The dream was a mouth.

Not a human mouth. Not the pink, fleshy thing that tasted strawberries or whispered secrets. It was a cavern of wet stone, vast and dark, where the air hung heavy with the scent of rotting apples and old copper. In the dream, Thomas stood on a ledge of slick slate, holding a white pill. It was impossibly large, the size of a marble, glowing with a soft, sickly luminescence. It pulsed in his palm like a second heart.

Wake up.

Thomas blinked. The ceiling of his bedroom was a blur of beige plaster. The light from the window was thin, gray, filtering through the dust motes that danced in the stagnant air. He was ten years old. He lay still, his heart hammering against his ribs, the phantom weight of the pill still lingering in his right hand. He opened his fingers. Empty. He closed them again. Tight.

"Thomas."

His mother’s voice drifted through the doorway. Soft. Tired. It was the voice of a woman who had been awake too long, who had been drinking too much tea that no longer tasted of anything but water.

"I'm here, Mom."

He sat up. The sheets were tangled around his legs. The room smelled of the damp wool of his socks, which lay in a heap by the bed, and the faint, metallic tang of the radiator ticking as it cooled. Outside, the city of Ashford groaned. The trams clattered on their tracks. The factory whistles blew in a ragged symphony, marking the start of another shift for men who would come home smelling of oil and sweat.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed. His bare feet hit the cold floorboards. He needed to go to her. He always needed to go to her. It was a physical compulsion, a gravity that pulled him toward the kitchen, toward the source of her exhaustion.

The kitchen was small, cramped between the dining room and the back hall. The linoleum floor was cracked near the sink, a brown stain spreading like a map of some inland sea. Margaret stood at the stove, her back to him. She wore her blue cardigan, the one with the fraying elbows. Her hair was pinned up, loose strands falling around her face. She was stirring a pot. The spoon clinked against the metal.

"Did you sleep?" she asked. She did not turn around.

"No. I had a dream."

"About what?"

He hesitated. The white pill. The cavern. The smell of rot.

"Nothing important," he said.

Margaret turned then. Her face was pale, drawn at the temples. She had dark circles under her eyes, shadows that seemed to deepen with every passing week. She looked at him with an intensity that made his stomach tighten. She was not looking at his face. She was looking at his hands.

"Show me," she said.

He held up his hands. They were clean. Small. Childish.

"Your left hand," she said.

He turned his left hand over. The palm was soft, the lines faint.

She reached out and took it. Her fingers were cold. She traced the line of his life, the line that ran from his wrist to the base of his thumb. Her touch was gentle, but her eyes were hard.

"It’s getting longer," she whispered.

"Getting longer?"

"The line. It’s stretching."

Thomas looked down at his hand. He didn’t see it. He didn’t see any difference. But he saw the fear in her eyes, and that was enough. He pulled his hand back.

"I’m hungry, Mom."

Margaret blinked. The tension in her shoulders eased, just slightly. She turned back to the stove. She poured a cup of tea. It was pale, weak. She handed it to him.

"Drink," she said. "It will help."

He drank. It tasted of dust.

They ate breakfast in silence. Toast. Jam that had gone dry. The toast was stale, the edges hard as stone. Thomas chewed slowly. He watched his mother. She ate nothing. She just sat there, her hands wrapped around her cold cup, her eyes fixed on a point on the wall that seemed to be moving.

"Mom, are you okay?"

"I’m fine, Thomas."

"You look tired."

"I am tired."

"Why?"

"Because I am keeping it."

"Keeping what?"

She did not answer. She reached into her cardigan pocket. She pulled out a small, white object. A pill. It was the same size as the one in the dream. It glowed, just slightly, in the dim light of the kitchen.

Thomas stopped chewing. The piece of toast sat in his mouth, dry and tasteless.

"What is that?" he asked.

"It’s for me," she said.

"You don’t look sick."

"I am sick," she said. "I am very sick. But I am not letting it go."

"Letting what go?"

"The time," she said. "It is eating me, Thomas. It is eating us. And I am trying to stop it."

She held the pill up. It pulsed. The light from it was blue, cold, and steady.

