Time stopped... for a moment.
The table turned silent—no plates shifting, no glasses trembling—like a fragment of midnight carved in wood.
Faces froze in that moment, mouths hanging open, swallowing nothing but shock.
Among the tall bookshelves stood Jeremy, alive, wearing a counterfeit smile.
He crushed their dreams, their ambitions, and swallowed the bitterness of truth.
Silence lingered.
Not because words were scarce—But because the tongue could no longer bear the weight of what it had seen.
His son's—those he raised through years, those he loved, those he once believed were his sole achievement—Were now dividing his wealth, claiming his death long before it happened.
The youngest son stood.
Steps unsteady, voice trembling as if knocking on the door of a sin he knew was his:
" Father… we thought you were dead."
He tried to embrace Jeremy, but Jeremy raised his hand.
A single gesture—enough to sever whatever remained between them:
" No more false love. I saw everything behind the mirrors. I saw every plan. how not one of you missed me, not for a second.
And let me confess something…I always knew you wouldn't.I always saw who you truly were, but I was lie to myself because I still remembered your eyes when you were children...I told myself no matter what, no matter what they do, no matter how they change…they will remain my children, and I will remain their father.But now… that hope is buried, just as you buried my identity."
Aunt Madeline collapsed to the floor.
Her tears spilled without weight, begging for forgiveness arriving too late:
" I'm sorry, Father… we made a mistake."
Jeremy did not look at her for long.
He no longer saw anything in their tears—just meaningless water:
"Stand up. Enough. Stay away."
"I never imagined you would go this far… to murder an innocent man.
For what? Money? You sold your dignity… your humanity… for money.
I suppose I failed as a father.Now I want you to leave my home. All of you. And do not return.I won't tell the police, even if that makes me complicit in the crime of that poor man…But what else can I do? I am a father… and you are my children. Even if you betrayed me, I cannot do the same in return...Go. Please. Leave. And never come back.Even when I die… don't visit my grave. You would only disturb the dead with your cheap performance."
His words landed like cold blades.
The children stood there, stunned. They looked at their parents as if seeking an explanation from the generation that raised them into this ruin.
Minutes passed before they began packing their belongings—family after family.
Every backward glance was a desperate attempt to cling to the past…
But Jeremy did not raise his eyes.
He understood now—he was the guilty one.
He never taught them what family means, what love means, what it means to be yourself beneath a shared roof.
He was broken… and broke them with him.
Everyone left.
Only Madeline's family remained, gathering their final chaos.
Before leaving, her daughter paused before him—one last try to squeeze meaning from this collapse:
" Why did you do this?"
Jeremy stayed silent.
He raised his head after long seconds and spoke with a calm she had never known in him:
" The doctor told me I would die soon. So I decided to see your true, complete faces before I died… and I wish I had died before doing so."
She whispered:
" Father…"
And he cut the thread that no longer belonged in his heart:
" I'm sorry… I am not your father anymore. you buried him... your real father."
As she turned to leave, Jeremy took Emmanuel's hand—
the quiet boy who had watched him the whole time, with innocent eyes, the eyes of someone pleading for rescue.
" You may go now. Emmanuel stays with me."
He is like me… he is alone among you.
Madeline left without turning back, as if Emmanuel meant nothing to her
a mere name her son leaned on for success.
When the last door closed and only Jeremy and Emmanuel remained, Jeremy returned to the main room.
He sat slowly in the chair, staring at the empty seats before him.
His body trembled, his face mournful, yet without tears.
Emmanuel approached, held Jeremy's hand firmly, and said:
" You are not alone. I've always seen you… even behind the walls."
Jeremy stared at him, voice scraping its way from a soul shredded by years:
"What do you mean?"
" No one asked why you disappeared, no one tried to find the truth. They only searched for your money.I searched for you—inside my mind.I knew you were watching us through the walls, through the mirrors.When Aunt hit me… I wasn't smiling for myself.I was smiling for you—because I could see you, and I knew you could see me too."
" You're right… we're alike, son. Both of us alone, even surrounded by a great family.They see money when they look at me… and they see intellect when they look at you.Em, son… I'm sorry I let Madeline hurt you."
