Chapter 23 #6
I sink to the floor, my back against the side of the bed, and pull Emma into my lap.
The fight is draining out of her, leaving behind a raw, shuddering wreck.
Her frantic kicks and hits have turned into jerky little tremors, and then finally, into deep, gulping sobs that shake her whole tiny body.
I just hold her. I don’t try to talk yet.
I smooth her damp, tangled hair away from her forehead and rock us gently, the way Eileen used to rock me.
It’s a physical ache, watching her. I’m sixteen years old again, but I’m also ten, and I’m five.
I’m the little girl in the empty mansion throwing a crystal vase at a marble floor because my mother chose a gala in Paris over my birthday.
I’m the little girl who would scream until my throat was raw, not because I wanted a toy, but because I wanted them.
Eileen would eventually find me. She wouldn’t yell.
She’d scoop me up, take me to the laundry room—the warmest, quietest place in the house—and hold me in her lap on the old wicker chair.
She’d sing songs I didn’t know until the anger burned itself out and all that was left was a bone-tired sadness.
She’d kiss the top of my head and say, “There now, little storm cloud. The sun’s still there. ”
I know this kind of rage. It’s all I knew for a very long time. It’s not about Despina or a kick in the shin. It’s about the hollow space where a person is supposed to be.
Emma’s sticky, custard-coated hands are fisted in my shirt, her face buried in the fabric. It’s growing damp with her tears and, probably, dessert.
“She…she doesn’t love me anymore,” she hiccups, the words muffled and wet.
My own throat tightens. “Oh, sweet girl. That’s not true, Em. Not even a little bit.”
“Yes, it is!” she wails, lifting her head. Her face is a tragic mess of tears, snot, and powdered sugar. “Because if she loved me, she’d be here! She wouldn’t have gone away. I think she forgot about me, Annie. I’m hard to remember.” The logic is airtight in its five-year-old devastation.
My throat tightens so hard it hurts to breathe. I tuck her head under my chin, continuing to stroke her tangled hair to keep my hands busy.
“You are the most memorable person I’ve ever met,” I say, and I mean it. “Listen to me. Sometimes, grown-ups…we get really, really lost in our own heads. We make choices that are about our own broken parts. And those choices can hurt the people we love the most, even though we don’t mean to.”
Emma sniffs, her big, blue eyes searching mine. “Is her brain broken?”
“Maybe a little bit, yeah,” I say softly. “Sometimes hearts and brains get sick, just like tummies do. And when they’re sick, people don’t always know how to ask for help. They just…disappear for a while.”
“When will she be better?” she whispers, the hope in her voice so fragile it could shatter.
“I don’t know, honey,” I say, because I won’t lie to her.
“But I do know this: her being lost, or sick, or confused…that has nothing to do with you. It’s not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
You are so, so easy to love, Emma Roussos.
You are a whole sky full of stars. Her being gone is her choice. It’s not a reflection of you.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, her little body still curled against mine. “Auntie Despina is mean.”
I can’t help but smile a little. “She spoke without thinking. She forgot that little ears are the biggest listeners in the world. She’s probably very sorry.”
Emma ponders this, her anger spent. She fiddles with a button on my shirt. “My hands are sticky.”
“Yeah,” I say, looking down at the mess on both of us. “Mine too. And my shirt’s a disaster. We’re a pair, huh?”
A tiny, wobbly smile touches her lips. “We’re sticky monsters.”
“The stickiest.” I kiss the top of her head. “You wanna know a secret? I used to throw fits like that. Big ones.”
Her eyes go wide. “You did?”
“Oh, yeah. I’d scream and cry because my mom and dad were always at work. I felt so lonely and mad, just like you do.”
“What did you do?”
“I had a friend named Eileen. She’d hold me, just like this, and sing to me until I felt better.” I start humming the tune Eileen always used, an old Irish song, swaying us gently.
Emma’s eyelids are getting heavy. The emotional tidal wave has exhausted her. She nestles deeper into my arms, her hand coming to rest over my heart.
“Annie?” she murmurs, already halfway to sleep.
“Yeah, Em?”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too, kiddo,” I whisper into her hair. “Me too.”
My legs are starting to go numb against the floorboards, and my turtleneck is a lost cause of custard and salt, but I don’t move.
I start to hum, low and soft, a vibration in my chest that feels like reaching back through twenty years of fog.
It’s an Irish lullaby Eileen used to sing when the house felt too big and my parents felt too far away.
“Oh, the faeries dance on the silver sand,
Where the sea meets the sky so blue.
They’ll take your hand, help you understand,
All the dreams that are waiting for you.
They’ll weave you a boat from the moon’s own light,
And a sail from a star that’s fallen down,
To carry you safe through the deepest night,
Till you find your own solid ground.”
My voice is rough, not beautiful, but it’s steady. I sway us gently, the way the song feels like it should move—a slow, rocking rhythm, like waves on a quiet shore.
“So close your eyes, little sailor, don’t fear,
The tide knows the way back home.
The faeries are near, your path they will clear,
You’re never as lost as you’ve known.”
And then I hear it. The faint, soft sound of snoring.
I look down. Emma’s mouth is slightly open, her cheeks still flushed and streaked with dried tears, her hair a mess of tangles and honey.
But she’s asleep.
Finally, blissfully asleep.
I let out a long, shaky breath and press a kiss to the top of her head.
“Sweet dreams, Em,” I whisper.