The way through it back then had been to smile pleasantly, to give a polite laugh that said she understood the comment was meant to lighten the situation, not underline the foulness of how that medical world treats children who aren’tquite typical. But she hated that doctor and she tore up the referral on the bus ride home. She needed then, as she needs now, nothing to make things harder for her child.
She is doing the right thing for him.
She is doing her best.
“Simon says,” she says, “give your mama a hug.”
Jude has finished with the dollhouse, but he hesitates, hopping from one foot to the other. He considers her, the frown saying he’s not sure if a request like this should be part of his game of Simon Says, and she holds her breath to see if this is the mistake that will cost her the evening. Everything has been going so well. The nursery is tidy, laundry done, a quiet lull has filled the space between him and her.
He scampers over and climbs into her lap, his knobby limbs everywhere at once and an elbow nearly clipping her chin as he snuggles into her. It’s a decent hug, because Simon so decreed it.
Elodie presses her mouth to the top of his head, breathing in soap and shampoo and little boy. Already these golden, precious seconds feel like they’re sliding away too fast. He will get up; he will leave her. She wants to fold him in half and crush him so deep into her chest that his heartbeat will thud against her own.
“It’s bedtime.” She tugs fingers through his curls, gently detangling the knots. “Do you want a story?”
“No.” The whimpering starts, half-hearted, though; he’s tired. “I heard a scary thing in the walls.”
“It might be mice.” She winces inwardly at yet another problem with this old house.
“No! I’llshowyou.” Jude pops out of her lap, and she immediately misses the warmth of him. He clambers into the little woodland bed and presses his ear to the wall right above the headboard.
Bedtime procrastination never surprises her, but he isn’t often bothered by the half-dismantled state of this house that Bren has cheerfully insisted on renovating himself. It’s an old Victorian, built sometime in the 1890s, beautiful but rotten at the edges. Wind rattles through the cracks, the old wiring flickers, and she has lost count of the times she’s heard a foot depress on the floorboards upstairs while she’s been home alone. Tricks of an old house. But it’s set her skin crawling more than once, and Jude is more sensitive to sounds than she is.
They’ve only been in this house, this country, for four months. It makes sense he’s still adjusting, still acting out after all the changes.
She pushes to her feet with a tired sigh and comes over, standing close to the bed as she copies him, her ear to the wall and one hand pressed against the patterns of brambles and hedgehogs. A furrow dimples his brow as he flattens himself harder against the wood in his concentration. The fondness she feels for him then is overwhelming, and she is drowned by this need to protect him, if only from the wild things he makes up.
“Do you hear?” he whispers, his eyes round and worried.
All she hears is the rush of her own blood in her ear. “Sometimes old houses make old sounds.”
“Is the house alive?” He sounds serious. “Is that why I can hear it breathing?”
Something about the way he says it makes unease gnaw at her ribs, that staunch, childish conviction, as if any answer but his would be unreasonable. The last thing she needs is creepy images like that lodging in her mind, and the urge to snap at him to stop is hard to ignore. Instead, she dredges patience from the weary depths of her chest and releases a long, slow breath until no anxiety lingers in her voice. “No. The house is just a house. It’s not scary; it only needs fixing up.”
Jude drops to his knees to bounce on the mattress with his favorite stuffed rabbit tucked under his arm. It’s a foul thing, the neck so loose it looks like it’s been wrung, the fur matted and ears chewed. If she washes it, the world will end. His rabbit will feel different, smell different; it will betray him. She puts it off, just as she hasn’t convinced him to wear better-fitting pajamas or get a haircut or visit a new playground. Just as she hasn’t told him why she burst into tears when he slammed his heel into her stomach during one of his meltdowns. Bren took her to the emergency room, though she told him that was an overreaction. But her tears had scared him; she had scared herself.
“It’s not mouses. You’rewrong.” Jude scowls.
Elodie sighs. “Jude, please. It’s time for sleep.”
The nightly ritual of petting the carvings of honey badgers and foxes commences, his small fingers following all the grooves and divots in the wood with careful tenderness. Elodie turns on the mushroom night-light and flicks off the main switch. A cozy, warm darkness plummets across the room, the night-light glow outlining his face, his jaw, his thumb already in his mouth. She gently pulls his hand away and he replaces it with the rabbit’s ear, chewing as he watches her with eyes turned pure black in the darkness.
“I don’t like it here,” Jude says, hushed.
What she wants is a hot shower and then to curl up under a hundred blankets with her phone, ready to scroll until her eyes drift shut. Exhaustion owns her. She wants to fit herself against the warm shape of Bren, his body already molded to hers with intimate familiarity, though they should still feel new together. She craves his touch like nothing else; she has been fed gentleness so infrequently that she will forever starve for it.
She keeps her voice calm. “Well, I love this house. I love that we get to live here, and have our own rooms, and do so many nice things…” She pauses. “We have so much fun as a family now, don’t we? You and me and Bren.”
His scowl deepens and he kicks the blankets. “No. Go away. Don’t want you.”
It shouldn’t affect her anymore; it should mean nothing. She already stole a hug tonight that felt as rare as winter flowers. All she can do is hope he doesn’t obsess over the sound of the house settling and work himself into a frenzy, hope he sleeps soundly and doesn’t wake in a thundercloud where she is to blame for every sharp and bright thing that cuts into him in unexplainable ways.
“Don’t talk to me like that.” She wants it to sound stern yet unbothered, but she thinks the weariness in her voice betrays her. Tears come too easily right now.
He turns his back to her, his arms folded in cross defiance, and she resists the urge to go to him, if only to alleviate the anxiety crawling up her throat about leaving when he is distressed.
But he doesn’t want her.