" It's okay… it didn't hurt."
Jeremy:
" Yes… you're right."
But how did you know I was hiding behind the walls?
Emmanuel lifted his hands with childlike excitement:
" There were ants always crawling out from under the bookshelf, carrying crumbs. That was the first suspicion.Then I studied the house's design and the family's game—I realized you had been watching the whole time.
And when I finally saw you step out… I laughed for the first time.Because their faces… you should've seen them—so shocked that Aunt Madeline choked."
Jeremy laughed—a fractured smile breaking through bruised pride:
" Yes… I saw it."
They laughed together.
It was the first crack in their isolation.
After that, Jeremy and Emmanuel lived together—surrounded by servants, but untouched by loneliness.Jeremy never stopped admiring Emmanuel's brilliance.
He would repeat:
"Em,son you are special… incredibly special."
Emmanuel would ask:
" Does "special" mean "strange"?"
Jeremy said:
"No. "Strange" means honest.but In these days, if you're honest and realistic, they call you strange.So remain as you are, my boy… because that is your essence."
During those years, Jeremy turned the sin toward himself.
Despite everything his children had done, he still revolved around them.
But sins do not vanish on their own.
He took responsibility for them.
He told the police he was confused, lost,that the homeless man had stolen his wallet and identity.He defended them—and carried the guilt alone.
For four long years, he visited the homeless man's grave every week, placed a flower, and whispered:
" I'm sorry..."
_
1971
_
During those years, Emmanuel smiled often—but he never cried. He grew tall, slender, beautiful—and above all, brilliant.Still at a young age, he attended advanced scientific lectures,debating professors with ideas that cracked old frameworks.
One day, Jeremy returned to the clinic—the one where the doctor had sentenced him to an early death.He wanted to say to him with a faint smirk: "Doctor…look I am still alive, after four years."
But when he reached the floor— there was no one.
The office was abandoned.
Only a family photo of the doctor remained, smiling at a life untouched by tragedy.
He asked someone nearby.
The answer came, indifferent to its weight:
"The doctor died… he and his family. A car accident."
Jeremy froze.
Silence had no wings,
yet it perched on his shoulders like the entire sky.
The man spoke:
"Sir… sir, what's wrong?"
" Nothing… I just didn't expect that.When we met, I was closer to death than he was… and now he's gone before me.It's strange."
The man said:
"No one knows how close death is until it happens.The world is full of surprises."
Jeremy returned home.
Entered the art room, where Emmanuel stood over his plaster sculptures,
shaping silence with his hands.
" What do you think?"
Jeremy chuckled:
" Good… but I think the nose is a bit too big."
Emmanuel smiled:
" Yes… I overdid it. I'll fix it."
Jeremy nodded:
" I'll be leaving."
Em said:
" Leaving? Where? To the cemetery… again...Wait, I'll come with you. I have to visit my mother and father as well."
They left together, in a car driven by a chauffeur who never spoke.
At the cemetery, they always began with Brad and his wife…
Then Jeremy walked toward the homeless man's grave,
Emmanuel trailing behind, asking with a mind that questions everything:
" You still visit him? That man? Even now? When will it stop?"
Jeremy's voice deep, the kind forged in remorse:
" It will stop when I die.It is guilt, Em.Once you feel it… it never leaves you until death."
[ They say guilt floats… but it never sinks.]
They stood above the grave in long silence.
The sky prepared its own tears.
Emmanuel turned:
" Let's go… looks like it's going to rain."
But Jeremy did not reply.
He collapsed forward—face down on the soil of the homeless man's grave,
the grave that should have been his.
He fell… and his soul rose like a bird that has finally found its final path.
Emmanuel rushed—checked his pulse.
Nothing.
Only silence responded.
In his chest, a feeling without a name…
A need to cry without a path to his eyes.
He looked up, voice trembling:
" Why?"
"Why can't I cry?"
He was the dearest person I had…
"If I don't cry now… will that be betrayal?"
But his eyes did not weep.
They didn't need to.
The rain began—and washed everything.
Emmanuel stared at the sky—expressionless—his grandfather gone the only world he ever had.