Page 34 of Victorious

“Ian,” he said. His son looked up. “There’s a basketball hoop in the drive. Why don’t you go outside and play?”

A command, softened into a suggestion. The old Iris would approve.

The new one simply stared.

Ian rose obediently and walked out, leaving them alone.

Gabriel set the pencil down and rose, wincing as the pain sharpened in his side. “Iris.”

Her head swiveled toward him, eyes brightening a little. “Gabe.”

He came to sit by her. “Tell me what you remember,” he said. “About the accident.”

It was a tired line of questioning, one he’d engaged in every single day these past two months, hoping to elicit some response. If nothing else, a flicker of annoyance. The old Iris hated repetition.

The new one simply met his gaze.

“I woke up when I heard the sound,” she began, and while she spoke, he searched her face for signs of stress, fear, an echo of the trauma. But her eyes stayed steadily on his as she recounted each and every moment, waking Ian, waiting with him in his room, the way the house began to shake, the way part of the hall gave way as they tried to reach the stairs, and him.

She told the story with complete detachment, like it belonged to someone else, which wasn’t itself uncommon for those who’d experienced trauma. What was strange was that this was how she now recounted every memory, whether he asked about the night she (almost) died, or the day they’d met. The details did not escape her, but they’d been stripped of meaning, weight.

“How are you feeling now?” he asked, even though he knew she wouldn’t tell him. “Is there anything you need? Anything you want?”

A shallow smile rippled on her face. “What do you want?”

Gabriel ran a hand through his short hair. “I’m asking you, Iris,” he said. “Are you tired? Are you hungry? Are you happy?” The questions garnered nothing. “Answer me,” he snapped, as if the tone itself might jar her loose. They had so rarely fought, before, but when they did, she’d always been the one to raise her voice.

Now, she cocked her head. “What should I say?”

“Think for yourself. You are not some vapid doll,” he snapped. “You’re my partner. My wife. I want you to stand up to me. I want you to fight back.”

A muscle twitched between her brows, and for a moment—only a moment—he thought he’d finally gotten through to her. That all he’d needed to do was grant permission, that her agency was a thing he could hand back.

But then her expression smoothed again, and Gabriel, who was not a man to lose his temper, felt like he might scream. The air in the room was tightening, as if the house were leaning in. Threatening to fall again. He turned toward the back door, needing the air to breathe, to think.

“Don’t you dare walk out,” Iris had yelled at him once, in the middle of an argument.

Now she simply watched him leave.

Gabriel Gray stepped into the evening air, and sighed, frustration building like a headache. His pulse thudded dully in his head, echoed by Ian, who was standing in the drive, dribbling a ball with the same metronomic beat.

Gabriel started, haltingly, across the gardens. Away from his son. Away from the house. He looked back once and saw Iris watching from behind the floor-to-ceiling windows, one hand lifted to the glass. Waiting for him to come back.

He walked until the house was out of sight. Until he was almost to the woods. Until the ache in his side made it hard to breathe, and he sank onto a stump, and drew up the voice notes on his phone.

He hit RECORD and began to speak.

“I hoped it was a persistent form of shock,” he said, “even cognitive impairment. Trauma can be processed. Skills relearned. But ever since they woke up…”

That was how he tried to think of it. A helpful euphemism, a layer of remove.

Waking up, after all, was a natural function.

Coming back from the dead was not.

“As far as I can tell, they are technically alive. But…”

But they were not themselves.