Chapter Seven

ETHAN

The next morning, after I finally manage to get some sleep, I bring Riley downstairs after changing her diaper and getting her dressed and her hair neatened up a bit. Lara is in the kitchen, already working on breakfast. My father-in-law is at the kitchen table, staring blankly at the paper. I am suddenly reminded that he has lost his wife and daughter within a year of each other. We are all damaged from this course of events.

Riley mumbles into my neck about being hungry as we come in.

“Hey, Riley-baby!” Lara looks wide awake at first, but at the same time, I can tell she hasn’t slept any better than I have. “I’m almost done cooking up some breakfast, but you can have some fruit to start if your daddy says it’s okay.”

“I’ll do that. You are already making breakfast,” I say, getting Riley into her high chair as quickly as I can.

Nathan looks up from the paper and takes a sip of his coffee. I’m just as glad he doesn’t appear to be in a chatting mood. He also looks like he hasn’t slept much either.

I grab a bowl from the cupboard and get a few pieces of fruit for Riley out of the fridge. Fortunately, at eighteen months, she’s just about fully weaned off formula, so I don’t have to worry about anything too messy, other than the possibility of my daughter smashing and smearing fruit all over her face.

I grab a mug from the cupboard and pour myself a cup.

Lara notices and says, “Milk and sugar are on the table if you want either.”

“Thanks.” I learned to take my coffee black about a year ago.

I watch Riley play with and eat her fruit, exclaiming in little excited squeals over each piece before bringing it to her mouth.

I sip my coffee and listen to the silence of the adults in the kitchen.

Lara is making eggs and bacon, but I can smell pancakes too, even if I can’t see them. They must be in the oven.

By the time I’m halfway through my coffee, Lara’s putting breakfast on the table. It’s so much like being back home with Alexis that for a second I feel absolutely at ease, and then I remember that my wife is dead, leaving me and our daughter behind, and it feels like something in my chest is crumbling in the most painful way possible. I sit there numb for a moment and will myself not to break in front of my in-laws.

Lara brings over the rest of the food and we start piling up our plates. Although I miss Alexis, my appetite has not been affected this morning.

“We should go to the park today,” Nathan comments.

I give Riley some eggs, a piece of bacon, and start cutting up a pancake for her.

“Sounds good,” Lara says.

“It’ll be good to give her some time to play around a bit outside,” I agree. Of course, taking Riley out to the park will also get all of us out of the house, and I can’t help feeling like the whole place is haunted and too tense.

Riley eats some of her bacon, and I keep an eye on her while trying to get some of my own food into my mouth. It’s going to be a weird few days, I think. I’m not even sure why I even agreed to this whole idea, except that Nathan was so set on it.

“We need to figure out what kind of schedule we’re going to go with for next week,” Lara says, barely looking up from her plate.

“Didn’t we already come up with something? I don’t remember.” My lack of sleep is starting to catch up with me.

“I just want to have an idea of how much time off to ask for, or what days to ask to work-from-home,” Lara tells us.

“Right, right. Sorry,” I say, shaking my head. I drink down another quarter of my coffee.

I realize that the meal I am eating is in many ways the same one that Alexis might have made at home. The scrambled eggs taste the same and the bacon is undercooked, the way that Alexis liked it. In some ways Lara is so much like Alexis that it’s hard for me to even think straight. However, as they were raised in the same house, they ate the same food. They are sisters. But at the same time, Lara is totally different, and I can remember exactly how different the two sisters are.

“Ethan?”

I suddenly snap forward to the present and realize that Lara is talking to me.

“I don’t remember what it is you do for a living,” Lara points out. I grin at her as best as I can. Of course she doesn’t remember. When she came home from getting her degree and found out I was with her sister, she didn’t even take any time to catch up with either of us. And then when Alexis and I announced we were going to be parents she shut us out even more, even going so far as to almost shut her own parents out for supporting us.

“I’m an electrician,” I say.

Lara’s eyes widen at that news, and I remember, vividly, the fight we’d had before we broke up. She was all set to go for her degree, setting the course for her life for the next four years, and I’d finally admitted to her that I hadn’t even applied to any schools like I’d said I would.

I hadn’t even gone for any kind of real job until Alexis had told me she was pregnant. I’d just worked temp jobs, doing stuff like construction labor and event cleanup, things like that. The fact that we were about to have a baby made me realize I needed something more permanent, and a job that would give me benefits.

“That’s really… that’s awesome,” Lara says, smiling tightly as she tries to cover for how surprised she is that I’ve amounted to anything at all.

“By now I can shift around my schedule a bit,” I tell her, thinking about it a little bit. I’ve got enough time at the company that I can request a schedule change, but it won’t be enough to cover all the time Riley’s going to need, especially until she’s in school. She’s still too young really for daycare, at least as far as I’m concerned, and as far as Alexis was concerned.

“I’ll be able to come up with something like a schedule this weekend,” Lara says. She puts her plate aside and starts helping Riley, and I feel that aching pull in my chest again. She’s so good with my daughter, and I can’t help the fact that I’m torn between being relieved that Lara’s willing to go along with Alexis’ idea, and wishing that she was still here and we didn’t have to go through with this contingency plan.

Although my marriage was not a perfect one, Alexis was a good mother.