Bren has slid into trousers and a tight-fitting turtleneck to hide her bite mark on his neck, and he stands calmly at the stove with a spatula, scrambling eggs in his frying pan. Jude’s decrepit stuffed rabbit lies beside the egg carton, stuffing poking from a hole in its throat, and Elodie hurries over to scoop it up so that Jude can soothe himself with the comfort of it.
Bren’s hand closes over hers. “Leave it. He gets it when he calms down.”
Elodie stares at him. “He uses ittocalm down.”
“Okay, well, I already told him he can’t have it if he’s screaming at me, and if you tell him something else, he’s pitting us against each other to get his own way. This is, like, Parenting 101.” Bren shuffles the spatula through his eggs. “He can’t win all the time.”
It lodges in her skin like a splinter, this idea that this is all her life is, a game of who will win.
“He’s a little kid.” Her teeth are clenched. “Just give him the goddamn rabbit.”
Bren seems oblivious to the anger seeping through her voice, because he gives her an absent kiss on the temple as he heads over to the toaster.
“We can’t argue in front of him” is all he says.
Snatching Jude up and storming out feels like a good option, but there’s the fact he just punched her. Maybe she needs to put a lock on her bleeding heart and let him swallow his consequences, but looking at him sprawled on the floor, his cheeks flushed, his crying a feverish, sick throb, she can feel herself fracturing.
Everything feels tipped sideways and inside out. Even the morning remains steeped in a gray and lavender gloom, the sky overcast, the cold coming up through the floorboards with remorseless intensity.
Bren shovels eggs in his mouth, checking something on his phoneas he goes to the fridge for milk. He’s not heartless, she knows he’s not, so what the hell is this? Maybe it’s less about Jude, more about her. Punishing her.
But Bren isn’t like that. He is sweet and kind and good, unlike her, who has bit deep into him like a rabid dog, her teeth sunk into his rib bones, praying he won’t notice her infection and shake her off.
“Bren, I can’t handle this.” Tears are in her voice, Jude’s screaming splitting her rib cage apart.
He sets down his coffee and gives her a wry smile and shake of his head, as if they are sharing a moment, their movements in sync, their unsaid thoughts looped like a cat’s cradle between their fingers. Instead, she feels alone, unknowable, lost.
He scoops Jude off the ground, a feat because Jude’s bones have turned to water, his face a ruin of snot and salted tears.
“Take a breath,” Bren commands. “Jude, listen to me. Let it out. Start copying me or you know what happens.” He palms Jude’s wet cheeks and models breathing in deep, letting it out slow.
You know what happens.
Elodie’s stomach clenches. That was a threat, wasn’t it? He is threatening her son andshe doesn’t knowwhat it means.
At first, she thinks it won’t work and Jude’s too beyond it to process instructions, but as Bren continues to model, pausing to place a firm hand flat on Jude’s chest to calm his hyperventilating gasps, Jude begins to slow his breathing. He’s still whimpering, his face slicked wet, his bottom lip trembling, but the shrill screaming has stopped.
“You’re having breakfast before school,” Bren says. “You can have some of Mommy’s or mine. Which is it going to be?”
Jude’s mouth tilts downward. “Not Mama’s. I d-d-d-don’t want Mama’s bad food.”
The cold fist around her stomach tightens and she can’t keep the snap out of her voice. “Jesus, Jude. I’m just going to have cereal.”
But he wails and presses his hands over his eyes.
Bren picks Jude up and sits him on the counter, cupping one hand under his chin to catch any mess as he puts a forkful of scrambled eggs to Jude’s unwilling lips. There are a few more tears, his heels drumming against the cabinets in defiance, then his mouth opens and he accepts the eggs.
If it were her, Jude would spit them out, half-chewed and slimy. He’s never eaten eggs before in his life.
But for Bren, he sits there and chews, his tears forgotten as he takes a fistful of Bren’s shirt to anchor himself. He swallows and opens his mouth obediently for more while Bren murmurs, “See? That’s the way. Good boy.” He hands Jude back the stuffed rabbit.
Neither of them notice Elodie leaving the kitchen blinded by hot tears.
No sane reason exists forwhy she kneels on Jude’s little woodland bed and presses her ear to the wallpaper. She holds her breath, waiting, listening, her palm flattened to the cool wall as if she will feel the press of fingertips mirroring her on the other side.
She hears nothing. No heartbeat, no breathing coming from inside the walls.
Don’t let anyone see you like thisis all she thinks.Don’t let them know you are losing your goddamn mind.
