My hands move on autopilot, muscle memory taking over while my mind lags behind as I put two slices of toast into the toaster on the counter next to me.
With less than two years until Luca starts school, I’m living on borrowed time.
Right now, his world is small and unassuming.
Daycare forms can be vague if I ever need to place him in one temporarily to get better hours in time to save up funds for a private education.
Birth records and citizenship aren’t scrutinized while I’m working down at the bookstore and he’s toddling between the aisles greeting our patrons.
My boss/landlord doesn’t question why I avoid pediatricians tied too closely to major hospital networks or refuse to go to the same GP as his granddaughters.
So far, I’ve been able to keep Luca close to me without anyone asking questions as to why.
But school is different.
School means paperwork that gets passed through offices and databases I can’t control.
It means enrollment forms, immunization records, emergency contacts and teachers asking questions when stories don’t add up.
Administrators always double-check the finer details and someone somewhere will notice the inconsistencies that I can’t explain away because they were all manufactured to begin with.
I won’t have answers that hold up underrealscrutiny.
I’ve built our life out of careful omissions and just-good-enough lies that strangers would never care enough to question me on.
So far, that’s been enough, but time eventually erodes everything. Every year that passes narrows my margin for error by that much more.
Not to mention Luca himself is growing.
He already asks more questions about where we’re from and why we don’t visit family than he ever has.
It’s normal for him to wonder why everyone else has grandparents and he doesn’t.
I can only dodge them with smiles and half-truths because he’s young now, but one day, he’ll want real answers and I won’t be able to give them to him without completely compromising everything I’ve tried to bury in the past.
That’s the real truth that keeps me awake at night, the real reason I don’t let myself relax or let myself imagine staying in one place for too long.
I can’t.
But what do I do? WhatcanI do?
The questions circle endlessly until they blur together into a dull ache behind my eyes.
I sigh and press the heel of my hand against my forehead, wincing as the pressure blooms into what I know will soon be a full-fledged migraine.
My pulse throbs there relentlessly, a warning I can’t ignore no matter how badly I want to.
Think, Elena. You’ve survived worse than this.
The eggs on the stove hiss and spit, the smell of them suddenly nauseating.
I drag in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to ground myself in the ordinary of breakfast and routine.
If I can just make it through the morning, maybe the panic will ease.
But right when I turn the burner down, that’s when I hear it—heavy footsteps coming up the stairwell.
The sound cuts through the apartment with brutal clarity, not muffled or distant like the ones I’ve trained myself to ignore from my neighbors coming and going next door.
