CHAPTER 8 A ROOM FULL OF MEMORIES NATE
A ROOM FULL OF MEMORIES
NATE
The lake house looks exactly the same.
Same wraparound porch. Same wide windows catching the light off the water. Same tree out front where Jake carved his initials into the bark one summer when he was nine and thought permanence could be claimed with a pocketknife.
Mom still owns it and I know she’ll never sell it.
For Mom, this house is still Jake's laughter echoing down the hallway, still the sound of him running barefoot through the kitchen, still the place where she last felt like all her children were safe under one roof.
For me, it's heavier than that.
I don't come here often. And when I do, I don't go upstairs.
I stay where the air is lighter, where memory doesn't ambush me around corners. Jake's room and Nora's room exist in my mind the way old photographs do—untouched, preserved, waiting for something I can't quite name.
Just like some doors don't need opening, there are certain kinds of grief are best left undisturbed unless you're prepared to carry them back down with you.
Today, though, the house is full.
Mom offered to host everyone before Alfie's funeral next week.
Said Kat and Nick shouldn't have to worry about feeding people or making space when they're barely holding themselves together.
So she's done what she always does when grief arrives—she's fed it.
Turned sorrow into action, transformed helplessness into something tangible she can control.
The kitchen is busy, warm, alive with the low hum of voices and the smell of food that's been cooking since dawn. Her way of loving people when words fall short.
I spot Nick near the back deck, standing with Kat, his arm around her shoulders. He looks older today—not in years, just in the way loss rearranges a person's face, settles into the lines around their eyes and mouth.
Alfie mattered to him. To all of us. But to Nick, he was everything. A father figure and mentor. The man who raised him when his own parents couldn't.
I wait until there's space, until the conversation he's in winds down naturally, then cross the room.
"How you holding up?" I ask.
Nick nods, jaw tight, working to keep his composure. "As good as I can be, I guess. Alfie raised me, you know? Feels like I lost my dad, not just my uncle."
I pull him in for a hug because this is what I can offer now. I can be steady when everything else is falling apart. I can be the person who doesn't flinch away from pain, who doesn't make it about my own discomfort.
Years of work has given me the ability to hold space for someone else without needing to fix it or escape from it.
Kat pulls me into a hug before I can step back. When she steps back, her eyes are soft but tired, rimmed with exhaustion from crying in waves over days.
"I'm glad you got to spend so much time with Alfie, Nate," she says quietly. "He loved your visits."
"Of course," I say, and mean it. "Those visits did more for me than they did for him."
She squeezes my hand once, then lets go.
She doesn't ask how I'm doing. She knows better. Today isn't about me. Today is about being present for the people who need me to be solid ground.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Julian
Have you heard from Tommy?
Tommy's antics lately have kept everyone on edge again—missed rehearsals, late arrivals, that look in his eyes I recognize too well from my own reflection years ago. The look of someone barely holding it together, performing stability while everything underneath threatens to crack.
I need to deal with it. But right now, standing in this room, surrounded by people who need me present and whole, I can't fragment myself across multiple crises.
Before I can type a response, another text comes through.
Julian
Shit, I forgot man. I'm sorry. I've got it covered. Send my condolences to Nick.
I pocket the phone. The worry doesn't leave with it, but at least Julian's handling it. One crisis deferred, even if it's just temporary.
The room presses in on me all at once. Not overwhelming exactly, just crowded. Too many voices, too many emotions bleeding into each other, too much weight in the air compressing my chest.
I need a minute. Just one. Just enough space to breathe without someone else's sorrow soaking into me.
Mom's voice floats after me as I move toward the stairs, but I don't turn around. She knows this look. Knows when to let me go, when pushing would only make me retreat further. A language we've learned together over years of my recovery—the silent negotiation of space and connection.
I'm going to do the one thing I vowed I wouldn't do when I came here today.
I go upstairs.
The upstairs hallway is quiet in a way that feels intentional, like the house itself is holding its breath.
The last of daylight spills through the tall windows at the end of the hall, catching dust motes suspended in the air, turning them golden. The wooden floors creak softly under my weight—the same familiar sounds from childhood.
