Page 1 of The Hidden Heir

1

VALENTINA

My son doesn't know what fear is, and I have willingly paid for that in ways he'll never see.

Tonight, for instance, I am paying with my sanity. Over pajama pants.

This is the hill Mikey has chosen to die on: twenty-six pounds of naked defiance doing victory laps around the couch while I kneel on the rug holding his pajama bottoms like a very tired bullfighter who has seriously underestimated the bull.

"Mikey. Baby. It's bedtime."

"No pants!" he announces to the room.

I have never loved anything more.

I have also never wanted anything more than for him to be unconscious in that crib.

Thirteen hours. That's how long I've been on my feet today. My left eye has started twitching.

Two years of double shifts and secondhand everything have bought me a house the size of a generous closet on a street where nothing happens, and a little boy who has never once had a reason to be afraid. I'd make the trade again in half a heartbeat.

It takes three laps and a negotiated settlement: pants in exchange for one more reading of the hippo book.

He's asleep before the hippos even get to the mud, dark curls stuck to his forehead, one fist curled under his chin. I stand over the crib longer than I need to, the way I do every night.

I turn off his lamp and go make tea.

The kitchen window over the sink faces the street. One last look before bed. The neighbor's minivan. The Hendersons' trash bins already out for tomorrow. Overachievers. Probably have their taxes done too.

I catch myself in the dark glass and almost laugh. Tired eyes, hair escaping its bun, a smear of something on my collar that I'm choosing to believe is applesauce.

The kettle starts to whisper.

I reach for the little tin beside it. Jasmine and chamomile, my one extravagance, four dollars a box and worth every damn penny.

I drop the bag into my mug and pour. Steam curls against my face. The house is quiet. Mikey is asleep. My feet hurt. And for the first time all day, nobody needs anything from me.

I let out a long breath.

There. Peace.

Then the porch light goes out.

I go still.

My whole body goes quiet the way it used to. The stillness of small animals, the instinctive kind that says don't move, don't breathe, don't be seen.

I thought I'd unlearned it. Apparently it was just waiting.

For a few seconds, I stare at the square of darkness where the light should be.

Come on, Valentina. It's a lightbulb. A lightbulb is not a crisis. A lightbulb is a trip to Home Depot.

Except.

Except I changed that bulb three days ago, dragged the stepladder out of the closet myself, dusted a dead moth off the fixture, screwed it in tight.

Bulbs don't die in three days.