Patsy cups her stomach as she stands outside his trailer. The weather is warm and the sun shines across the bleak, unkempt landscape as a slight breeze plays with her light blond hair. Through large, dark sunglasses, she takes in the house, the sprawling field beyond it, and the silent emptiness. She remembers their hopeful plans, and she wonders how it all went wrong.

Slowly, she walks along the gravel path to the front door. The yellow police tape drapes in a loose X. Her finger traces it without touching the plastic. She looks around once before gripping the tape and pulling it away. She opens the door and the putrid smell of rotting food rolls out of the trailer.

Patsy pauses then. The pain and confusion war within her as she relives those moments as if they run on an endless loop. She first saw it on the news. She watched the grainy footage of two bodies covered in white sheets. And she learned that they were both gone, forever. Liam shot by Drew. Drew shot by the police after a violent standoff in the woods. She tried to return home, only to find a swarm of reporters outside the house. Everything after that was a blur, running, hiding, and eventually giving in to the crushing reality. She gave an interview and was blindsided by the reporter, who had somehow found out about her pregnancy. She became the victim. The press lauded her as they tore Liam and Drew down. An anonymous source reported that bones were found at the scene, and that their father’s death would be reopened as a murder investigation. More and more stories of the Brennan brothers leaked. Some she knew to be true. Others, she might never know.

Days passed. Eventually, the pull grew too strong. Standing outside the trailer, though, Patsy can’t put into words what has drawn her to this place. Her family urged her to move away, run from the story before it identified her and the life of her child forever. She would do that, too. Without regret. Yet she could not leave, though. Not without understanding.

Holding her breath, she walks into the trailer. The air is thick and still. The furniture has been moved. She assumes the place has been searched by the police. Whatever she hopes to find would most likely have been removed. Yet something draws her inside.

As she passes a stained, threadbare couch, her hand runs along the top. Her head turns, and she sees it by the back window. The painting hangs on an easel, a pile of brushes and paints on the counter. A ragged hole pierces the right corner. The fabric folds over itself, blocking her view of the picture.

Slowly, through the crushing pain, she takes her first step. Then the next. She reaches the painting, standing at arm’s length, staring. Patsy reaches out, lifting that corner, exposing Liam’s final work of art.

The painting is overwhelmingly beautiful in the raw pain that marks every inch. Thin, umber strokes outline a face. The iridescent skin. Gaunt cheeks and bright red lips. Shades of blackness fall out from under a blue-and-white headscarf. Long, skeletal fingers, tipped with perfectly manicured nails a fiery red, reach out as if they might tear free from the canvas and touch her cheek. The deep lines of an exposed collarbone. The perfect 1960s movie star.

And the eyes. They stare back at her, full of life. The sharpness of the color, the line of her lids, the deep and sharp contours, the play of shadow and brightness. She feels the strength, the power that now seems to fill the room. In the clarity of those eyes, his mother’s eyes, she sees Liam anew.

She lets go of the canvas. It’s not what she’s here to see. Patsy looks above the door, the space over the cabinet, everywhere they had discussed putting a camera. There are none. She searches through the trailer, hoping to find just one. But there is nothing. No cameras. No surveillance. Nothing to hint that Liam ever intended to follow their plan.

Patsy holds her stomach. She imagines she can feel the baby growing inside her. And all she can do is pray her son will take after his uncle, not his father.