I never cried. When Emma fell sick. When she died. I couldn’t. It’s as if I had no tears. But since then my breathing gets funny sometimes. My lungs just won’t co-operate, won’t do their goddamn job of sucking air.
I don’t know what this is, but when it happens, I need a moment alone to work through it. To re-learn how to breathe. How to exist in this spinning eddy that makes no sense to me anymore.
Slowly the room rights itself, the black dots fade from my vision and my chest expands again. I suck in oxygen, relieved I’m not dying.
Mostly.
I shove that thought right back down where it belongs and splash some cold water on my face. Goddammit, maybe the kids were right to be afraid when I got up. I wonder what they saw in my eyes.
But no. I don’t wanna die. You don’t fucking wanna die, Matt Hansen. Get over yourself. You’re almost thirty, not some angsty teenager, and this ain’t some late-night drama on TV.
It’s just that sometimes… sometimes I’m not sure I wanna live.
Christ.
I flex my left hand, testing the stiffness of my fingers, rub at my wrist, then force myself to stop.
And…. this is my cue to leave this fucking bathroom and these dark thoughts from spinning me in circles so tight I’ll trip over my own mind.
I come out to find someone crouched between my kids, slender arms folded on the tabletop, laughing.
It’s a girl. That girl.
Again.
She shouldn’t be here. Can’t be. She reminds me of so much.
“You.” I point a finger at her. “Go.”
She stands up, the smile slipping from her pretty face. “Well, hello to you, too. I was just saying hi to your kids. Cole here was crying.”
I shake my head and tug on my beard, anger warming my neck. “I said, go.”
“Has nobody taught you any manners?” she whispers, a flush on her cheeks, her blue eyes glittering. She lifts her chin in that way of hers I’d observed the first time we met, challenging. “I was just looking out for your kids.”
“Daddy is looking for a nanny,” Mary pipes up.
Traitor.
I shouldn’t be glaring at a five-year-old for telling the truth, dammit.
“So you lied. You haven’t found a nanny yet,” Octavia whispers, her eyes glittering. “Why did you have to lie?”
I clench my jaw and my hands curl into firsts. This seems to be their natural state. “We’re done here.”
“I don’t want the job, okay?” Octavia says, and I wince. I’ve been trying not to remember her name, because it makes her real. “But Cole’s diaper is soiled. Let me take him to the back to change him.”
“And my dress is wrinkled,” Mary says, but in a small voice, instead of the high-pitched whine that she uses when she’s acting up.
My breathing does that rattling thing again. I unclench my hands. Clench them again.
“Daddy…” Mary starts.
“No,” I say. “We’re fine. We don’t need anyone.”
Then I sit down in my chair, hoping that outward I look calm and composed, not like I’m about to go into some murderous fit—or worse, like I’m about to fucking break in two.
Which is how I feel.