Chapter 4 Eleanor
ELEANOR
The smell of coffee hit me before I even reached the kitchen, but it wasn’t the comforting kind. It was the strategic kind, the kind my mother brewed when she was preparing for battle.
She was already seated at the table, perfectly dressed, lipstick on, reading glasses perched halfway down her nose. In front of her sat a plate that looked like it had been styled for a cookbook full of scrambled eggs, half an orange, and a slice of whole-wheat toast cut diagonally.
Across from her, Ava glared at the plate like it was a crime scene.
“Good morning,” I said cautiously.
“Morning,” my mother said without looking up. “I thought we’d try a new breakfast routine. Structure helps children thrive.”
Ava’s fork scraped the plate. “I don’t want eggs.”
“You’ve never tried eggs,” my mother said, voice syrupy with patience that was about to curdle. “You might like them if you gave them a chance.”
Ava crossed her arms. “They smell like farts.”
I choked on a laugh I tried to disguise as a cough.
My mother gave me a look sharp enough to peel paint. “That’s not appropriate, young lady.”
Ava’s eyes flicked to me for backup, and my stomach tightened. “Mom,” I said, stepping closer, “we don’t have to do this right now.”
“Yes, we do,” she said briskly. “She needs to develop better eating habits. You can’t let her be so . . . particular.”
“She’s not being particular,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “She’s being Ava.”
“Which is exactly the problem,” she muttered under her breath.
Something in me snapped. Just a small thing like a thread giving way under strain.
“Mom,” I said, sharper this time. “Enough. Let her eat her cereal.”
“It’s not cereal, it’s sugar and dye,” she countered, still smiling that tight, brittle smile.
“Then she’ll have sugar and dye for breakfast,” I said, grabbing the bowl from the counter and setting it down in front of Ava like a declaration of independence.
My mother stared at me for a long, tense beat and then, as if to remind me who was still queen of this kitchen, she straightened her shoulders. “Well,” she said, “don’t come crying to me when she refuses to eat anything that isn’t shaped like a cartoon character.”
“I won’t,” I said quietly.
The silence stretched as Ava crunched her cereal with gusto, milk sloshing.
When it was time to leave for school, my mother stood by the door, fussing with Ava’s backpack straps. “We’ll try again tomorrow,” she said, smoothing her hair.
“No, we won’t,” I said.
Her hand stilled. “Eleanor—”
“Please don’t.” I met her gaze, tired but steady. “You don’t have to fix her. She’s not broken.”
Her lips pressed together, but she didn’t answer. Instead, she kissed Ava’s head, murmured something about “good choices,” and watched as we headed out the door.
As soon as the cool air hit my face, I exhaled the kind of deep breath I could only seem to take outside this house.
Behind us, the curtains shifted, and I could swear I saw her watching through the window.
Ava was quiet on the drive to school, staring out the window, her headphones glowing faintly green. I kept my hands tight on the wheel, still wound up from breakfast, trying to breathe past the familiar guilt.
When we pulled into the drop-off lane, the chaos of the morning rush hit, kids spilling out of minivans and SUVs, backpacks swinging, parents calling last-minute reminders that would be forgotten before the doors even shut.
Ava hesitated, clutching her bag strap. “You’ll pick me up?”
“Always,” I said. “And remember—”
She cut me off with a sigh. “One step at a time.”
“Right.” I smiled, even though my throat felt tight.
She pushed open the door and slid out, careful as ever, adjusting her headphones like armor.
I watched as she stood on the curb, scanning the crowd, and then a little girl with bright pink sneakers and a messy braid waved at her.
“Hey, Ava!”
Ava blinked, startled, then gave the smallest, shyest wave back. The girl grinned and started chattering as they walked toward the entrance together.
Watching her walk away, not alone, not shrinking, felt like the first real victory I’d had in months.
Then, as the line inched forward, I caught sight of a familiar flash of color on the far side of the lot.
The boy in the rainbow tutu.
He was holding hands with a woman I hadn’t seen before. She had a confident smile, jeans, and a tank top that said Reaper Fan. She crouched to fix the strap on his backpack, and he leaned forward, kissed her cheek, and twirled in a happy little spin before they started toward the school.
He jumped. She laughed.
And there it was again, that same ache from the derby. Watching them, the simple warmth between them, made my chest go tight. I wanted that for Ava. For me. A life that didn’t have to fit in neat, polished boxes.
I was still staring when the car behind me honked, long and impatient.
