I change his urine bag without comment, my hands moving as if guided by muscle memory. He does not thank me. He never does.
"Careful," he hisses. "Jesus, Jenna, do you want to humiliate me?"
I clench my jaw, focus on the mechanics: clamp, unhook, reattach, rinse. "I'm being careful."
"Try harder."
I help him into his shirt and trousers. Up top, his body is still lean and hard, but below, there are no bulging muscles; they atrophied years ago. There is no gratitude in his face, only the momentary pleasure of being obeyed.
"You see the news?" he asks, the question a test.
"Yes."
He grins, teeth too white, too perfect. "Good timing, huh? Dad's gonna milk that for all it's worth."
Dad.Sometimes it feels like Preston Kingsley is more Carter's father than mine.
Like my father adopted him the moment he was broken and no longer of use to his own. Dad always wanted a son. Someone polished. Ambitious. Public-facing. Someone he could shape. Carter needed a patron, especially after the accident. My father needed a symbol. They found each other.
Carter worships him for it. For the office. The platform. The relevance he would've lost without him. And Dad loves having a wounded hero at his side, a living monument to perseverance. It plays well in photographs.
As for Carter's father? I like to think he knew what kind of man Carter really was and turned from him. He never had much of a presence in Carter's life to begin with.
"You know," he says, "people love a crusade. The more tragic, the better. Drugs. Trafficking. All that puritan bullshit." His smile gets meaner. "Almost makes you forget where the real money comes from."
My hands freeze.
He notices.
"Don't," he says, softer now, the edge of threat replaced by something almost gentle. "Don't pretend you don't know how this works."
I straighten up, feel the bones in my back clicking into place.
"You can finish getting dressed," I tell him.
He laughs. "Still playing the saint, huh? You know what happens to saints in this family, Jenna. They burn."
The threat is old, but it lands the same way every time.Toe the line, Jenna, or we'll take Amauri from you.
"You should be grateful," he continues, his tone almost affectionate. "I didn't have to claim that kid. I could've let your daddy clean it up some other way."
It's a story he tells himself that he did me akindness. That Iowehim for the life he's givenmyson, for every day we're allowed to pretend.
"He's my son," I say instead.
"Who's alive because of me," Carter agrees, as if it's obvious. "Don't forget that."
As if I ever could. As if he or father would ever let me forget it. So I finish dressing him, help him into the chair, and roll him toward the hallway. I do not cry. I do not scream. The tears are stored somewhere else, in a different body, a different life. A life that started and ended ten years ago. After I found out that I was pregnant; after the father of the baby left without ever looking back.
Carter never eats breakfast at the house, so I roll him straight outside, where Jason—his driver, private assistant, best friend, or whatever else Carter needs him to be that day—is already waiting for him to load him into the shiny Mercedes SUV. A gift from my dad for a job well done a year ago. They will stop at a fast-food place, or maybe a strip club, and eat on the way to the office. None of my business. Good riddance for the day.
As for me, I make my way into the kitchen to find the only person who makes all this worthwhile. Amauri is already there. He likes to wake up before me. He says it makes him feel grown-up. He sits at the counter, legs dangling, a bowl of cereal already half gone. He glances up at me, and his face is all light, no shadow, no apprehension, just the open trust of a child who hasnever had to doubt his place in the world. A confidence I will do anything in this world to protect, even by staying married to the man who sold me for playtime.
"Did you sleep good, Mummy?"
Mummy. He told me once I looked like the hot lady inThe Mummy.
He didn't realize the movie was about a wrapped-up corpse, not someone's mother. He just heard the wordmummyand decided it must be about me. I never had the heart to correct him. I know what he means; that's all that matters. The sound of it softens things inside me that I thought were fossilized.
