In October 1987, a storm raged as Cora resisted her husband Gordon’s demand to name their newborn son after him, fearing how names shape destiny and hoping to protect her daughter Maia and the baby’s autonomy. On the day of registration in one thread, Cora chose Bear, experiencing elation that soon turned to terror; when she told Gordon, he assaulted her until a neighbor intervened, police arrived, and Gordon was arrested. In an alternate thread, she named the baby Julian and tried to appease Gordon with a celebratory dinner; he performed charm, then quietly forced her face into her food and vowed not to let the matter go, fixing Cora’s resolve to keep the name and make a plan to leave.

Rewinding further, Cora recalled complying once with Gordon’s naming edict and spiraling into postpartum detachment, intimidation over feeding, and threats that he would take the children. As months passed, neighbor Mehri’s small acts of care steadied the household. Maia, growing up within coercive control, wrote secretly to her grandmother Sílbhe for help after witnessing her father force Cora to eat spoiled food; a police welfare check was neutralized when Cora, fearing loss of custody due to manipulated medical records, deflected it as her mother’s “dementia,” and hope stalled. In parallel glimpses of Gordon’s youth, he learned to please his father by informing on Cora and assaulted a classmate, revealing an early pattern of coercion masked by charm.

After the assault at Bear’s naming, community and institutional support followed, Sílbhe arrived to guard the family, and, in the aftermath, Cora, Maia, and Bear slowly reclaimed safety and routine with Mehri and Fern as chosen family. Years later in Ireland, Julian learned lacework with Eileen, protected Maia’s startle responses, and struggled with fear stoked by school religion and memories of “him.” Maia returned to ballet to reconnect with Cora’s memory, and Sílbhe set aside a late-life romance with Cian to raise the children fully. As adolescents and adults, Maia pursued medicine and then homeopathy, navigated relationships with Kate, Charlotte, and later Meg, and continued to process trauma; Bear grew into a kind young man, formed a bond with Lily, and faced the looming specter of their father’s eventual release, honoring Vihaan annually and fearing the legacy of violence.

Family histories unfurled in both branches: Cora disclosed the scorn Gordon received from his eminent father after a tremor derailed surgery, adding pressure to his cruelty; Maia unexpectedly saw her father on a motorway and panicked; Bear left for digs abroad as Lily pursued work in Rome; and Cora struggled to trust intimacy, briefly dating Felix. In Ireland, Sílbhe rekindled life with Cian, who mentored Julian in silversmithing and folded into family meals; Maia opened to him about the refuge, the night of the murder, and Cora’s grace, and Julian gently raised the possibility of Cian marrying Sílbhe, signaling acceptance.

Across the years, the children built adult lives. Bear missed a Paris trip the night of the 2015 attacks, rushed to Lily’s ICU bedside, and chose permanence, later moving to Brighton for a museum job and planning a proposal with a ring crafted by Cian. In another line, Julian settled into the Old Chocolate Factory studios, weathered a charged flood-night with artist Orla, then, with Cian’s counsel, told her about his mother’s murder; their friendship grew into love, they debated faith and boundaries, and he eventually sold work to England to fight for his family and reconciled with Orla after lockdown strains. The family mourned Sílbhe’s sudden death and kept one another close through shared memory and care.

Tragedy struck when Bear died suddenly from an anaphylactic wasp sting during lockdown, leaving Lily and their daughter Pearl to grieve through distanced rituals and everyday gestures that kept his memory present; Maia rejected a reconciliation letter from her father, and later Cora and Felix gently reconnected. In a later turn, Gordon (son)—sober and rebuilding—formed a household with Comfort and Ida, and, crucially, secretly filmed his father’s abuse, forced him to leave by leveraging the footage, and secured the house for Cora, enabling her final freedom; Cora lived independently, attending ballet and tending plants, the long “lockdown” of marriage finally ended.

The story closed with the abusive father’s death from a heart attack as he confronted the harm he caused and imagined small divergences that might have spared them all. In Spain, Gordon (son) stood before Goya’s Saturn and, seeing fear rather than power, recognized that he and Cora had overturned their family’s pattern, choosing care and liberation over repetition, while the wider family—Cora, Maia, and their loved ones—continued to make a life shaped by chosen names, bonds, and acts of protection.