Waffles

He can’t find out!

They all think I’m crazy. I’ll show them. I’ll show them who’s crazy.

His house and his smell and his chair enveloped her, pulling her into his world of shadow and flame.

She fought against it, holding the memory of Jason aloft as a candle against the darkness. The fog rolled back, and she focused on the writing in front of her.

What was it that he couldn’t know?

If it was just me, who knows? I might tell him. I might give him what he wants. Give all for love and let the devil take the hindmost.

But Emma…Emma deserves more than that. She deserves a father.

And so I won’t tell him. I will hold him here on the edge. I won’t let him fall.

And I keep hoping that he’ll come back to us, but really…it’s been years now. Years and years of trying to pull him back. My arms are getting tired.

Lilith held her place and flipped back, looking for an earlier mention of Emma. A sudden morbid curiosity concerning how Emma had come into the world had overtaken her. It was hard to imagine him being intimate with anyone.

She could feel his outline on the chair.

She didn’t know how much time she had, but anyway for all she knew he was already here being all invisible and crazy and stuff. Probably standing behind her with a lighter and just waiting for the leprechaun to tell him to set her on fire. So why not spend her last few minutes looking for the dirty bits in his wife’s diary?

The word “waffles” caught her eye.

I made waffles for breakfast this morning.

Seth always used to like waffles.

Back when he was sane.

The thing I like most about baking is the controlled heat. It’s a primitive enemy, caged and tamed and made into a friend.

Of course sometimes it burns down its cage.

He was doing it again this morning. Going on and on about fire and death and life. And life fruit.

I wish he wouldn’t talk about the life fruit.

I miss him. I miss him so much. He used to be warm and funny and gentle. He used to come home so excited about his work. I could never really understand it, but I loved to hear him talk about it. They were working on a way to teleport matter through space when…

The thing I like most about baking is that the fire is under control.

Some days are better than others. Sometimes he’s almost his old self.

I haven’t completely lost him.

And I hope that the news I have today will help him. Help him hold on to the light.

I’m pregnant.

Lilith was weirdly disappointed with Sarah’s lack of description and yet also creeped out. But what would she have done in Sarah’s situation, if Jason had changed like that?

She shuddered at the thought and put it firmly out of her mind.

She wasn’t on fire yet. That was good. Maybe he really wasn’t here.

She turned back to the entry she’d been reading. What had Sarah been hiding? Had Seth found out? Was that why he’d burned her?

I won’t let Emma have a murderer for a father.

But I don’t know much longer I can hold on to him. I don’t know how much of him is left to be held on to.

They all think I’m crazy. I’ll show them. I’ll show them who’s crazy.