He couldn’t blame me for my suspicions.
Oliver slept with me. I’d given up on trying to get him to use his crib long ago. I didn’t bother with a bed for him. He didn’t want to sleep away from me, and I didn’t want to sleep away from him. I laid with him until he fell asleep and got up as per usual so I could get the chores done I hadn’t been able to with a two-year-old on my hip.
Oliver went to sleep easily and I kissed his forehead as he exhaled sweet baby breaths before I joined Aleksander.
* * *
Silas
Father was on the couch reading one of his books. He patted the spot on the couch beside him. “Have a seat. We’ll chat before we start the movie.”
Smoothing my hands over the front of my black-washed jeans, I sat. His tone had hitched a single octave higher, a warning that what he was about to say wasn’t to be taken lightly.
“You might have noticed that much of what’s in those books, you’re already doing.”
I swallowed. “Yessir—Aleksander.” It hit me like cold ice in the face. Those magazines weren’t the beginning of my “training”, they were the final exam. I would be the stay-at-home spouse; he would be the breadwinner.
The magazines didn’t stop at listing roles and making happy-home suggestions, it was a doctrine, and it was firmly stated in the form of expectations.
Breadwinners got the title: head of the house. The stay-at-home spouse was the taken-in-hand.
Father confirmed the wormhole my mind had traveled down. “You know what you’re supposed to do, but you’re still a son obeying his father. Those magazines model the persona I want from you while you do what you’ve already been doing.” He swallowed. “Not yet. There is still a little time before your birthday to get used to the idea.”
Not much time. Not enough time.
Bile fought its way out of my stomach. I had to swallow it down. “I am your son. I’ve never stopped being your son.Please.Don’t make me do that. I’ll do whatever else you want. I promise.”
His smile vanished. The room temperature dropped several degrees. “We were doing so well.” He sighed. “Silas, I’m not going to tolerate whining repeatedly, it’s exhausting as it is. We’ll do a reminder this time and hope this is the only time I have to do this. Oliver stays in his room tomorrow.”
Oliver didn’t have a room—his room was my room.
“Alone,” he clarified in case I had ideas of spending the day in my room with Oliver. “You’re not to go in for any reason.”
My eyes blurred and I opened my mouth to protest. He stopped me. “Before you do that remember Oliver. You don’t want it to be two days, do you?”
I shook my head rapidly, wiping the tears away, but they wouldn’t stop. He turned the movie on, I don’t remember which one it was. I didn’t watch it. I was heaving silently, thinking of my beautiful sleeping babe upstairs with his pretty platinum hair falling softly over his forehead and the way babies breathe like they haven’t got a care in the world.
My hair request was long forgotten.
The next day is too horrible to record so I won’t. Our house was built in the fifties and had old-style locks on the door, which enabled Father to lock the door from the outside with a key in case I might be tempted to disobey him. Anything could have happened to him and I couldn’t get in, save breaking down the door. Oliver cried most of the day. I cried until Father got home and unlocked the door. I gathered my confused boy into my arms and took him to the bath where I cleaned him up, climbing into the water with him so I wouldn’t have to let him go.
He mumbled a lot of hysterical “Babas” to which I could only murmur and coo and promise everything would be all right.
Even though nothing was.
That was the night I began to worry about Oliver in a different way. I didn’t know much at seventeen, but I knew stuff could fuck you up. I knew because I was already fucked up. My grand plan was that I could shield Oliver from the worst of it, but this kind of stuff was more than bad. It stuck to your insides like tar, and you could try to scrape it away, but residue would always remain. It was better not to keep pouring the tar.
* * *
Silas
Just like that, Father got what he wanted. I scoured the old magazines for any added pebble of insight and thought about how to apply it as best I could. Oliver never let me out of his sight after that. I wasn’t keen to leave him either. On occasion when he had managed to distract himself long enough to run into the living room when I was in the kitchen, my fucking heart raced. “He’s only in the other room,” I would repeat to myself until he’d race back in and smile at me.
Other times, he’d wander away, freeze, and then scream for me. “Baba, where are you? Baba, where are you?”
I worried about that too. It’s normal for babes to search out their primary caregiver and get upset when they can’t see them, but there was a shred of terror in his tone and a quiet inkling told me he remembered that horrible day in his room.
He didn’t go to Mrs. Brandywine’s as easily on Fridays. I didn’t want to leave him either.
