The crying had started again.
Zara clapped both hands over her ears and groaned. Here we go again. It had been barely thirty minutes since her little brother had finally fallen asleep after throwing tantrums loud enough to disturb their nonexistent neighbors. And yet here he was, awake again and screaming like the world was ending.
She already knew what would happen next.
"Three. Two. One." She counted softly, tapping her fingers against her thigh.
"Zero."
Right on cue, her mother appeared in the doorway.
Greta Tomeo was a heavy woman with a surprising softness to the way she moved. She always seemed to glide rather than walk, tiptoeing from room to room as though the floor might crack beneath her if she put too much weight on it. Zara had never understood how someone so large could move so lightly. It irritated her. Everything about her mother irritated her lately.
Greta's life consisted entirely of tasks. Dusting. Washing. Mopping. Cooking. Waiting. Always waiting. Waiting for the clock to strike seven. Waiting for when he came home.
Zara watched her move through the room with practiced ease, her face calm and distant as if nothing in the world could touch her. She giggled to herself sometimes, spinning clumsily around furniture, humming as though she were a girl with nowhere else to be. A proper housewife stuck in the middle of nowhere.
It disgusted Zara.
It disgusted her even more now that Greta's stomach protruded further each week with the baby growing inside her. His baby.
Zara clenched her jaw.
It was not even the baby itself that made her feel sick. It was what the pregnancy had done to her mother. Greta glowed constantly, brown eyes bright with a happiness Zara could not understand. Her footsteps had grown even lighter since she had broken the news to Zara and Patrick, as if joy alone might lift her off the ground and carry her somewhere better.
Positively sickening.
Of course he was pleased. Patrick had held her, kissed her, ducked his head to hide the tears in his eyes like a man overwhelmed by gratitude. Greta had laughed and wrapped her arms around him, her large body swallowing his sinewy frame whole. Then she had looked at Zara.
"Come join the family hug sweetheart."
"No thank you," Zara had replied, already walking away.
Even lying in her bed later that night, she could hear their whispers through the thin walls. The house was too small for privacy. Too small for anything except resentment. They lived on the outskirts of Eldris, a place so cold and empty it felt like the world had ended and forgotten to tell them.
The nearest supermarket was forty five minutes away on a good day. Patrick's truck had survived better decades. Most days he used it just to get to and from the factory where he worked ten hours a day, six days a week, only to return to a crumbling cottage that looked like it might collapse under a strong enough wind.
It made Zara want to spit.
There were no other houses nearby. No stores. No satellite dishes. No nothing. It was as though they lived under a rock.
Zara felt completely cut off from the world. Patrick's nightly recounts of the outside world were her only connection. Fuel prices. Politics. Menial gossip. She pretended not to care while listening to every word, all the while her mother gazed at him like he was reciting poetry.
Zara left the table most nights feeling hollow.
It was easy for her mother. She was in love. Zara had never seen Greta look at anyone the way she looked at Patrick. Not even her own father before the drinking had turned him violent. Greta looked at Patrick like he was everything she needed.
Zara hated that look.
She did not want her mother to need her. She did not care about that. But she hated how easily satisfied Greta was. How she had told Patrick over and over that they were fine right where they were, that she did not want more as long as she had him.
Zara was not fine.
Patrick was the one who talked about better schools. About friends. About a life in the center of things where Zara could exist instead of just survive. Money was the problem. It always was.
She hated it here. Hated that she had no phone. Hated that the same walls closed in on her every day. Hated that the only voices she heard were the ones slowly driving her mad.
She hated it.
She hated it.
She hated it.
Tears burned behind her eyes as she lay in bed, imagining them kissing again just a wall away. Greta acted as though Patrick had given her the most precious gift imaginable by asking her to marry him. She behaved like she was undeserving of him and would do anything to keep him from leaving.
Zara felt ashamed just watching it.
Patrick had helped them, yes. When her father's blows had edged closer to killing. When neighbors turned their heads. When someone finally noticed. Patrick had interfered. He had fought her father when he tracked them down. He had brought them here. Five months later he had proposed.
Her mother had been ecstatic.
Zara had no one to talk to. Greta did not listen unless the answer pleased her. Zion was a baby. Patrick was not hers.
She hoped the engagement lasted forever. She hoped she would be gone before the wedding.
Zara sighed, the sound familiar and constant. She was sighing again now as she stared at her mother.
"I've already fed him," she said.
Greta blinked. "Let me get a word in edgeways okay?"
Zara shrugged.
"If he does not need changing, carry him for a bit. He might just want attention."
Zara narrowed her eyes. "Why do I have to give him attention?"
"I am sorting through books and materials. I need them to teach you. My back hurts sweetie. Please."
"What do you mean teach me?"
"You know you are starting homeschooling after Christmas."
"We did not talk about this," Zara said quietly. "You spoke. I listened. That is not the same thing."
Greta sighed. "Please not now. I have a lot to do."
"Then move us somewhere else so I can go to school."
Greta turned away. "Just tend to him."
Zara muttered under her breath as she walked into the small nursery. Zion lay in his crib, screaming, legs kicking wildly as he tried to chew on his arm.
"Do not tell me you are hungry again," Zara snapped. "It has been thirty minutes."
She prepared the bottle. Milk and custard mixed into a brown watery mess that reminded her of something unpleasant. Zion quieted the moment it touched his mouth, sucking greedily, his chubby hand clutching her shirt.
She shook him off. "Do not touch me. You are so heavy."
Zion stared up at her with a hooded gaze that made her stomach twist. He looked like their father. The resemblance unsettled her.
Her thighs ached under his weight.
She exhaled slowly.
"I hate you sometimes."