Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (the gingerbread man read aloud TXT) 📗

I bristled. ‘The formula milk helped him gain weight. It was the only thing you could do.’

‘Well.’ Seb shrugged and leant back from me slightly. ‘It wasn’t authorised.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like you’re on their side,’ I remarked.

‘Of course not,’ Seb retorted. ‘I’m just trying to understand why it happened to us and I’m worried that Evie might feel more responsible for it all.’

‘Do you think she is? More responsible?’

‘Well, of course not. But if we used formula milk without authorisation we were going to end up in trouble, weren’t we? Evie didn’t tell me it wasn’t authorised.’

‘What was the right thing to do, then?’

Seb began to bluster but he was saved by Evie reappearing. ‘Everything okay?’ she asked.

‘Yes, fine.’ Seb smiled up at her. Evie shrugged her shoulders, aware we had been speaking about her. She sat back down next to us but she watched Seb through narrowed eyes and, I noticed, sat just far enough away from him on the sofa so that no part of their bodies touched.

I started to look at Seb a little differently after that night, too.

The next morning, Evie opened the door to me, Jakob slung over her shoulder, with the violet shadows on her face, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.

‘What happened?’ I asked immediately.

‘Just another argument – where we couldn’t properly argue in case anyone heard us,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘OSIP are all about positive family relationships. Fighting with your partner is a big red flag to them. If the neighbours reported it or an enforcer happened to be passing, then…’

‘But surely they wouldn’t have heard?’

‘We can’t be too careful. Even though it’s maddening. I could just scream right now but…’

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, as though she was trying to contain a wild energy.

‘I almost stormed out. I’ve never been so mad,’ she continued. ‘But then I thought that I couldn’t leave Jakey and I stopped myself. Seb found the formula milk.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He just keeps pushing for us to ask for authorisation for it. I’m just… furious with him. He can’t understand why we can’t do it. It will draw more attention to us; it’ll be like inviting OSIP in. He blames me for what happened although he won’t admit it. I’m not sure what annoyed me more – that he’s pushing us to try to get authorisation, that he thinks it’s my fault or that he won’t be honest about it and tell me how he really feels. What we need to do is get through these next few weeks. I know I can do it.’ She gritted her teeth as she spoke and I could see the tension running through her whole body.

‘I’m sorry, Evie. Is there anything I can do?’

She took another deep breath. ‘You mustn’t say anything about the formula that you keep for us, OK? I didn’t tell him about you being involved.’

‘How is Jake’s weight now?’

Evie frowned. ‘He’s not gaining enough really. He’s gone down a couple of centiles.’

She peered over at Jakob who stared unblinkingly back at her, his eyes large and fixed upon her, as though they were in a silent dialogue.

‘We’ll get better at breastfeeding, hey buddy? Then we’ll be rid of those enforcers for good,’ she said. She reached out a finger towards him. He grasped it tightly in his fist.

A handshake, of sorts.

* * *

The lead-up to Dad’s funeral passed us by as though it were happening some distance away. We managed to stumble through the organisation of it all. Because of what was happening with Jakob, I told Evie I would plan everything and then run it past her to make sure she approved. Her mouth fell open to object when I first suggested it, but then she wearily agreed as Jake started to cry and she had to see to him.

Though we were spending more time together than we had in years, there was an expanse growing between Evie and me. Sometimes I would catch her staring into the distance, her face glazed over with a mix of emotions that I couldn’t quite unpick: sadness, disbelief, anger, a great weariness. But when I reached out to her, she’d pull away a little. She’d look at me like there was something that she wanted to say but her mouth remained set, her eyes troubled and she’d say it was nothing. ‘Just tired,’ she’d say, turning away.

I went back to the library a few times for more formula. Each time, it was the same back-and-forth. I saw the older woman a couple of times but never again the young woman from my first visit. Evie continued to breastfeed despite blocked ducts and mastitis. She swallowed down her pain, though it was written all over her face. But she persevered and one day she said I didn’t need to go back for any more.

There were more and more decisions to be made. They loomed above me, these towering choices, until I would snap and decide everything based on the very first thing that popped into my head. Granite headstone. Oak casket. A poem. If I tried to unpick these decisions or think about what Dad would like best, I was lost in a maze of uncertainty.

Through it all, I visited his allotment daily. I would pick up the pots that he’d left out for more tomato seedlings, sieve through the bundle of brown envelopes of seeds and begin to plant, as he’d taught me.

At first, I found the silence unnerving, I was so used to the constant noise of the Spheres filling my ears, my mind. But in no time at all, I looked forward to it and began to crave the quiet. I could hear the sounds of what I was doing there, the slicing of the earth with a trowel, the squelch of my boot in the mud, the clear, pure song of a blackbird overhead.

It rained a lot and I would stand in the greenhouse or the