Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XIII.
It was the morning of May 31, 1937, and Adelaide was wickedly exhausted. A great amount of her exhaustion had come from the complete lack of sleep she’d had since Hank was born, but it wasn’t Hank’s fault at all. He didn’t cry or fuss as much as other infants, even though his feeding schedule included a late night meal at half past one and a first breakfast at five.
Thomas’ sister Florence had had a really difficult night. Adelaide wished that she could chalk it up to an anomalous event, but she’d lost count of how many times Florence had perpetrated some wild disruption on account of her madness. Adelaide was tired of locking up the knives, scissors, pens and matches to keep away from her. If the mere suggestion of them didn’t make her scream, the sight of them initiated battles in which Florence would try to seize them. In the previous five months since she had been released from the hospital, Florence had used the knives and scissors to carve into the floors, the pens to write on the walls and the matches to heat the knives to sear her already scarred flesh and set small fires in the house. Adelaide had pled with Thomas to put Florence into a hospital, but he absolutely refused every single time the suggestion was made.
Hank had fallen asleep on Adelaide’s chest after his second breakfast. She wished he could tell her if he’d had a tough time sleeping in the same house as Florence, too.
Thomas looked like he felt like the rope used to tie down a tent in a hurricane when he shuffled into the kitchen. He laid his coat on the one of the chairs at the kitchen table and whispered. “Have you made any coffee?”
“You might need to heat it up again. I boiled it about an hour ago,” Adelaide responded in a whisper as well.
Thomas turned on the gas on the stove, but the pilot failed the light the burner. He turned off the gas and fetched his gold cigarette lighter from his coat, returning to the stove to repeat his actions and igniting the gas with his lighter. He slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. “Thank God tomorrow’s the first. They said they’d be delivering the new stove tomorrow, since this one’s never really worked.”
“I told you what happened—”
“Addie, there’s no way—”
“—and you didn’t believe me, just like you didn’t believe me—”
“—that Flo broke the stove like you said she did.”
“—about the window or the clothesline when I was still pregnant, and I don’t know how you can expect me to raise your son in a house where your sister is keeping us up all night screaming about the cats outside. And if it’s not the cats, it’s the birds. And if it’s not the birds, then it’s triangles. When will it end?” Adelaide argued. Her whisper had an impassioned hiss to it, and Hank adjusted on her chest.
“She’s my sister. I can’t just throw her out. You know she can’t take care of herself.”
“She needs a doctor. She needs to be in a hospital.”
“You know what they do in those hospitals,” Thomas said.
“Tom—I don’t want her around the baby anymore. He doesn’t get enough sleep—none of us do—and I know you heard her last night. Don’t deny it.”
“I did.”
“So tell me what she said, so I can hear it from you. Because if you heard it too, then maybe you’ll start to believe me when I say that I don’t want her anywhere near our son,” Adelaide insisted.
Thomas sighed and rubbed his face. “She said that the cat told her that babies were evil, and the only thing that stops evil is fire.”
“Well?”
“Fine. I’ll call the doctor today and have him come by as soon as possible,” he conceded.
“Thank you. What do I do with her in the meantime?” she asked.
“She’s sleeping now, right?”
“She’s the only one in the house who actually gets any sleep,” Adelaide countered.
“Let her sleep. Hopefully the doctor will give her something to sleep so that when I get home tonight you and I can have a nice evening where we’re not trying to restrain my sister and we don’t fight and we can figure out what we’re going to do celebrate our anniversary and Hank’s month-old birthday next week,” Thomas said.
“I’d love that,” Adelaide replied.
“And I love you, Adelaide. And I love you, son.” Thomas kissed his own index and middle finger and pressed the translated kiss to Hank’s forehead.
Dominus tecum.