Somehow they are still in the honeymoon period. Proven by the antique milk jug of dahlias in the middle of the counter because he says beautiful women must be surrounded by beautiful things. Proven by how he threw out his ideas for the kitchen and did everything in tones of olive green and dusky wood because she mentioned she likedit. Proven by how sometimes he walks into their bedroom when she is reading and all she has to do is say “Take your clothes off” and he does without hesitation.
“Maybe,” she says as he climbs into his sleek black SUV, “we should get a TV. It distracts him.”
“Ava says screen time isn’t great for kids.”
She closes her eyes and tries to think of calm things, gentle things, not the way she’s been holding out for the TV installation with the weary desperation of a mother who wants to know her child will be occupied so she can have five minutes to herself.
“Well, Ava is clearly the expert,” she says.
“Yeah, she is.” Bren looks happy they are in agreement. “It’s better to be unplugged. It’s crazy how people let their kids’ brains turn to mush in front of the TV and plaster baby photos online where anyone can see. I’m glad we’re not into that.”
She used to be. The TV was on every waking minute to try to mitigate Jude’s meltdowns and she would post photos of him, of her, in the lonely attempt to find other single mothers who understood, who knew how hard it could be, to have people who would comment,Oh your baby is gorgeous!and let that soothe the fear of how she was failing. But she didn’t mind Bren’s suggestion to delete her profiles. In fact, she wanted to.
This way no one can look for her.
After his SUV glides out of the driveway, she turns around to survey Jude sitting moodily on the front steps, his matted, foul little rabbit once again clasped in the crook of his arm. There was no apology to Bren; she couldn’t bear another tantrum.
She pastes on a smile. “Simon says… jump in the car.”
And he does, because it is a game and he must win.
She spins the heaters up high, because without Bren around shedoesn’t bother pretending they have adjusted to the Virginian cold. The sedan isn’t new, but it’s the first car she’s ever had, her tentative refusal of it ignored cheerfully by Bren when he decided she needed it. Most of his income is funneled into the renovations, but if he wants her to have something, she will have it.
“I have an appointment this afternoon,” she says as they wait for the car to warm. “You’ll have a few hours at after-school care.” Words can’t express how much she hates leaving him with strangers, but he won’t talk to them; he rarely speaks to anyone but her. “Simon says put your hands over your eyes.”
He does. She can see when the loss of the world, of so many overwhelming assaults on his senses, relaxes the tension in his body.
Her heartbeat quickens, her palms suddenly clammy on the steering wheel, and a hundred excuses to skip telling him run through her mind. To deal with another tantrum will split her in half. All she wants is for him to perk up in excitement, to chatter happily, to be as obsessed with this news as Bren was when she told him.
“Jude.” Her voice is soft as the endless dark beneath the sea. “You’re going to have a baby sibling.” She holds her breath, a fist tightening about her lungs.
Silence fills the car.
Her muscles tense, dread thickening under her tongue like tar, and when she risks a glance in the rearview mirror, he’s no longer covering his eyes. His little fists clench in his lap, and his eyes are full of rage. They burn a hole straight through her skull.
Then he kicks out, wild and sudden, slamming both feet into the back of her chair. Her seat shudders at the blow, and she feels the kick straight into her spine. He does it again. Again and again. All she can think of is how he threw that wooden baby back into the dollhouse last night with vicious contempt.
And what he might do if the baby was made of soft, downy skin and a malleable skull with a neck as fragile as a wish.
His wail is earsplitting in the closed confines of the car. “I don’twant there to be a baby. You said we wereplaying a game. I want to play the game! I want towin!”
For a long minute, she simply sits there, absorbing his kicks to the back of her seat and waiting for the familiar pain of the knife wedged between her ribs to ease. Best to wait until he wears himself out here rather than in front of teachers at his school.
“You did,” she says and puts the car into gear. “You did win this time.”
FOUR
The house feels like aliminal space in the middle of the day when only she exists between the stripped walls. Her footsteps ring loud and hollow. Water pulses from the bathroom faucet with a thickened, mucous intensity as it washes over her paintbrush and she feels almost weightless. Or maybe this is the sleep deprivation.
Everything is easier without Jude, knowing she doesn’t have to run after him or fight with him or check on him a thousand times.
Everything is harder without Jude, knowing he is being seen and judged and found wanting by a myriad of strangers.
She is forever strangled by the need to protect him, to shield him, to pull a soft gossamer curtain between him and the world and lie with him beneath it. They would be cocooned in safety, him sleeping, sweet and peaceful, in her arms while she presses her face to his hair and inhalesthat warm, lovely smell of baby. Except, he is no longer a baby, and he is rapidly outgrowing her arms.
This kind of morose reminiscing does her no good. She should probably eat a better lunch and take longer naps so that, when the midwife asks, she’ll reply yes, she is taking care of herself.
She is taking care of this baby.
