The Silenced Tale, стр. 18

Pip would not tell me what she felt during her fit on the sidewalk, save for repeating that she was fine and that it was something different from a seizure. I looked up symptoms for exhaustion and hypertension, and while some of Pip’s experience fits, it is not perfect.

Pip fears, and so she prepares. But for what? Does she keep something from me? No, she wouldn’t do so without good reason. We do not have secrets, not of those sort. So then, what is it?

Huffing a frustrated sigh, I wriggle back up the bed, smooth Pip’s t-shirt back down, and cuddle up behind my wife. Pip turns onto her side in her sleep, shifting back into my embrace. The tension lines around her eyes smooth out, and she takes a deep breath, releases it, takes another. Whatever ill dreams had begun, hopefully my touch has banished them.

“Sweet dreams,” I murmur into her hair, and it is more of a wish than usual. I kiss the leaf-shaped scar on the nape of her neck, and close my eyes, hoping for sweet dreams of my own.

I will not bet on them, however.

I am a character Written to be physically uncomfortable and mentally troubled until I have all the answers, and right now, I have none. There is literally no worse feeling in the world for me, emotionally, intellectually, physically, than being useless.

Alis has a better morning than the ones previous. Two of her three new teeth have finally erupted, and while the third still hurts, the degree of the pain is clearly tolerable enough that she is merely sitting listlessly in her highchair, frowning powerfully at her da as he struggles with the coffee maker in his pre-caffeinated state. She has a foil pouch of fruit mush, and her expression makes it clear that she is accepting this as breakfast on sufferance.

I try not to stare at the carafe with the single-minded hunger of a troll lusting after goat flesh. It’s a challenge. For reasons that I don’t understand, Fridays are always the hardest on me. Perhaps it is because I have already had five days of being unable to sleep in, and am looking forward to the weekend. We did not have work-weeks and weekends in Hain, and even after two years here, I am unused to this sleep- and work-schedule. The fluctuation always flummoxes me.

Upstairs, I hear my wife shut the bedroom door, and make her way to the stairs. Her briefcase is already hanging by its strap off the hook on the back of our front door. She has gotten into the habit of repacking it every night before bed and placing it there so that, in her own pre-caffeinated state, she does not forget to take it with her when she leaves. Which has happened. More than once.

When she comes down, however, her gym bag is slung over her shoulder. Pip doesn’t work out on Fridays. She never has. And yet, there is the bag. Worry creeps up my skin, resting like an itch I cannot scratch between my shoulder blades. She drops her gym bag by the door and joins us.

“Mmmm, nectar of the gods,” Pip whispers into my ear and cranes up to kiss my neck as she wraps her arms around my waist from behind. “Morning, Freckles.”

Because I love Lucy Turn Piper, I pour the first mug of coffee and hand it to her. But only because I love her. I resume watching the carafe hungrily, waiting for enough coffee to drip into it to justify taking another cup as she pads away to sit beside Alis.

“Morning, baby girl,” Pip says.

“Ma,” Alis says, holding out her foil packet to demonstrate just how dissatisfied she is with this morning’s offering.

“Tragic,” Pip agrees, and sips her coffee again.

When I have coffee of my own, I sit at the other chair, on the other side of Alis. Pip reaches across the tabletop and squeezes my arm gently.

“I’m going to be home a bit later than usual tonight,” she says.

“I see that,” I reply, unsure what sort of opening this gives me. Do I ask her why? Do I try to allay her fears? Do I tell her that her paranoia is starting to affect me, as well? “You look as if you got some real sleep last night,” I say instead. Coward.

“I do feel better than yesterday,” Pip admits. “With the party tonight, I’m glad I got some real rest. I should.”

Ah, right, yes. Tonight is the celebration that Martin, Mei Fan, and wai po are holding to celebrate Alis’s first birthday. In my morning fog, I had forgotten. “We should leave for their house no later than four,” I remind Pip. “Will that give you enough time to work out?”

“My last class is at noon. I’m good.” She kisses me on the cheek, pulls an apple from the basket on the counter, and puts her empty cup in the sink. She kisses Alis’s forehead on her way to the door, and leaves, walking as if she’s in a trance.

“Ma?” Alis asks, watching the door close behind Pip. Her brow is furrowed, fruit mush on her cheek that Pip didn’t even try to wipe away.

“I agree, sweeting,” I tell Alis. “I don’t like it, either.”

Several hours later finds both of us in my office. Alis has long since gotten bored of sitting on her da’s lap banging away at her own toy keyboard and has fallen asleep in the playpen in the corner. How blessed are morning naps. They allow me to focus.

Today, I am focusing on my coding. Like Mandarin, the language of hacking and instructing computers is new to me. “Scarily clever sponge” though I may be, as my wife insists, even I must pay attention when I am working in a language that is new to me. Well, new-ish.

I’m not entirely certain what I’m looking for yet. I create a program that will scan through the millions of news stories and social