Chapter 5:
The house on Willowmere Lane looked like it was holding its breath. The paint had long surrendered to gray, shingles curled like parchment, and ivy climbed its brick skin as though trying to choke out the life inside. Mortimer had been there many times, but each visit unsettled him. Not because of the old man who lived within, but because of the one window in the sitting room—the one that had never been opened in thirty years.
The old man, Mr. Calloway, sat in his worn armchair with a wool blanket across his knees. His hands trembled when he reached for the teacup Mortimer had brought him, though whether from age or something heavier, Mortimer could not say.
"You're staring at it again," Calloway rasped, his eyes narrowing at Mortimer. His voice was dry as the crackling wood in the fireplace. "The window. People always do."
"Because it seems unnatural," Mortimer replied, his tone gentle. "Windows are meant to be opened."
Calloway barked a laugh, short and bitter. "Not that one."
Mortimer tilted his head, studying the frame. Dust clung to the sill like a second skin. The latch was rusted over, but the glass was spotless, as though the man polished it every morning. The contradiction intrigued Mortimer. "Thirty years is a long time to keep something sealed."
"Long enough," Calloway muttered, sipping his tea with a shaky hand. "You don't understand. You're young. Life hasn't yet taught you where to look, and where not to look."
Mortimer leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Then teach me."
For a moment, the fire's crackle was the only sound. The old man's eyes flicked to the window, then back to Mortimer, a storm moving behind his gaze. "When my wife died," Calloway began slowly, "she was sitting right there, by that window. The doctor had gone, the neighbors had left, and I—fool that I was—thought opening it might help her breathe easier. A rush of air, I told myself. A kindness." He paused, and the corners of his mouth quivered. "But she died before I touched the latch. And so I swore I'd never open it. Not then, not ever. To open it would mean letting her last breath escape."
Mortimer listened in silence. The story had the weight of ritual, polished by decades of retelling. Yet beneath it, he heard something else: not grief alone, but fear.
"You've kept it closed all these years," Mortimer said softly. "Not to hold her breath inside, but to keep something else out."
Calloway's teacup rattled against its saucer. "What nonsense—"
"No," Mortimer pressed, his voice firm but calm. "You're not afraid of losing her. You're afraid of what might come rushing in if you let the world through that frame again. Afraid of life moving on without her. Afraid of air that doesn't remember her."
The old man's lips parted, but no words came. His hand gripped the armrest as though anchoring himself.
Mortimer rose and crossed to the window. He did not touch the latch, only placed his hand against the glass. It was cold. "You've made this pane into a shrine," he said. "But shrines are for memory, not prisons. You've locked yourself in, Mr. Calloway, and every year the lock grows tighter."
"Stop," the old man whispered. His eyes were wet now, his body trembling. "You don't know what it is to live with absence."
Mortimer turned, meeting his gaze with steady compassion. "Absence is all I know. That's why I see it so clearly in you."
The old man's breath hitched, as though something inside him had cracked. The firelight caught the wet sheen on his cheeks, and for the first time in three decades, he looked at the window not as a tomb but as a mirror.
"You think I'm afraid of air?" he asked, his voice breaking.
"Yes," Mortimer said gently. "Air that doesn't carry her laughter. Air that doesn't bend around her chair. Air that reminds you she is gone, and you are still here. That is what you fear."
Calloway's chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven pulls. Then, slowly, he nodded, the movement small, as though admitting it cost him more than words ever could.
Mortimer stepped back, allowing silence to settle again. Outside, dusk pressed against the glass, heavy and purple, the world waiting to be let in.
"I can't," Calloway whispered, his voice almost childlike. "Not tonight."
"No one asks you to," Mortimer replied, returning to his seat. "But the truth has been named. That is the first opening."
The old man closed his eyes, and for the first time in years, his body seemed to unclench. The blanket slipped from his knees, and he did not reach to fix it.
The fire crackled on, filling the space between them. And though the window remained shut, Mortimer knew something in the room had shifted. It was not yet the rush of air, not yet the full breath of freedom—but it was the faint stirring of a heart that had lived too long in stillness.