Dinner was an autopsy. Thorn slid his knife with forensic precision between skin and fine white bone, neatly separating his meal into slimy flakes of fish, peeling back silvery skin and gently prying out each little needle that lay like hazardous lace over the alleged ‘edible’ part. The de-boned fish itself he pushed to a quarantine corner of his plate, safely away from the vegetables and potato.

He didn’t know why his father insisted on serving it to him in the first place.

The meal was silent, almost peaceful, nothing but the gentle scrape of forks on plates, soft chewing. Grandma hadn’t started crying yet.

Thorn watched them from behind the protective curtain of his hair, long and loose to annoy his father. School couldn’t actually compel him to cut it, only to tie it up, so it remained a small rebellion between them. His father’s head was bowed, focused on the food in front of him, and he made no effort at conversation. Across the table, Thorn’s maternal grandparents ate in similar solemnity. Occasionally, his grandfather patted his grandmother’s hand. The same as every other year.

When he was younger, Thorn had insisted that they keep an empty chair at the table, an extra plate, in case she came home. He’d dreamed it would be like a movie, they’d all be here, the table set, and his mother would just walk in, the same way she’d walked out, without a word. He’d run over, welcome her home, and she’d smile. He’d drag her over to the fridge to look at all the pictures he’d drawn while she was away. She’d hug him and tell him she was proud, greet the rest of the family. And it would be a proper family, sitting down together, laughing as they ate. He could almost remember her face.

Thorn drew patterns in the fish sauce around the edges of his plate. There was no extra chair anymore. Statistically, the chances of a Missing Person coming home after ten years were remote. He’d done the research.

“Just eat it, Thorn,” his father snapped at last, cutlery jangling against the table as he slammed his hands down to begin the day’s traditional argument.

“Not hungry.”

His father made a sound of annoyance, not dissimilar to a growl. Grandpa hmmed in warning, and Grandma sunk lower in her chair, shoulders slumping. It was a secret, silent conversation of glances between the adults. His father lost.

Thorn continued to deconstruct his fish, refusing to look up.

“How’s school, Thorn?” asked Grandpa, to defuse the timebomb tension.

He shrugged. “They don’t let me paint.”

It was the worst thing about Hillworth, the insistence on stamping out creativity. It was costing more than his allowance to replace the colours and brushes that got confiscated, but they couldn’t give him paper and expect him not to draw.

“Your mother likes to paint,” said Grandma. And that was a surprise, a painful one. They’d never mentioned it before, and he didn’t remember…

“Liked,” said his father.

Before Thorn could ask more about his mother’s painting, his grandmother dissolved into the not-unexpected tears. Thorn hated to watch her cry. It drew a black hole at the pit of his stomach, a rising ink tide that closed off his throat too. In his father’s house, he did still have paint, and dry brushes stored. Maybe even a canvas in his old room. It didn’t matter. He would paint the walls if he had to. The emotion swept over him, that should have been tears, like his grandmother’s, or anger like his father’s, but instead was just a well of feeling that needed to be cut open and bled out before he exploded.

He pushed his chair back from the table, abandoning his meal.

“Sit down and eat your dinner!” his father roared, standing also. Grandpa was bent to comfort Grandma, and her soft sobs were louder in Thorn’s ears than the command.

“Mom wouldn’t make me,” he said, voice surprisingly steady and even. That only seemed to rile up his father more.

“Your mother is not here! She’s gone. She’s-”

Thorn lashed out an arm, catching the edge of his plate and sending it spinning onto the floor with a crash, fish and bones and sauce all mixed together at his father’s feet, cutting off what he would have said next. Thorn fled the dining room, back to his mostly-empty bedroom at the back of the house.

Slammed the door.

Saying the words made it real. They’d gone ten whole years without saying it. Thorn wasn’t going to hear it now. She wasn’t… She could still come back. She could.


(777 words)