"If I take it," she said, "I will remember everything. Every moment. Every second. I will not lose anything. I will not forget you."

Thomas looked at the pill. He looked at his mother. He saw the way her hands trembled. He saw the way her breath hitched in her throat. He realized, with a sudden, sharp clarity, that she was not talking about a medical condition. She was talking about the fading. The slow erosion of her mind, her body, her place in the world. The industrial city outside was grinding on, indifferent to their small, desperate struggle. The factories did not care that his mother was trying to hold onto a piece of her soul.

"Mom," he said. His voice was small. "What if it hurts?"

She smiled. It was a sad smile. A broken thing.

"It always hurts," she said. "But forgetting hurts more."

She put the pill in her mouth. She swallowed.

Thomas watched her. He waited for the light to explode from her. He waited for her to glow. He waited for the change.

Nothing happened.

She sat there. She looked at him. Her eyes were clear. But there was something else in them now. A hollowness. A depth.

"I remember," she said.

"Remember what?"

"Everything," she said. "I remember the day I met your father. I remember the rain. I remember the song we sang in the car. I remember the smell of his jacket. I remember it all. It is all here."

She touched her temple.

"But Thomas, look at me."

He looked.

Her face was the same. But her eyes were different. They were wide. Terrified.

"I cannot stop it," she whispered. "I remember every moment of pain. Every moment of loss. I remember the death of the dog. I remember the argument with your father. I remember the cold. I remember the loneliness. It is all so loud, Thomas. It is so loud."

She began to cry. Not the soft, quiet tears of before. But a wailing, ragged sound that shook her whole body.

"I wanted to keep you," she said. "I wanted to keep us together. But I cannot hold it all. It is too much. It is breaking me."

Thomas felt a coldness spread through his chest. He looked at his hands. He looked at the white pill in the dream, the one that had promised preservation, that had promised a way out of the dark. He had thought it was a gift. He had thought it was a way to stop the erosion.

He realized now that it was not a gift. It was a burden.

Knowledge was not power. It was a weight. And his mother had taken it on, to save them, and it was crushing her.

"Mom," he said.

She was shaking. She was falling apart.

"Stop," he said.

She looked at him. Confused.

"Let it go," he said.

"I can’t," she said. "I promised."

"You didn’t promise," he said. "You just wanted to."

He stood up. He crossed the kitchen. He stood in front of her. He put his hands on her shoulders. They were shaking.

"Let it go," he said again. "Let it go."

She looked into his eyes. She saw the truth there. The truth that he knew, even if she did not. That holding on was the thing that was killing her. That the only way to save her was to let the time pass. To let the memories fade. To let the pain dissolve into the gray air of the morning.

She closed her eyes.

She took a breath.

And she let go.

The light in her eyes faded. The tension in her body relaxed. She slumped in her chair. She was just a woman. Tired. Old. Human.

Thomas sat down. He picked up his toast. He chewed. It tasted of nothing. But it was real.

The sun was rising. The gray light was turning into gold. The trams outside were ringing. The city was waking up.

His mother opened her eyes. She looked at him. She did not recognize him.

"Who are you?" she asked.

Thomas smiled. It was a small, sad smile.

"I’m Thomas," he said. "I’m your son."

She frowned. She reached for her tea. Her hand was steady.

"Thomas," she repeated. "Yes. I remember. I remember you."

She drank the tea. It was warm.

"Did you sleep?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "I slept well."

She nodded. She began to clear the table. The dishes clinked. The sound was normal. The sound of life.

Thomas watched her. He felt a strange peace. The white pill was gone. The cavern was gone. The weight was gone.

He had lost her. Not to death. But to the inevitable. To the natural order of things. To the time that could not be stopped.

And it was better.

He stood up. He went to the door. He opened it. The hallway was bright. The morning light flooded in.

He stepped out.

He did not look back.

He knew that she would forget him. Again. And again. And again.

And he would be there.

Every time.

He walked down the stairs. The steps creaked under his feet. He went out into the street. The air was cold. It stung his nose.

He walked.

The city stretched out before him, vast and indifferent. The factories smoked. The trams clattered. The people moved.

He was a small boy in a big world.

And the world was pale.

And the path was long.