Guilt creeps in, all over again. These moments I feel like I should be helping to raise them, and raising other people just isn’t something I’m equipped to do. I tried to raise myself and it was a disaster, I don’t have any business trying to help living children build their own brains correctly. I can keep them safe. I can keep them fed and refrain from the kind of emotionally unstable behavior that their real parents are so prone to. But that’s as far as it goes.
“Do you want something else to eat?” I ask Maddi, because the very boring chicken and vegetables that I made from shit in the freezer doesn’t seem to be doing it for her.
It’s a subject change. I’m not proud of it, but I’m flailing a little here.
“No. I’m gonna go watch TV.”
No eye contact, her hand already reaching for her phone.
“Come on, Maddi. You have to eat something. And not just Cheez-Its. What about a baked potato?”
Carbs are the way to Cade’s heart, it’s worth trying with his sisters once in a while.
She raises an eyebrow but finally looks me in the eye.
“You’re going to get in the kitchen and bake me a potato?”
I pause. “Well, I was going to microwave you a potato. And then put some shit on it. It tastes just as good.”
Now they both snort.
“We don’t trust what you say tastes good, Silas. You love vegetables too much. It’s weird as fuck,” Sky says.
Her over-aged potty mouth is as active as usual, but I’m used to it now. I think she just likes to copy Cade, and I get it.
A sigh slips out of me, because Sky’s food is mostly untouched as well, now that I’m looking. She’s fidgeting in her chair, shifting her weight from side to side as she looks around the room more than she needs to.
I swear, their entire family is chronically over- and under-stimulated at the same time, all the time.
I huff a little, and then remind myself I’m supposed to be making them feel better, not more stressed. Sitting at the table in the quiet is apparently too much for them.
“Okay, how about you guys go pick something to watch, and I’ll make you some better food. But it will still have vegetables on it, and you have to at least pretend to eat them. We can eat in front of the TV. Deal?”
Sky nods imperiously, and Maddi even smiles a little. They both slip out of their chairs before I was even finished talking.
Cooking distracts me from worrying about Cade, at least. Well, mostly.
I know he went to the trailer and then left, and Kris is still choosing to stay there. I know he was planning to finish out the rest of the shift, even though I asked him not to. He’s going to be a walking disaster-human. Of course, he won’t admit it. I just hope the rest of the shift goes smoothly.
Eventually, I manage to focus enough to finish the food. I cut up all that chicken and veg, threw it on the microwaved potatoes and then added a bunch of cheese and melted it. Seems like a reasonable compromise, right?
Sky and Maddi both accept their plates when I head back into the living room and join them on the couch. They haveHeartstopperon, which I only recognize because Wish got them a Netflix subscription for Christmas last year, so they’ve made me watch it more than once. I think they just have limited things to watch, but they insist it’s part of some critical cultural development that I missed out on.
Both of them, like Cade, refuse to accept that I’m not really a TV person.
When the front door opens, all three of us tense in unison. A matching gut reaction, forged in pretty similar experiences.
“Yo!” Cade yells to us, and I can see Maddi and Sky both unclench. Maddi stays on the couch, staring at her phone and trying to school the tension out of her face, while Sky bounds up to meet him when he walks in the room.
His boots are off but his uniform is still on, including his coat, when he appears in the doorway. He has a big smile that I immediately recognize as fake, and he makes a big show of scooping Sky up into his arms when she runs to him.
“You took forever to get home, asshole,” she says, and her voice is haughty but she’s clinging to him with the mannerisms of a much younger child.
“Charming,” he says. “What a welcome.”
He strokes her hair before kissing the top of her head, but then puts her down with a muffled groan.
“I was out saving lives and doing very important things. You should be calling me a hero, instead of lying around here eating all my food.”
