20

I watched them leave from the doorway of the house—Jack as the driver, my mother in the back of the old car, comforting an unconscious Ryan.

I'm not sure how long I stood there staring into nothingness, but when I returned inside, the kids were sitting at the dining table, their faces tinged with despair.

I took a seat on one of the many free chairs to have the conversation we had agreed on earlier, where they recounted how that bottle had ended up there.

Days before the first snowfall, Maximilian had the terrible idea to play a game of breaking glass bottles with rocks to test each other's aim. So, there wasn't necessarily a single culprit after all. Although they had tried to clean up the mess without Mom Monica noticing—she was completely unaware of this—they missed a few glass shards.

Since Jack and Mom Monica would take too long, I decided to prepare lunch for the kids.

Around two in the afternoon, Ryan came into the house, smiling broadly. He limped a bit and complained about th