“What are you doing?” Your voice made me jump.

“Cleaning up your stuff. You shouldn’t leave these things lying around for her to find.”

“I’ll do it. Go to bed.”

“You coming?”

“In a bit.” You took a seat on the stool and clicked on the lamp. I touched your shoulder and then rubbed the back of your neck. I kissed you behind your ear. You slipped a blade into the knife and then reached for the metal ruler. You always held your breath while you worked. I put my ear against your back and listened for your long inhale. “Sorry, honey. Not tonight. I need to finish this.”

Hours later the sound pulled me from my sleep—one by one, slowly, the blades dropped into the tin. Clink. Clink. Clink. A pause. And then clink, clink. A pause. I opened my eyes and anchored myself in the room with the faint glare reflecting from our glass ceiling light. Clink, clink. My head fell to the side and the sound of those metal blades against the tin became the frozen pellets of rain against the drainpipe outside our window. The wind picked up. Clink, clink. Clink. I closed my eyes and dreamed of my baby boy in my arms, the smell of his warm neck and the feel of his fingers in my mouth, of blood dripping on him slowly like beads of water from a leaky faucet as he twitched with every drop. I watched the blood hit his fresh skin and trickle into jagged rivers that collected in the crevices of his tiny body. I licked him up like he was a melted ice cream cone. He tasted like the sweetness of the warm applesauce I fed him the summer before he died.

You never came to bed that night. In the morning I found you sleeping on her bedroom floor under the throw blanket from the living-room couch.

“The ice pellets scared her,” you’d said at breakfast. “She was having a nightmare.”

You rubbed her head and poured her more orange juice while I went back upstairs to bed.

53

It’s freezing out there, Blythe, does she not bring mittens to school?” Your mother winced as she bent down, pulling off her wet boots. She had come to stay for a few nights to spend some time with Violet and had gone to pick her up from school. Violet sat in a puddle of melting snow, brushing off her pants.

“They’re in her backpack, but she won’t wear them.”

Violet wiggled past me to the kitchen.

Your mother fluffed her thinning hair in the hallway mirror and I could tell by the way she fiddled that there was something on her mind. I stood against the wall and waited for her to speak.

“You know, the teacher said Violet had a tough day. That she seemed angry. She wasn’t willing to join in any of the class activities.”

I felt my chest tighten. “Fox thinks she’s bored there.”

“She was sitting alone in the corner of the schoolyard when I arrived. Not playing with anyone at all.” She raised her eyebrows and looked toward the kitchen to make sure Violet was still out of earshot. “It hasn’t even been two years. You have to remember she loved him, too, like we all did. Despite everything.”

Despite everything—her words surprised me. She never brought up the death of our son. I didn’t know if she knew what I knew. I had always wanted to ask her. She was the closest thing I had to an ally.

“Helen,” I whispered. “Has Fox talked to you about the day Sam died? About what I told him happened?”

She looked away and then turned to straighten the coat she’d hung in the entryway. “No. And I don’t know if I can talk about that, to be honest with you. I’m so sorry. I know you were there, you lived it, but—I can’t.”

“You said ‘despite everything,’ I thought—”

“I meant how seemingly unaffected she’s been.” She spoke sharply. “How well she’s adjusted at home even though you haven’t been available for her.” I shot a look toward the kitchen and she lowered her voice again. “I don’t mean that as a criticism, Blythe, I promise you. You’ve been through hell.”

I nodded to defuse any tension I’d caused. She looked so feeble to me then, so much older than her sixty-seven years, and I realized then that losing her grandson had taken a toll on her, too. Of course you hadn’t told your mother what I believed. Violet called out for her to make chocolate chip cookies and I could hear her digging through the cupboard for mixing bowls. Your mother had walked to the store in the snow that morning to buy all the ingredients. I reached out for her hand and squeezed it.

“You’re a strong person,” she said quietly. Those words meant nothing to me—they weren’t true. She loved me, but she didn’t know me at all.

When you came home that night, I saw her pull you aside into the dark living room. You spoke together in low voices. I heard your hands pat her back. Afterward you smelled like her strong rose perfume and I thought of that embrace all night.

54

There’s a story of me and Violet that goes through my head sometimes.

That story goes like this:

She sucks milk from me until she turns one. I am fueled by the feeling of her hot skin on mine. I am happy. I am grateful. I do not want to cry when I have to be near her.

We teach each other things. Patience. Love. Simple, joyful moments with her make me feel alive. We build towers after nap time and we read the same book every night until she knows each page, and she can only sleep if I rock her first. I do not hate you when you’re late to come home, late to take her from me. It is me she calls for when she wakes up in the night. She squeals good morning when I come into her room, and we spend a quiet hour together before you get up. She doesn’t need you like she needs me.