sweetlangdon:

Imagine if Nora Montgomery had been the first to find Michael after Constance’s death…

She’s a little clueless and shallow sometimes, sure, but after decades of being trapped in this house, she’s become well-attuned to the sound of a crying child. The phantom weeping of Michael’s twin brother that echoes through the hallways at night. The shrieking of her own son that still torments her from time to time. Infants’ wailing tends to grate on her already frayed nerves, but a child? Her heart breaks for Michael, this confused, traumatized, lost child in a growing boy’s body, who doesn’t yet know how process loss and blames himself.

Nora kneels next to him and pulls him into a gentle embrace, painted fingernails threading softly through his curls in an attempt to comfort him as he continues to cry into her shoulder.

“I’m a monster,” Michael sobs, wrenching himself away from Nora, his face wet with tears, his eyes red and bloodshot.



“I’ve met plenty of monsters, my dear,” Nora tells him, brushing her knuckles across his cheek. She dabs at his tears with her handkerchief. “You are no such thing.”

