All Chapters of The Mercy We Bury: Chapter 1 - Chapter 3

Chapter One: What RemainsTAVIANThe morning I decided to tear down my mother’s conservatory, someone left fresh flowers inside it.White camellias. Six of them, arranged in a drinking glass on the table where she used to paint. The water was clear. Whoever had brought them had done so recently.I stood in the doorway with the demolition assessment folded in my hand.Behind me, rain tapped against the covered walkway. Somewhere above, a loose pane shifted in its frame. I hadn’t entered this room in nineteen years, but my body remembered it with an accuracy I resented: the narrow step at the entrance, the cold brass handle, the place where I needed to turn sideways because my mother always left a chair in the way.The chair was gone.For a moment, that bothered me more than the flowers.“Who’s been in here?”Severin stopped behind my shoulder. He had worked for my father before he worked for me, and still wore the same expression when something went wrong: mild disappointment, as thoug

Chapter Three: The Things We KeepTAVIANMy mother had written the dates beneath every photograph.Not just the month or the year. The day.14 June. Tavian refuses to swim.In the photograph, I stood at the edge of a pool wearing an expression I recognised. My father was waist-deep in the water, holding out his arms. My mother’s shadow fell across the paving behind me.I turned the page.22 June. He finally jumps.I had forgotten that I was ever afraid of water.The album rested across my knees. It was nearly midnight, and the sitting room lamps cast a yellow light over furniture nobody used. Across from me, a bowl of wooden fruit sat on the low table. My mother had bought it at a market because, she said, at least these wouldn’t be left to rot.Someone still dusted them.I turned another page.There were photographs of the conservatory before the vines reached the roof. My mother stood beside the unfinished mural, laughing at something outside the frame. She wore an old shirt with th