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He waved a hand and walked out the door, my mother’s face laced with apprehensive worry as it always was when he left.
She began to measure out flour, adding heaping cups to the only bowl we owned. “Do you think the walks are still a good idea?” she asked quietly.
“You heard Solise, Ma,” I said, sprinkling some flour on the countertop to roll out the crust. “He needs to keep moving.”
“Maybe one of us should start to go with him,” she said, not looking up from her work.
“Youcan be the one to suggest that to him.” I blew air out of my mouth, imagining the cantankerous reaction a suggestion like that would surely elicit.
She cut chunks of butter into the bowl, the first butter we’d been able to purchase in as long as I could remember. “Maybe one of us should start to follow him, you know? Stay back, of course, but just keep an eye on him as he wanders.”
I grimaced. “And what do we say when he turns around and sees us? Huh?”
I placed the meat in a pan on the stove, melted butter bubbling around it. The smell was mouthwatering and almost foreign. I had eaten a meat pie only once before when Larka and I were little and there was an extra silver in the budget. “But pies are supposed to be sweet!” Larka yelled when my mother placed it on the table in front of her. I remember that evening so vividly — her toothless grin, my father’s laugh, and of course, the most amazing meal I’d ever eaten.
I pushed the meat around as my mother rolled out the dough, using the handle of the mallet as a makeshift rolling pin. “Maybe next time I land a big score, we can invest in a proper rolling pin, Ma.”
She paused her rolling, not turning to look at me. “Petra…” she started and sighed. “You can’t keep stealing.” Continuing her rolling, she let out another big sigh. “I am worried sick of what will happen if you–”
“It won’t happen, Ma,” I assured her. Miniscule splashes of boiling butter kissed my hands as I stirred, the sensation so odd that I didn’t know whether to pull my hand away or leave it. “I’m always careful. I stick to the shadows and only go for easy targets.”
“It isn’t right.”
I raised my eyebrows, my stare boring into the back of her head. “You think that I don’t know that?”
“I know you do, but–”
“But what? What would we do if Ididn’tsteal? Starve? It was either this or a job at the Painted Empress.” She cringed at the mention of it. “I do what I need to do, Ma. Never any more. Only enough to keep us alive. What state would Da be in now if I hadn’t called upon Solise? What would you be rolling that dough with, huh? You wouldn’t be rolling dough at all, because we couldn’t afford it. You're not the one working, so you can’t sayshitabout what I do.” I hadn’t felt the anger start to form until the last few words had shot from my mouth. She finally turned to face me.
“I don’t work, Petra, because I have to take care of your father.” Her tone was firm, even.
“And if you didn’t, I would have to. We have our roles, we can each play them how we choose.” My tone was equally as firm and even as hers. “Unless you’d like me to inquire with Mr. Evrod about a position at the Painted Empress?”
She went quiet. I won’t lie and say I haven’t thought of a job at the closest brothel to our home. The two men I’d lain with as a teenager were good enough lovers — nothing to be too excited about, though one of them did ask about Larka almost immediately after rolling off of me. But it wasn’t necessarily unpleasant. Because of that, the Painted Empress didn’t seem like such a bad place in theory. But every time I walked by the brothel, heard the screams rising from deep inside, I wasn’t sure it was a pleasure house. Those screams didn’t sound like ecstasy, and the men stumbling drunk to and from the doors made me feel ill. Even the slogan made my stomach turn.We’ll fulfill your every fantasy — even the most depraved.
It had to be theft.
We continued our tasks in silence. I added salt and pepper to the minced meat as well as some chopped rosemary Solise had given me last time I went to her for more tonic. The smell enveloped me, made me feel a comfort I had known so few times in my life. I savored this moment, letting the tension between my mother and I melt away as I stirred the meat, taking in the sight and sound and smell of having satisfying food.
I helped my mother line the small tins with the dough for a flaky crust, spooning the meat in and covering it with more dough. My stomach was beginning to growl as my mother slipped each into the small oven, glancing out the gap in the shutters to the street. “I’ve noticed this man a few times recently,” she said nonchalantly.
I furrowed my brows. “What man?”
“Come look.”
Peering through the gap, I saw him. A man slight in stature with wispy blonde hair and a cloak just a bit too nice to have been purchased in Inkwell. Dusk had almost closed upon the city, shadows obscured into darkness. “You’ve noticed hima fewtimes?”
“Yes, always just waiting there.” Her tone revealed no worry, but I had long felt the gaze of strangers on me in a way that made me feel…watched.
His eyes were shifty, moving from the ground to the sky to the passing crowds. A heavy feeling collected in my chest. I couldn’t help but grimace, squeezing my eyes shut. It was nothing. It had to be nothing. I was worrying too much, just like I always did. My mother continued cleaning up, wiping down the rickety counters. “Thank you,” she said quietly, almost inaudibly.
I lowered myself to one of the kitchen chairs. “For?”
“Doing what you do. Providing. So I can stay with him.” I fiddled with a small pebble that was a part of my father’s collection. “I think the tonic has stopped working.” Her words were heavy with sorrow and longing.
I inhaled deeply, knowing that once I acknowledged it, it was real. These were the final seconds before we entered the free fall of his affliction again. “I do too.”
“Now what?” she asked, finally turning to face me. I watched my mother fight back tears, something a child shouldn’t have to see their mother do as often as I had.
I sighed, throwing my head back to look at the unlevel ceiling. “I think we both know the answer, Ma. We just don’t want to admit it.” She raised her thumb to her mouth, chewing on the nail nervously. “Solise said there’s nothing else she can do.”
We sat in silence for a long while, the bubbling of the pies in the oven punctuating the silence every so often, the smell filling the house with a warmth we hadn’t felt in months. Would he remember that meat pies were his favorite when he returned home? Eventually my mother rose and pulled the pies from the oven. He’d be back soon, and I was praying to the Saints that he would remember.
My mother jumped as a knock on the door sounded then, the beats so close together it sounded like a hummingbird’s wings. It didn’t stop until I threw the door open to find Elin standing breathless on the front steps.
“It’s your Da.”