I jumped, flustered, and waved a quick apology before pulling forward, cheeks burning.
But as I drove away, I caught one last glimpse of the tutu, a small flash of color among the crowd, and for reasons I couldn’t explain, it made my eyes sting.
The drive home was quiet, the kind of silence that left too much room for thinking.
I kept seeing Ava’s small wave, the pink-shoed girl beside her, the flash of a rainbow tutu across the parking lot. Those tiny, bright pieces of a world that didn’t feel so heavy.
If Ethan had been here, he would’ve known exactly what to say.
He’d always been good at that, finding the thread of light when I could only see the mess. He would’ve cracked a joke about our daughter joining the “Breakfast Rebellion,” or reminded me that not every battle had to be won to be progress.
I could almost hear him now, his easy voice cutting through the static in my head. She’s okay, El. You’re doing great.
But the passenger seat stayed empty.
And my heart still hurt.
When I pulled into the driveway, I sat there for a long minute with the engine idling, staring at the house. The same white shutters. The same perfect flower beds. It looked harmless from the outside, peaceful, even, but I could already feel the tension waiting for me behind those walls.
For a second, I thought about Belle, how she’d smiled from the track, how powerful she’d looked, how easy it seemed for her to exist in her own skin. I wondered what she was doing right now. Probably laughing. Moving. Living.
The thought steadied me somehow.
I turned off the car and grabbed my bag. The air outside smelled like rain, heavy and cool. I took one last deep breath and squared my shoulders.
My mother was waiting for me. Of course, she was.
Time to go face her.
My mother was in the kitchen when I came in, wiping down a counter that didn’t need wiping. The smell of bleach hit me first, sharp enough to sting my nose.
“Back already?” she asked, without looking up.
“It’s ten-thirty,” I said. “Where would I be?”
She gave a thin smile. “I suppose I thought you might have errands.”
“Nope.”
“Well, I think we need to sit down and talk about how things should go in this house. If we are going to make this work, we need to be on the same page about Ava.”
I swallowed a sigh. “Mom, can you just let her be? She’s been through a lot.”
She finally set down the cloth and turned to face me. “Eleanor, I’m trying to help. You let that child run the house. You let her dictate what she eats, what she wears, who she talks to—”
“Mom,” I said, sharper than I meant to. “That’s not dictating. That’s surviving.”
“She’s manipulating you,” she countered. “All children test boundaries. If you don’t set firm ones, she’ll never learn how to function in the real world.”
I laughed, a short, humorless sound. “You mean your world. Where quiet equals good and different equals broken.”
Her mouth tightened. “Don’t twist my words.”
“I don’t have to,” I said softly. “You do that just fine on your own.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and my heartbeat in my ears.
“She’s struggling, Eleanor,” my mother said finally, her voice trembling just a little. “And I’m scared. I don’t know how to help her. You act like you have all the answers, but you’re barely holding it together.”
The words hit hard because they were true. But not the way she meant.
“I am scared,” I admitted. “Every day. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. But I know this—Ava doesn’t need to be fixed. She needs to be loved as she is.”
Her eyes shone, wet but stubborn. “And what happens when the world isn’t kind back?”
“Then I’ll stand between her and the world,” I said. “That’s my job. It is not to make her easier to love, just to make sure she never forgets she already is.”
For a second, my mother looked like she might argue. Then something in her expression cracked, just a flicker, a shadow of grief.
“You always were too tenderhearted,” she murmured. “It’ll break you.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But at least I’ll break for the right reasons.”
We stood there in silence. No tidy resolution. Just two women, both right and wrong in their own ways, both loving the same little girl and not knowing how to do it together.
When I finally turned to leave, her voice stopped me.
“Eleanor,” she said quietly, “I just want her to be happy.”
I paused at the doorway. “Then let’s start there.”
I didn’t slam the door behind me, but I thought about it.
As I stepped into the hallway, movement caught my eye.
Belle was standing by the bookshelf, feather duster in hand, eyes wide like she’d been caught sneaking cookies instead of cleaning. The faint pink on her cheeks gave her away before she opened her mouth.
“You heard all that, didn’t you?” I asked.
She hesitated for exactly half a second. “You mean the part where you told your mom she’s trying to fix someone who isn’t broken?” Her lips curved into a soft smile. “Yeah. That was pretty badass.”
I groaned and pressed a hand to my face. “Fantastic. Just what I needed. A witness to my emotional implosion.”