Connor’s voice slowly rises. “More than just you two are in trouble, I assure you.”
Ben lets out a deadly wail, slamming his fists into the carpeted floor. I walk further inside, my left heel at a strange tilt. I’m standing at a fucking tilt. I remove my black heels, the left one about to break.
I let out a strained breath.
I quickly sweep the playroom and tune out the screams. Four bookshelves of children’s novels, two window nooks, light-blue painted walls, and a wooden trunk of toys.
Lettered blocks scatter the carpet, and Jane cries softly by her—no. One of the boys smashed her dollhouse. Beckett would be the first to help her fix her toys, I’m sure, but he’s too concerned with Charlie being punished.
Three-year-old Eliot screams, “Mommy!” He bounds over to me and grabs the hem of my black skirt, two-year-old Tom trying and helplessly racing after his brother. Eliot tugs me towards the toy trunk as though to say play with me.
He’s a little menace. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be the culprit of the demolished dollhouse. As I walk past my husband, Connor turns his head fully to me for the very first time.
My jaw drops.
A welt surfaces underneath his left eye, bruise forming. His eye reddened, pained by whatever impaled him. I’m not given time to process.
Jane lets out an angry, shrill scream. “I hate this! There are too many boys!” I know, my gremlin.
I’d like to think this is a one in a million occurrence, but it’s not. The chaos of our children is our daily routine. That crayon box sob session? That’s a real anecdote. I showed Tom all the crayons he could play with, and he still wailed over that fucking broken one.
This might be typical, but Connor usually multitasks better and smoother than this. I start to wonder if something else threw him off today.
I want to help clear his mind, so I start to tell Jane, “We’ll fix it—”
Eliot yanks at my skirt, my white blouse no longer tucked in. I squat to pry his little fingers off my skirt. He pouts.
Jane cries softly, “It’s ruined.”
Connor rises to his feet as he tells Beckett, “You can’t push your little brother, not even to defend Charlie. You know many words; use them.”
Beckett screams.
Connor shuts his eyes for an even longer moment, and then his gaze finds mine. “It’s impossible to reason with the unreasonable.” He wouldn’t try if they weren’t his children.
As he holds my gaze, I realize that he seeks a social exchange that doesn’t end in high-pitched wails and irrationalities.
I open my mouth to reply, but this time, I’m cut off. Tom tries to crawl up my body. He clutches my blouse at the collar, tugging hard while I wrestle his little devious hands off the fabric. I feel my smile form. Why am I smiling at you?
I try to glare.
It’s more difficult.
“Jane,” Connor says to our daughter. “Tom will help you clean up.”
“No, I won’t!” Tom says gleefully while popping buttons off my blouse—Eliot chases after them.
“Eliot, no!” I shout and glance towards Connor, his welt turning purple. What hit him in the face? Who is to blame? Which child needs disciplined first? I am ready to join his ranks, but I can’t do so without the proper information.
Connor is just as preoccupied. Ben cries to him, “Daddy!”
Charlie speaks, but not over Beckett’s emotional screams, face splotched red.
Eliot hops towards the loose and scattered buttons.
“Eliot Alice Cobalt!” I yell, my finger pointed at the three-year-old. He freezes. “Do not put a button in your mouth.”
“Charlie, Beckett,” Connor says deeply, his grave tone close to a shout. “Stop. Think about the reason I’ve given you, and you’ll find greater meaning. I’m not explaining anything else.” He picks up Ben, calming our youngest child.
Tom begs to be held, so I lift the little gremlin in my arms—and he yanks at my blouse again, my blue-laced bra visible. He tries to wrench my diamond earrings.
“No, Tom.”
“But Mommy!” he shouts.
Dear God.
“My point,” Connor tells me.
In a tense breath, I refute, “But Mommy could lead to an insightful argument. Give him a moment, Richard. He needs longer than you.”
Connor’s lip tics upwards, feeling the beginning of a dialogue between us. “The moment will pass soon.”
“Tom destroyed my dollhouse!” Jane cries as though I’ve betrayed her—I’m conversing with the wrongdoer.
Tom grins and shakes his head. “No, I didn’t.”
Dear fucking God.
“And there the moment goes.” Connor sidles next to me, his hand brushing my waist. I’m physically more rigid than him, shoulders in an uncomfortable bind. Connor tells me, “He’s escaped timeout three times already.”
“I did not!” Tom shouts, still grinning.
I ask my husband, “Have we birthed a liar?”
“He is something.” Connor then tells Tom, “And I clearly can count better than you.”
“No, you can’t,” Tom says matter-of-factly.
Connor tilts his head towards our two-year-old. I try to read more of Connor’s features, but my focus zooms onto his bruise. “One day you might count better than me, Tom, but right now, you’re two and creating more chaos in a minute than I ever created in my lifetime. What would you call that?”
Tom ponders this for less than a second. “No, you can’t!”
Connor’s irritations flare mildly again, and he fixes the unkempt strands of his hair, not styled to perfection. To Tom, he says, “I’ve never been amused by absurdities, and you’re just reminding me why.”
Tom swings his head to me, maybe expecting me to combat with Connor. I don’t. “Timeout in the rocking chair.”
“No!”
“I hate that word,” I snap and put him in a tiny rocking chair that faces the wall. “If you move, you’ll just be here for another five minutes.”
Tom huffs, but we let Eliot sit near and keep his brother company. His own punishment will come soon enough.
Connor didn’t call me to calm them. I’m not that type of force. He soothed Ben; our boy’s cheek is pressed to Connor’s shoulder, tears dried.
I have other uses. I’m an extra set of hands and another voice our children respect. I’ve contained Eliot and Tom—though they’re talkative and rowdy in the corner. At least they’re not flying across the playroom like little winged devils.
Connor’s hand slides up my arm, and I face my husband. Without heels, I feel naked. I clear a lump in my throat, today’s stressful events catching up with me.
Connor almost imperceptibly studies my body, my features—my pierced gaze. My collar is tight, spine erect and rigid. I even tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, wishing I had a tie to pull the strands into a tight pony.
“What did you need from me? Is there something more?” I whisper to Connor.
His hand skims my stiff neck, and his lips drift to my ear, “We can talk later, darling.”
“I’m here to help you,” I rebut. “You’re not here to help me.”
“Stop laughing!” Jane yells at Tom and Eliot, the boys giggling merrily. “You don’t deserve to laugh, you toad!”
I have to snap, “Jane, don’t call your brother a toad.”
Tears well, her mouth agape as though I betrayed her in favor of Tom once again. Not happening.
“And Tom,” I quickly add, “silence in that corner now.” Eliot and Tom immediately grow quiet.
Jane rubs her tears with her cheetah-print sweater. “There are too many boys.”
Connor is so off his game because he tells her, “Women make up twenty-five percent of this family, Jane.”
I scoff. “That’s not even half, Richard.”
He stays quiet, even recognizing that the statistic could be better. He blinks a few times, as though trying to clear his mind and bring his intellect into utmost focus.
“Boys aren’t so bad,” I tell Jane, my voice stilted. I do believe this, even if it’s a chore to say. “Tom can be a little demon, but he also helped you paint your kitten mural yesterday, didn’t he?”
Jane sighs heavily. “I suppose.”