Everything is exactly where it's always been. The framed photos on the walls. The slightly crooked runner rug. The doorknobs that need replacing but never get replaced because Mom says they're "part of the character."
Jake's door is the first one I pass.
I stop without meaning to, my feet making the decision before my mind catches up.
Maybe it's Alfie's death. Maybe I'm just tired of avoiding the places that hurt, tired of tiptoeing around the edges of my own history.
Whatever the reason, my hand lifts, and I turn the knob.
The room smells faintly of cedar and lake water. Like Jake's presence has soaked into the walls and furniture and can't be washed out no matter how many years pass.
His bed is made—military corners, the way Mom used to do it. The shelves still hold his books, spines worn from repeated readings. Posters curl slightly at the edges—bands he loved, surfers he idolized, places he wanted to travel to but never got the chance.
No dust on the nightstand. Fresh sheets. Mom keeps it alive. Keeps him alive, in whatever way she can manage.
"Hey, Jake," I say quietly, because silence feels like abandonment.
I sit on the edge of the bed. The mattress gives slightly under my weight.
“So uh, Alfie's gone and Ollie's gonna be a dad in few weeks." I swallow hard. “And none of it feels right without you here."
The words hang there, heavy with everything unsaid.
“I miss you, man. Everyday.”
I pat the bed then stand slowly, feeling the weight of the room settle into my bones, and leave, closing the door gently behind me.
Nora's room is just down the hall.
I don't go in at first. I lean against the opposite wall, breathing slowly, deliberately.
The evening light through the window. The texture of the wall against my back. The distant murmur of voices downstairs. I focus on what's in front of me until my pulse steadies.
I've avoided this door for seven years. Not because it hurts—though it does—but because it still matters. Because what happened in this room, what we were to each other, hasn't lost its significance just because time has passed.
Eventually, I open it.
The room is smaller than I remember, or maybe I'm just bigger now—not physically, but in the way people expand when they've lived through things.
The bedspread is pale green, her favourite colour and is neatly tucked at the corners too. The window looks out over the lake, sunlight dancing on the water, creating patterns of light and shadow that shift with the gentle movement of the surface.
Everything paused, like the room has been waiting for someone to acknowledge it.
I let myself think about the possibility I've been avoiding for days.
The funeral is next week. There's a strong chance—stronger than I want to admit—that Nora will be there because Alfie mattered to her too. He was part of the fabric of her summers here.
I sit on the edge of the bed. This is where she used to lie on her stomach, chin propped in her hands, reading or writing in notebooks she'd fill cover to cover.
Where she laughed at her own jokes before sharing them.
Where she cried the night everything fell apart between us and I didn't know how to hold her without breaking us both.
Seven years since we were together. Five years since I last saw her—since Ollie's wedding, since I watched her from across a crowded reception and realized that walking away hadn't made loving her any easier.
I've lived entire lifetimes since then. Built things. Lost things. Become someone I'm genuinely proud of, someone who shows up and does the work.
And still—somewhere inside—I'm still the boy I was when I loved her.
If I see her at the funeral, do I tell her I'm sorry? For what, exactly? For loving her the only way I knew how at the time? For letting her go when staying would've destroyed us both? For choosing survival over us?
Do I explain that I'm steady now, that I've built something solid out of the ruins? Or do I say nothing at all and let the space between us speak for itself?
Some people don't leave you, no matter how much time passes or how far you travel from who you were when you knew them.
They just become quieter, settle into a different chamber of your heart, wait there patiently for moments like this when the distance collapses and you remember exactly why letting go felt like tearing off a limb.
I sit there a while longer, letting the memory exist without trying to rewrite it. Just acknowledging that a funeral might be the thing that brings us face to face.
Whatever happens, I'll handle it the way I handle everything else now—with honesty, with presence, without running from discomfort.
I stand slowly, smoothing the bedspread, erasing the evidence of my presence, and head back toward the stairs.
Downstairs, voices rise and fall in the natural rhythm of people sharing stories.
Life continuing despite loss.