Her heart goes soft as melted butter when he beams at her, cherubic and beautiful, his arms reaching up as he shrieks, “Ewo-dee!”
When her mother emerges from the bedroom, her hair a matted snarl and her face the pallor of sour milk, she bursts into tears at the mess.
“How dare you trash this house!” her mother shrieks. “I ask for so little, and you throw this brattish behavior at me.”
She snatches up the howling baby and storms off to slam him in his crib, but when she returns, Elodie still stands in the dimly lit living roomamong the strewn toys. Her eyes are dark pits, saucer-wide, and her bottom lip is trembling. She watched the baby forhours. She thought she was being good.
“You will clean this pigsty and go straight to bed.” Her mother’s face has gone splotchy, her eyes rimmed red. “I can’t cope with your theatrics right now, so don’t even try.”
“But I’m hungry,” Elodie whispers.
The slap is crisp, the pain a delayed wave of heat across her face. It is not she who bursts into tears, but her mother.
“You made me do that.” Her mother covers her mouth, stifling her own sob. “Just—just go to bed. I can’tdealwith this!”
None of it makes sense, none of it isfair, and Elodie flings herself onto her bed and cries herself to sleep that night among piles of stuffed toys, the only things that cuddle her in the dark. Maybe when her mother returns to work and the baby is in day care, everything will be better. Her mother will be less tired, her father will be home more. She will be caught up in their arms and swung around while the world shimmers with golden perfection.
The fairy tale is harder to cling to this time.
Her mother doesn’t return to work. She takes more pills, sleeps longer, falls into a habit of slapping Elodie for her naughtiness and then locking herself in her room with the baby, ignoring her small daughter banging at the door. Asking to come in. Asking to be played with. Asking andasking and asking—
Elodie is eight and her brother turns two. There is a party with blue-frosted cupcakes and cheap plastic presents, an outing to the aquarium that Elodie misses due to being in school. Her father tells everyone how proud he is to finally have a son while her mother gushes how good and delightful the baby is.Finally, an easy child!
Late that night, Elodie smashes her little brother’s new toys and eatsthe rest of the cupcakes, knowing there will be slaps as she’s locked in her room for her wicked behavior, knowing if she screams in helpless rage, no one will care. Being good does nothing. Watching her brother diligently does nothing. Putting away toys and washing the dishes and getting on and off the school bus without help does nothing. She even stays up late to watch her father come in, haggard and achy from working overtime, and asks him to put her to bed, but he wearily says she can do that for herself. She’s eight now, isn’t she? A big girl.
Stop being so needy.
Stop being somuch.
Her toddler brother has begun throwing howling tantrums when he doesn’t get his way, a cheeky little smile appearing as soon as she relents and gives him her toys, her snacks, her things. If she is home from school, she is meant to babysit. But she has homework now; she has ballet to rehearse. She pulls on her leotard and tights and uses a kitchen chair as a barre, imagining herself all grown up and on pointe, the lead ofThe Nutcracker. Roses will be thrown onstage and applause will fall over her shoulders like a silken cloak.
“Elodie, I swear to god!” Her mother is in the doorway of her bedroom, rumpled and stained from a long day with the toddler. “I told you to go give him a bath.Now.I need to start dinner.”
Elodie rolls her eyes and gracefully folds her arms to her sides, her mind a peaceful lake, her body fluid and light. Nothing can touch her. No one talks of her mother going back to work now: She can’t find a job and day care is too expensive, or at least those are the words her parents hiss at each other late into the night.
“Elodie, I saidnow,” her mother shouts from the kitchen.
Annoyed at the interruption, Elodie stomps into the bathroom and runs the bath, dumping in a box of plastic toys and then plopping her grubby little brother into the midst of it. Marmite smears his mouth,his fat little fingers sticky as he snatches her hair and yanks. A cry of pain catches under her tongue, but she stays quiet so her mother won’t yell at her. Somehow he never does anything wrong.He’sjust a baby.Sheshould know better.
Hot tears smart her eyes as she hurls a few more toys into the tub while he starts raging that there aren’t enough bubbles.
“You can’t have everything you want,” she snaps.
“Bubbles!” He slaps at the water, spraying it all over her. “Ewo-dee, want bubbles!”
“No.”Elodie reaches in the tub to try to sponge him, but he shrieks and then bites her with all his toddler might.
It is too much, the way she can never do anything right, can never make them happy. Not her mother or father, not even the baby now. As silent tears run down her cheeks, the baby laughs and splashes more water until her leotard is soaked.
A chasm has opened in her belly, the need to escape, to run, to fold herself into a tiny envelope and post herself anywhere but here. She storms out of the bathroom, nursing the reddened teeth marks on her arm as salt stains her tongue. He can play by himself for a while. Isn’t that what she’s always told to do? No one watches her, no one cares if she is alone.
Loneliness splays fingers over her rib cage and folds her bones into splinters, and all she can do is swallow the shards and pretend it doesn’t hurt.
There is comfort to finishing her ballet practice, moving through the positions with perfect form that will make Verity pleased. Elodie’s leotard sticks sloppily to her belly, but it will dry. She feels calmer already. After this, she will play with her brother for hours and prove she is a good, patient sister. He doesn’t mean to hurt her, after all.
It takes her a while to realize the house has gone quiet; no soundsfrom the kitchen of dinner, no splashing from the bathtub. Her mother must have taken him out already, dressed him in a onesie and put him in front of the TV, though as Elodie finishes her practice, she realizes she can’t hear cartoons blaring either.
She bites her lip, a kernel of worry blooming in her belly.
