“My dad did it,” Brandon said.
I looked at him.
“My dad,” he said. “When I was a kid. My mom would ask him to watch us. Me and my brothers. So she could go to the grocery store. Or take a bath. Or just sit in the car for ten minutes.”
He shook his head.
“And when she came back,” he said, “he’d tell her we were monsters. That we’d been fighting. That we’d broken things. That he had a headache. That she shouldn’t leave us with him again.”
His voice was shaking.
“We weren’t monsters,” he said. “We were watching TV. He was asleep on the couch. I remember. I was seven. My little brother fell off the counter and split his chin. I was the one who got a towel.”
He looked at the phone.
At Mabel.
“I was the one who got a towel,” he said again. “I was seven. I held it on his chin. I was so scared. I kept saying Mom will be back soon.”
He put his hand over his mouth.
“And when my mom came back,” he said, “my dad told her we’d been terrible. And she apologized to him. And I sat on the floor and didn’t say anything. Because I knew if I did, he’d be madder.”
The kitchen was silent.
From the living room, I could hear Bluey. And the twins whispering in their secret language. And Theo babbling. And Mabel’s voice, very quietly, singing.
You are my sunshine.
“I’m my dad,” Brandon said.
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t need to.
He didn’t go to work that day.
He called in. He told his boss it was a family emergency.
His boss said, Is everyone okay?
Brandon looked at me.
“No,” he said. “No. But we’re going to be.”
He took the day.
I gave him a list.
I didn’t do it to punish him.
I want to be clear about that. I’ve thought about it a lot. Whether I was being cruel. Whether it was revenge.
It wasn’t.
I did it because he didn’t know.
He’d never done it. Not once. In four years. He’d never been alone with all four kids for a full day.
He thought he knew what my day was.
He didn’t have a clue.
The list was everything.
Every diaper. Every meal. Every snack. Every nap time. Every medication. June’s speech exercises. Ivy’s potty training schedule. Mabel’s pre-K pick-up. Theo’s teething gel. The laundry. The dishes. The bottles.
The frozen peas in the freezer door.
The song.
I went to my sister’s.
My sister Kate lives twenty minutes away. In Upper Arlington. She has two kids. Teenagers now.
I showed up at her door at 9:15 in the morning. In leggings and a T-shirt. With wet hair from my second shower in twelve hours.
She opened the door.
She looked at me.
“Erin,” she said. “What happened?”
I showed her the video.
She watched the whole thing.
When it was done, she put the phone down.
She didn’t say anything.
She just put her arms around me.
I slept for eleven hours.
In Kate’s guest room. In the middle of the day.
I didn’t wake up once.
Brandon called at 2:14.
I didn’t answer.
He called at 3:08.
I didn’t answer.
He called at 4:40.
Kate answered.
“She’s asleep,” Kate said. “She hasn’t slept in five years. You can handle it, Brandon.”
She hung up.
I woke up at 8:30 p.m.
There were fourteen texts.
BRANDON: Theo won’t nap. How do you get him to nap?
BRANDON: Never mind. I figured it out. You have to rock him and walk at the same time.
BRANDON: Ivy wet her pants twice. Is that normal?
BRANDON: June won’t eat lunch. She says everything is the wrong color.
BRANDON: Mabel’s teacher said Mabel asked if she could stay at school longer today. She said “so Daddy doesn’t have to deal with me.” Erin, she’s four.
BRANDON: I forgot pre-K pickup. They called me. I was 25 minutes late. Mabel was the last kid there. She was sitting on the bench with her backpack on. She didn’t cry. She just said “It’s okay Daddy. Mommy’s late sometimes too.”
BRANDON: I haven’t sat down since 9 AM.
BRANDON: I haven’t eaten.
BRANDON: I haven’t peed. I mean I peed. With June watching. She wanted to know why I didn’t sit down.
BRANDON: Theo threw up on me.
