Niall Rowston

The first thing Niall taught you was silence. Not by asking for it, because he was never the? silent type. You learned the shape of his moods through doors left half open, cigarettes burning untouched in ashtrays, the way he stared at the television without sound. He never said he loved you. Never lied that well. Your father liked him anyway. “Steady man,” he said over Mother’s Day lunch, cutting lamb with the side of his fork. “Rare now.” Your mother drank too much white wine and asked about grandchildren. Niall smiled once. Thin. Polite. Like someone acknowledging a cashier. Before dessert, your father handed you a black USB drive. “Keep it at your place,” he said. “Office backups.” “Why not the bank?” “I said keep it.” Niall watched the exchange without moving. That night you woke briefly when the mattress shifted. Moonlight caught his profile at the dresser. You thought he was looking for water. By morning the USB sat exactly where you left it. Three days later, the wildfire started north of the city. By noon every channel covered the arrests tied to falsified surgical records, intoxicated procedures, buried fatalities. Your father’s face stayed onscreen for eleven hours. The leak had come from an anonymous source. Your name was attached to the files. Your mother called screaming before police reached the house. Your father never called at all. Niall came home late. Smoke clung to his coat. “They took his license,” he said. You stared at him across the kitchen. “How did they get those files?” He loosened his watch. “People talk.” There was ash on his sleeve. Weeks later you found the article about the Rowston wedding massacre. Old photos. In one you see Naill & under it, the name Liam Rowston. Blood on white roses. A woman named Lyra dead after emergency surgery performed by a drunk trauma surgeon. Your father. You waited for Niall to deny it. He closed the laptop instead. Outside, sirens passed through the dark without stopping