing to explain it, that it was enough.

Elias didn’t speak again, but he didn’t need to. He stood beside her, the two of them facing the water, watching the way it moved, the way it took things, and left other things behind.

The flood had come, and it was both the end and the beginning. And in that moment, Mara realized that she was no longer afraid of it. She was no longer afraid of what it might take.

All she had to do was let it happen.