She explained the situation with the precision of a child who had spent considerable time listening to adults speak and had decided she could do it better. Their mother had an event, an important one.
She had been at these events before, and she always came back with the same face, the one that meant she had talked to many people and felt completely alone. She doesn’t like parties, Rose said.
She likes working, Violet clarified. She doesn’t know how to stop, Iris added. Liam listened. His thumb moved slowly across the scar on the back of his right hand. The old habit he fell into when he was thinking hard about something.
The coin purse sat between them. « $5 and some change and a button with an anchor on it. » « Your dad, » he said carefully. « He’s not He left, » Lily said. No particular weight to it, just information.
When we were two, he said, « Four was too many. » « Silence, short and absolute. » « Four was too many, » Liam repeated very quietly. He thought of Theo’s tiny hand gripping his shirt the night Rachel didn’t come home.
« Four had never felt like too many to him. It had only ever felt like not enough. » « That’s what he said, » Lily confirmed. He thought about the weeks after the accident when everything was paperwork and casserles from neighbors and a grief that sat on his chest like a physical object.
One person, his brother-in-law, had said just once, quietly that he didn’t know how Liam was going to manage. Said it like the math didn’t add up. Said it like Tio was a problem to be solved instead of a person to be loved.
I have a son, Liam said. He’s five. His name is Tio. The four faces recalibrated. « Where is he? » Violet asked. « Home? » « Aleep hopefully. My neighbor watches him when I work evenings.
» « What does he look like? » Iris asked. « Like a tornado, » Liam said. Who learned how to apologize. Rose made a sound that was almost a laugh and then covered it with her hand.
Liam looked at the $5 bills. He thought about what it cost a six-year-old to save this much, to count it out, to decide this was the right use of it.
