Is That Mom

Part 1 of Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

Breaking the Silence

—

Part 1:

The Journal's Revelation

The night was heavy with silence, a quiet so profound that it felt as though the world outside Ethan’s room had ceased to exist. The small desk lamp cast a dim, yellow light across his cluttered desk, barely illuminating the pages of the journal that lay open in front of him. The air was still, suffused with the faint scent of old paper and dust, mingling with the bitter aroma of the cold coffee cups strewn around him. Ethan's eyes were bloodshot, the result of countless sleepless nights spent poring over the journal, searching for answers that had always seemed just out of reach.

Tonight, however, something felt different. He could sense it—the way the words on the page seemed to pulse with a life of their own, drawing him in, urging him to look closer. He had read these entries a hundred times, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he had missed, a key detail that would finally make everything click into place.

The journal was his mother’s, a battered, leather-bound book filled with her neat, flowing handwriting. It was the one thing she had left behind, the one tangible piece of her that Ethan could cling to. He traced his fingers over the words, feeling a strange sense of closeness to her, as if she were speaking to him from beyond the grave. The entries were fragmented, cryptic, filled with references to things he didn’t understand. But tonight, he felt a new urgency, a desperate need to make sense of it all.

As he flipped through the pages, his eyes landed on a passage he had read many times before but had never truly understood. It was dated just a few weeks before she disappeared:

"I have to be careful. They’re getting closer. I need to make sure Ethan is safe. If anything happens, he must never know the truth. It’s too dangerous."

Ethan’s heart pounded as he read the words, a mix of dread and curiosity washing over him. He had always known his mother was hiding something, but this was the first time he truly grasped the depth of her fear. She had been planning to leave, not because she wanted to disappear, but because she was in danger. She had been trying to protect him, to keep him safe from whatever threat had been closing in on her.

The realization hit him like a punch to the gut. His mother hadn’t been a victim of some random disappearance—she had been running. From whom? From what? The questions surged through his mind, each one more frantic than the last. Ethan felt his throat tighten, a lump of emotion he could barely swallow. He wanted to scream, to cry out in frustration, but all he could do was sit there, staring at the words, trying to process what they meant.

For so long, he had felt abandoned, left to wonder why she had never come back, why she had left him behind without a word. But now, he realized, she hadn’t wanted to leave. She had been forced to. The thought was both comforting and devastating. Comforting, because it meant she hadn’t willingly abandoned him; devastating, because it meant she had been afraid, terrified even, and he hadn’t been there to help her.

He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at it as if the pain might help him focus. The journal entries seemed to blur together, and for a moment he had to close his eyes, fighting back the wave of emotions threatening to overwhelm him. Anger, sorrow, confusion—they all swirled inside him, mingling with a newfound determination. His mother had been trying to protect him, and she had paid the price. Whatever danger she had been running from, it was still out there, lurking in the shadows, and Ethan was more determined than ever to find out what it was.

The ticking of the clock on his wall was the only sound in the room, each tick echoing in the stillness, marking the passing of time. It felt like a countdown, a reminder that he was running out of time to find the truth. Ethan opened his eyes and looked at the journal again, searching for any clue, any hint that might tell him more about who or what had been threatening his mother.

His eyes skimmed over the next entry, and then the one after that, but they were just as cryptic, filled with vague references and half-finished thoughts. He wanted to scream, to tear the pages out and throw them across the room, but he forced himself to stay calm. There had to be something here, something he was missing.

He remembered the conversation he had with his grandmother a few days ago, when he had asked her, once again, if she knew anything about his mother’s disappearance. She had looked at him with that same, sad, distant expression, her eyes misting over as she told him that she didn’t know anything, that she wished she could help. But Ethan had seen the way her hands had trembled, the way she had quickly changed the subject, and he knew she was hiding something. She had always been protective of him, shielding him from the harsh realities of life, but now Ethan couldn’t help but feel that her silence was a betrayal.

A sudden surge of anger flared up inside him. Why hadn’t she told him the truth? Why had she let him believe for all these years that his mother was just another missing person, another unsolved case? If she had known something, why hadn’t she said anything? Ethan clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms. He didn’t want to be angry at his grandmother; he knew she was just trying to protect him. But he couldn’t help it. He felt like his whole life had been a lie, and he was tired of being kept in the dark.

Ethan’s gaze drifted back to the journal, and he noticed something he hadn’t seen before. A small, barely legible note scribbled in the margin of one of the pages:

"If I don’t come back, he needs to know. But he can’t find out from them."

The note was different from the rest of the entries, almost as if it had been written in haste, a last-minute addition. Ethan’s pulse quickened as he read it over and over, trying to make sense of it. Who was “them”? And what didn’t they want him to find out? He felt like he was on the verge of a breakthrough, but the pieces still weren’t fitting together.

He knew what he had to do. He needed answers, and he wasn’t going to find them sitting in his room, staring at the same cryptic journal entries he had been reading for weeks. He needed to confront his grandmother, to demand the truth, no matter how painful it might be. She was the only one who could help him make sense of this, and he wasn’t going to let her keep him in the dark any longer.

As he closed the journal and set it down on the desk, Ethan felt a strange mix of emotions. There was fear, yes—fear of what he might discover, fear of the unknown threat that had driven his mother to run. But there was also a sense of clarity, a newfound determination that he hadn’t felt in a long time. His mother had been in danger, and she had tried to protect him. Now, it was his turn to find out the truth, to finish what she had started. No matter what it took.

The clock ticked on, its rhythmic sound echoing through the room as Ethan made his decision. He would confront his grandmother tomorrow, and this time, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. The silence that had surrounded his mother’s disappearance for so long was about to be broken.