I decided to use this challenge to also show off how Irma’s Instagram would look like, but here’s a list of the favorite things to make it clearer:

Twin Peaks, her favourite TV show

Spaghetti with meatballs, favourite meal. She also loves that bowl. 

Stout beer, the darker the better.

Boxing and punching bags, her favourite way to exercise. 

Watching horror movies (and not getting scared).

Leather jacker, favourite piece of clothing.

Cats, especially black cats, favourite animal. 

MAY 19TH, 1998. 10 YEARS OLD.

Six-year old Gabriel is standing at the top of the staircase clad in teddy bear pyjamas and a pink waist coat fastened over the top, his dress shoes on his feet. Three teddy bears are stuffed under his arm. 

Roman stands at the bottom of the staircase and stares up at him with a glass of milk in his hand. The clock has struck eleven and they should both be in bed, “What are you doing? Did Mom and Dad see you get out of bed?”

“Shhh,” Gabriel says. He is more like their Father than their Mother, he has the same eyes and the same hair. His skin is lighter too like a cookie cutter version of both their parents because he is so young. “Mommy said don’t wake him up. We’re going to have a party -- we’re all going to the party. See, huh,” he gestured goofily to the teddy bears in his other arm.

Roman frowns. He is logical as a child even. He likes things that make sense but recently things don’t make much sense and Dad is always working and he doesn’t listen when Roman says something is wrong. Something is wrong with Mom and it has nothing to do with the wine bottles that she uses as decorations when she shoves flower storks and weeds inside to watch them grow. It doesn’t have to do with the collection of bottles under her bed either because those have been there for years in her bedroom -- they are not a couple, they just share a space. He is young but he knows that this is out of pity and not love, there is a difference, “We can’t have a party, it’s too late.”

A figure casts across the landing and it is his Mother with her natural black curly hair out and pinned in different places, a yellow dress laying perfectly against her skin and a pair of high heels on that he hasn’t seen in years. There has never been an occasion and she looks so happy that it makes him think that sometimes he doesn’t want everything to make sense. At least when she is smiling she is still the vision that anyone would want as their Mother -- at least momentarily she is present. 

That night they sit in the dining room until two in the Morning eating cake and playing an album that Dad got them for Christmas. He should be happy but when his Mother thinks they are both fallen asleep he watches her hide her favourite earrings underneath the kitchen sink as if someone is searching for them and he has no idea why.

JUNE 19TH, 1998. 10 YEARS OLD.

Summer Festival is a whisper in Vertmoor and so is having a Mother and a Father. The maid comes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and helps Roman with his homework and he recognises her from around town, she is 9 months pregnant and she always seems so happy but so concerned as if the life that is inside of her is weighing down on her. 

It is Wednesday afternoon when Roman is doing the dishes as per the chart that his Father set up for them last year. He’s not Dad anymore, he’s Father. She’s not Mom anymore, she’s Mother, he doesn’t understand most of what happens anymore but Gabriel is too young to understand. He’s washing up in the sink and it’s hard to see because the building work is still underway but somehow through the structure outside he sees clearly his Mother and she seems so angry, so stressed. She is pacing around and the maid, a young woman by any means with light brown hairs and lighter brown eyes is backing away but their Mother grabs her and pushes her to the ground.

The plate falls from his hand and smashes into a million pieces as he begins to scream, suddenly Father becomes Dad again in this insane moment. “Dad! Dad! Daddy!” he yells and in the distance the lock clicks open but it is too late. He sees Gabriel run out and the young boy gets knocked aside in the struggle. 

Roman runs through the back doors out into the garden and attaches himself to his Mother’s legs as he tries to pull her away but there is so much damage and blood is smeared in the grass. He notices his Mother is holding the edge of a mirror that had broken in her bedroom a week earlier and she digs it into Ana’s shoulder as she screams. “Please, miss, come to your senses,” she is saying as if she has seen something like this before.

Their Father runs outside and his face is pale as he grabs his Mother’s wrist so hard that he hears it crack backwards and it makes him sick. He grabs his brother to shelter him from what they will later call the incident. 

They never see the maid again, no one comes to help with their homework. Their Father says, “Your Mother is getting some help. She’s going to go away for a few weeks and then get some medicine that will make her better.”

Gabriel believes it but Roman doesn’t. That night the two boys sneak out of their room in the dead of the night and come downstairs, Roman has found the crawl space. He tells him, “If something bad happens then you’ll come here to hide. If you ever get scared, okay?”

JULY 28TH, 1998. 10 YEARS OLD.

Their Mother has got help. She comes home that July as if nothing ever happened and their Father acts like that too. He is too busy, the house isn’t finished. There’s no more wine bottles but there’s something strange about her and everything she does makes Roman want to get into that crawl space and never come out. When she looks at him he isn’t sure if she loves him too much or hates him entirely as if he is the reason for her misery and pain, all unvoiced. He is a feeling child but Gabriel is too young still to understand and he holds onto their Mother as if she is the only one in the world who can protect him.