BRANDON: I’m not complaining. I’m not. I just want you to know I get it. Some of it. I don’t get all of it. But I’m starting to.
BRANDON: Mabel just sang them all your song. At bedtime. All four of them. She did the whole thing. Both verses. I stood in the hallway and listened.
BRANDON: Erin. She’s four.
BRANDON: I’m so sorry.
I didn’t answer.
I stayed at Kate’s that night.
And the next.
When I came home on Friday, the house was a disaster.
Toys everywhere. Dishes stacked in the sink. Laundry in piles on the couch. The bag of frozen peas on the kitchen counter, thawed.
Brandon was on the floor of the living room.
On his back. On the rug.
Theo was sitting on his chest. The twins were lying on either side of him, using his arms as pillows. Mabel was sitting cross-legged next to his head. Braiding his hair. Badly.
He looked up at me when I came in.
He hadn’t shaved in two days. He had throw-up on his shirt. His eyes were red.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“I didn’t clean,” he said. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t. I tried. Every time I started, somebody needed something.”
I looked at him.
On the floor. Covered in children.
“I know,” I said.
Mabel looked up at me.
She looked at Brandon. Then at me.
She looked worried.
“Mommy,” she said. “Are you mad at Daddy?”
I knelt down on the rug.
I looked at my daughter.
“No, baby,” I said. “I’m not mad at Daddy.”
She looked at Brandon.
“Is Daddy mad at you?”
Brandon sat up. Carefully. Theo rolled off his chest into his lap.
He looked at Mabel.
“No, Mabes,” he said. “Daddy’s not mad at Mommy.”
Mabel looked at him for a long time.
Her head tilted. Like a little bird.
“You were,” she said. “Before. When she got clean.”
Brandon’s face crumpled.
“I know,” he said. “I was. And I was wrong.”
Mabel didn’t say anything.
“Mabel,” Brandon said. “Can I tell you something?”
She nodded.
“On Tuesday,” he said. “When Mommy was in the shower. You took care of everybody. Theo and June and Ivy. You did the peas. You got the diaper. You sang the song.”
Mabel nodded slowly.
“That was Daddy’s job,” Brandon said. “Not yours. You’re four. You’re not supposed to take care of everybody. Daddy was supposed to do that.”
“But you were busy,” Mabel said.
“I wasn’t busy,” Brandon said. “I was playing a game on my phone.”
Mabel stared at him.
“And when Mommy came back,” Brandon said, “I told her you were all being bad. I told her you were screaming and fighting. That wasn’t true. You were all being really, really good.”
His voice broke.
“I’m sorry I said that,” he said. “I’m sorry I made Mommy feel bad. And I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to be extra good so I wouldn’t get mad.”
He looked at her.
“You don’t have to be extra good,” he said. “You never have to be extra good. You just get to be four.”
Mabel looked at her father for a very long time.
Then she crawled into his lap. Next to Theo.
She put her arms around his neck.
“Okay, Daddy,” she said.
That was a year ago.
Brandon goes to therapy now.
Every Thursday at six. A man named Dr. Feld in Worthington. He specializes in fathers. Men who were raised by men who checked out.
He doesn’t tell me much about it.
But in March, after a session, he came home and sat on the edge of the bed and said, “Dr. Feld asked me what I was afraid of. If I actually did it. If I actually showed up.”
“What did you say?”
He was quiet for a long time.
“That it would be hard,” he said. “And I wouldn’t be good at it. And everybody would see.”
He looked at me.
“Dr. Feld said, Your wife has been hard and not good at it in front of everybody for four years. And she does it anyway.”
We go to couples counseling too. Every other Tuesday.
It’s been hard.
Some weeks we don’t talk on the drive there. Some weeks we don’t talk on the drive home.
I’m still angry. Sometimes. More than I want to be.
The therapist says that’s normal. She says I spent four years swallowing it. She says it’s going to take time to come back up.
