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Ray had never been the one to go crawling up to Isabella, arms spread and eyes teary, asking for a hug. He was never the one to run off to her room if he woke up from a nightmare. He had never been her pride and joy, never been the one she showered with love and affection.
He guessed that maybe, it was because she had always known. Ever since he was a baby, before he even knew, she seemed to stray away from him, hang over Emma’s crib and cradle Norman in her arms, calling over the oldest girl of the house to cradle him instead. He had caught the way she looked at him, with melancholy, her eyes filled with something he hadn’t known how to describe.
And then he turned six, and he tried to break the tracker because he knew far too much, and she found him, and they made a deal, and he never had to play as her son again. From that moment, it was never Ray, the child who lurked in the library and was never seen without a book, it became 81194, a good sheep dog who kept the children in check.
Any conversation between Ray and his mother was forced, harsh, none of the classic acting she liked to put up around the other kids. It was almost nice, to see his mother for who she was, to see her be cruel and ruthless without the facade of a doting parent blocking his view.
Her eyes were stern and unwavering. If nothing else, Ray could appreciate her resolve. Not once in his life did he see her will to live dissipate, never a flash of regret or a break in her face. In a way, he envied her ability to hold her head high and carry on despite the ghosts that floated around her. He would never be like her in that way.
When he was eight years old, Ray resolved to kill himself.
It would be a clever distraction for his mother, something that she couldn’t turn her head away from (and an easy way out for him. If he were to die, he wanted it to be right here. Right in the dining hall he had played pretend in for so many years, to have the fruits of a twelve year long stage play be ripped away before the finale.)
(And maybe a part of him loved the irony. His mother who raised herself up in an endless chase for life only for her only biological child to throw his own life away. One final act of rebellion.)
The plan popped into his head as he watched one of his older siblings strike a match to light a lantern.
If he were reading a book (an activity that he couldn’t care for in the slightest. He had already read everything worth reading by his eighth birthday.) more often than not, instead of paying attention to the words before him, he thought of his plan, and sometimes, his mother.
What would her face look like when she realized what he had done? Horror? Shock? Grief?
The last option seemed impossible. He had never been human to her. He was livestock. Cattle to be prepared and shipped by the time he turned twelve. There was no reason for a farmer to mourn the loss of a pig.
Would she despair once she realized premium goods were gone? It was unlikely, but a part of him wished his mother were weaker, weak enough to hop into the flames with him and atone right then and there. Maybe then she would realize that the whole time her son was right in front of her, clever beyond his age and more tired than any other child she had ever met. A child who was old beyond his years, forced to raise himself and build a funeral pyre on his own while his mother looked on with a pretty plastic smile.
A part of him hated her (hated what she stood for, hated the way she valued herself. Hated that in a way, she was right. Maybe she had the right mindset for this and maybe he was the one who was broken.)
Another part loved her, yearned for her attention, for once to have her say that she was proud to smile at him and hold him close without the illusions of a happy orphan and his happy mother. The reality of a desperate woman and the result of her desperation being able to find their solace in each other.
That’s what he wanted, maybe he wasn’t aware of it and maybe he refused to acknowledge it, but it was what he felt. He wanted his mother to be able to empathize with him, to wail and laugh like every other child she held in her arms. He couldn’t help the jealousy that he felt for them, to be able to be loved by someone meant to be his mother while he was forced to watch, always forced to watch.
Forced to watch his mother hold a new baby and look at it with fondness he had never known, forced to see his best friend slowly become a bit too attached to his other best friend, forced to continue on living although he always felt out of place.
Even when Grace Field was far behind them, he still felt like an outsider, hanging around the periphery of their happy life in the bunker. Still in the library reading a book (he didn't even enjoy reading that much, why the hell was he still doing it?) still standing beside Emma while she chattered on about things that didn’t involve him, still being reminded of her with every step he took.
Isabella was like the colds that Norman used to get as a child, persistent and ever present. The minute he thought he had shaken himself loose of her oppressive grip, there she would be.
Jemima accidentally calling him Mama one night as she woke crying from a nightmare.
Emma looking at him, but not seeing him, that far off expression in her eyes that was directed at someone else.
Gilda sometimes tensing up as he rounded a corner, letting out a breath of relief when she saw it was him and muttering something about them being so similar.
That widows peak of his that seemed to poke out no matter how much hair he fussed with to cover it.
It was tiring being Isabella’s son, he had learned that long ago. The aura of it hung around him like a dirty secret, something that he was sure all the other kids could see clear as day. A secret he tried to hide, trying to force his mannerisms to run opposite of hers.
Instead of her confident walk, he adopted Yuugo’s careful creep. Instead of her polite speaking, he opted instead for blatant rudeness. Instead of her humming in the dead of night, he remained silent.
Her song beat around in his chest, a caged bird wanting nothing more to be free. He had sung the melody of it twice in his life, heard it only once, and it still poked into the corners of his mind. Causing every moment to be tinged with that awful sense of her.
It wasn’t uncommon, even in the human world (especially in the human world), for him to wake up gasping and reaching up for something, finding nothing but the quiet night air, the image of fire and lanterns in the night still showing behind his eyes.
Long after she was dead and in the ground, Grace Field reduced to ash, Ray still felt the presence of them holding him back. The melody of long ago still trying to force its way out of his mind. And maybe, that was his repentance.