Work Text:
“That may have been the first and final chance God gave me.”
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Despite his best efforts, a thought passes through the gauze of alcohol swaddling his brain—she would have turned fifteen today. And suddenly, he is crying in public again. A man in the autumn of his life, all of his treasures gone up in smoke. What do you call a parent who has lost a child?
He lowers his face, and tears fall upon his sleeve, darkening the bloodstains he can never, never wash out.
Nowak wonders, not for the first time, if this is how Potocki felt.