Roman tells himself they will always have the crawl space. He notices how she comes alive at night and he tells Gabriel it will be a game, that they will bring the blanket inside every night and have a slumber party.

That day Roman wakes up and it is already darkening outside, it is summer so it is already late. The house is so quiet and for some reason he thinks that is a good thing, he likes to believe that maybe he was wrong about his suspicions. The magical medicine that he found a day ago unopened in her draw? Perhaps she decided to take it and make herself all better just like their Father says. 

There are footsteps in the hallway, “I was waiting for you to wake up,” his Mother says and she sounds like she means it, there is something about her smile that is genuine but she is soaking wet. The sleeves of her dress are soaked through with water all the way to her chest and half of her hair is drenched, droplets forming and dropping quietly onto the hardwood floors of his bedroom. 

“Mom,” he says, his eyebrows furrowing in the darkness, “Why are you all wet?” 

She doesn’t answer but she puts her hand out as a gesture, waiting for him to take it. He doesn’t though, he just gets off of his bed and follows her down the hallway to the bathroom. 

The bath tub is full of water, there is a pool of water at the bottom and droplets slowly coming over the edge. Even the tap is slowly and eerily dripping but she doesn’t say anything as she closes the door and slides the lock closed behind her. He might have noticed the sound if he wasn’t walking towards the bath tub wondering what was inside. 

He doesn’t scream when he sees Gabriel’s face below the water staring back at him, his heart stops in his chest and he stares at the teddy bear pyjamas. His eyes are shut as if he is sleeping and he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t make sense of the situation, he reaches inside and grabs the little boy and drags him over the edge until his heavy limp body drops to the ground in a pool. It’s only then when he’s holding him that it hits him that he is dead, not sleeping. He is not coming back. He’s never coming back. Roman starts to cry as he grips onto the body because he does not want to let go and he does not understand. 

Their Mother drops to her knees by his side and her voice is so quiet when she places her hand on the nape of his neck that he almost doesn’t hear what she is saying, “We’re all going to be together. There won’t be trouble anymore,” she promises but before he can open his mouth she is grabbing him too and his head is underwater. 

He opens his mouth to scream but he is choking on water and he can’t get Gabriel’s face out of his head. He can’t stop thinking about the little boy that she has killed. And why? What was the suffering for? What was she trying to save them from? His arms flail grabbing onto the edge of the bath tub and he manages to use his back leg to push her away. She falls backwards and her head smashes against the toilet bowl. He doesn’t stop to see if there is blood. He steps over his brothers dead body, his heart beat in his ears as he pulls the lock undone and runs as fast as he can screaming through the house in the hopes his Father will hear him. In the hopes that he will finally be the hero that all the books suggest a great Father should be but for some reason nothing comes. 

He makes it downstairs and he climbs into the crawl space and goes quiet. He does not want to be found. He can’t be found. He is rocking back and forth hoping that this is just a nightmare that he will one day wake up from -- he doesn’t know that he will never wake up, that this is his life and it will never be unwritten.

“Roman, baby, don’t you see that I’m trying to take us to a better place? I want us all to be together, I love you,” she says but he doesn’t reply because he is crying into his knees, rocking back and forth and pretending he is somewhere else. Staring into an empty space and believing that his brother is sat right there beside him. If he squints through his tears, he’s sure he can see him. 

He doesn’t know how long passes but he knows that he hears her screaming like a shot through the heart. He is terrified, he is heart broken but he doesn’t understand what is wrong with his Mother or how to make it stop. He hears her scream again and again and again and then something hard clatter to the ground.

Footsteps. His Father. He hears a thudding sound, a strange ghastly shriek that doesn’t sound like it comes from the man that he knows best through an office door. He has never heard him like that before. It makes his heart stop beating for a second. 

“Roman? Roman?” the voice calls, “Come out, Roman. It’s okay.” But it is not okay. He knows that but he crawls cautiously out of the crawl space to see his Father standing there with one hand over his mouth as if he is trying to figure out how to make sense of any of this. 

He looks to the left and he sees a bloodied knife on the ground next to his Mother who is laying there, six stab wounds directly in the chest and her eyes wide open. It almost looks like she is smiling. He might have imagined that part. 

He stands there for a few seconds and then he opens his mouth and starts to scream again. All that loss. All that pain. Why didn’t the man behind the door listen? Why didn’t he stop it? Why is Gabriel dead? Why is she dead? Why is everyone that ever loved him dead but the two of them are still alive in that big unfinished house? He is still screaming when his Father wraps his arms around him -- this has never happened before -- he feels his tears drip onto his shoulder as he pulls him out of the room and when they drop together in the hallway he tells Roman, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” but it is already too late. 

The papers never report it, the town never hears about it, Gabriel and his Mother disappear into Vidal Athanas’ archive of secrets for the sake of his perfect house and all his dreams. 

But Roman remembers, and he knows that he will never forgive him. Sometimes he still sees Gabriel in the crawl space.