“Have you seen my new one, Mama?” Alfie rolled from his belly to his backside, sitting up, and holding out a small, carved man for her inspection.
She took it, turning it round in her hands. A bit crude, but she could somehow see its maker in the form. There was a song in the rough-hewn curve of the wood. “It’s lovely.” She gave it back.
“Atlas is brilliant, isn’t he?” Alfie said, his lips shaping a goofy grin.
Atlas rubbed his knuckles across the top of the boy’s head. “Not as brilliant as you. Ready for a rhyme?”
Alfie’s head bobbed up and down.
Atlas scratched his chin. “Hm. How about…houseandpig?”
Alfie flew over to Franny. “I need paper, Grandmama!”
Franny laughed and hauled herself upright, and they escaped across the room to a writing table in the corner.
Atlas watched them with eyes like gems and a smile like love. “I’ll miss him when I leave.”
“Are you going to the dairy again with Raph tomorrow?”
“No.” His voice so low, the word trailed into silence.
Memory slammed into her.
Oh.
Oh no.
He was leaving. Of course he was. He’d always planned to. She knew that. And in a blur of safety and love, she’d let herself forget, let the pretending feel too real.
Her husband planned to leave.
And one day, Alfie would lose his second father.
She shot to her feet but did not feel the weight of her body supported by her legs. Everything numb, numb and humming. She’d been so careless. Lost in the fairy-tale fog of Briarcliff, she’d let herself forget. And possibly, she’d set Alfie up for pain. Her son’s heart would break if this man became a father to him. Then left.
Atlas may be able fall in love anew each day without a broken heart, but her son could not.Shecould not. Like a house of cards, the world crashed down around her.
Atlas tugged on her wrist. “Clara, are you well?”
“Aha!” Alfie cried, rushing to stand before them, waving the paper in his hand above his head. “I’ve got it. It’s grand.”
“Well, let’s hear it, then.” Atlas grinned, just for Alfie, and Clara’s heart drowned.
Alfie cleared his throat. “There once was a lovely house. That was home to a terribly large mouse. It wore a wig and ate a pig and made friends with a quite small louse.”
Atlas’s laughter shook the roof, and Alfie’s smile illuminated the growing night beyond the windows. Too late. Oh, she was much too late to save her son’s heart.
“Brilliant, my boy,” Atlas boomed, reaching for Alfie’s head. It lighted there only a moment before his entire body stiffened and he pulled the arm back to his side. “Can I have it? To keep?”
Alfie pushed the paper at his stepfather and ran off once more. Atlas watched him with dreamy eyes, holding the paper, the rhyme, tight between strong fingers.
The bottom dropped out of her world, and she was falling. A never-ending drop that threatened to crush her bones if, when, it ended. She’d been so happy, and so desperate for happiness, that she’d allowed herself to wallow in it with no thought for the practicalities. She’d felt happiness so little in the past years, she’d clung to the present joys with no thought for future aches.
But, oh, there would be aches. For Alfie.
What a selfish mother she’d proven to be after all.
She must do something, anything, to mitigate the mess she’d created. Not too late. She could still salvage… something.
