Kelly sighed. “I know. Maybe we can have them deliver us food in bed.”
“Canned meat and veggie stew in bed. Awesome.”
“It’s better than nothing.”
Elise tried her hardest, but it was a losing battle. She made lots of soups and hearty dishes—things that filled them up. But the taste wasn’t great. Neither Kelly nor Michael could complain. They both understood the debt they owed Sean and Elise for keeping them alive, and Sean knew it too because he often stared at them as they ate. That awful, piercing stare…
“All right. I’m going for it. Get ready,” Kelly said.
She propped her arms and legs up under the covers, creating a tent with her appendages as supports. She bit down on her tongue, closed her eyes, but brought the covers back down and sighed.
“All right, this is ridiculous,” Michael said and tossed all the covers from the bed.
The cold air swooped in to fill the warm void. Kelly’s eyes expanded, and she bolted out of bed and stamped her feet. “Are you crazy?” she yelled, scurrying around naked, trying to grab her clothing.
Michael chuckled, pulled his neat pile of clothes next to the bed toward himself, and threw on his layers. Before Kelly even had pants on, he was almost fully dressed. “You’re unbelievable sometimes,” she said, trying not to smile.
“Plan ahead,” he said, slipping a sweatshirt on.
“Don’t be an ass and I wouldn’t have to.”
He cracked the door just enough to slip through and block the view inside. “Well that’ll never happen, so you should probably plan ahead.”
She scrunched her face and threw her balled-up shirt at him. He ducked out before it hit. “That’ll only make getting dressed take longer,” he told her, shutting the door.
He smiled but stopped the moment he turned away from the door. Sean stood next to the fireplace staring at Michael, a few split logs under his arm. The flames raged behind him. His eyes had dark circles under them, his skin washed out, almost gray. They had a hundred razors in the reserves, but his face was shadowed with long and dark stubble. His cheek bones were more defined and the skin on his neck gripped tight against his muscles.
“Sorry if I interrupted,” Michael said.
“You didn’t interrupt anything,” Sean said and threw a log onto the fire.
A cloud of burning ash ascended the chimney. Sean seemed more hunched each day, his shoulders always forward and never tall, as if something were pressing him closer to the ground. Michael almost felt bad for the guy. Almost.
“You need any help?” Michael said.
“I’m good.”
Michael put his hands in his pockets and walked closer. With each step closer to the fireplace, the temperature seemed five degrees warmer. Sean sighed and tried to lift a larger log but dropped it. It crashed against the hearth and rolled onto the carpet. “Damn it,” he hissed.
“You sure you don’t need help?”
“I just got a splinter.”
“You need some antibacterial cream? I can grab some from the reserves—”
“No,” Sean yelled. He looked at the ground and splayed his fingers as if to stop himself. “It’s fine. It’s no problem.”
Michael tilted his head to see, but Sean hid his hand behind his back. “You feeling okay?”
“I’m fine,” Sean said.
“Getting sleep?”
“Why do you suddenly care?”
“I remember you were having issues a few years back. Do you have any sleeping pills? Maybe so you can get a good night’s rest?”
“I’m fine, Michael. Thanks.”
Michael and Sean had an unspoken agreement to avoid one another. But Sean was becoming more difficult to ignore. Elise had told him Sean wasn’t sleeping, or at least he was never in bed when she woke up. It worried him, not because he cared about Sean—he didn’t—but because his behavior was growing stranger. He muttered to himself nonstop, snapped at his kids. Snapped at everyone.
“Listen,” Michael said, “I don’t want to be intrusive.”
“You don’t? Because that’s what you’re doing.”
Michael raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes. Kelly walked out of the guest bedroom rubbing her arms and making a funny noise with her lips. Sean looked up. “You both are being safe about your alone time, right?”
Both Michael and Kelly stared back at him, a little taken aback by the question. “Excuse me?” Kelly asked.
“Did you not hear me?”
“We heard you fine,” Michael said, “but that’s none of your business.”
“Not to be intrusive, but it is. If there’s another mouth to feed, we’ll be hurting.”
“You’re being inappropriate.”
“No, I’m not.”
An uncomfortable chuckle rose from his chest. “Sean, just because we’re here doesn’t mean you have any right to know how my wife and I—”
“It does. Just don’t let her get preg—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Michael noticed Andrew, Molly, and Aidan standing at the base of the stairs.
“You guys ready for dinner?” Sean said with an unexpected cheerfulness.
“Did Mom say it was ready?” Molly said.
“She said ten minutes, and that was ten minutes ago, I think.”
Molly nodded and headed toward the kitchen with Andrew and Aidan. Sean’s head followed the kids as if his eyes were glued to them. When they passed out of sight, Sean turned back to the fireplace and grabbed the log he had tried to throw in earlier. “Just don’t screw up.”
Michael licked the inside of his cheek and glanced back at Kelly, who was shaking her head and had already started out of the room. She didn’t want to pursue it any further, so he gave up too.
Some battles weren’t worth fighting.
THEY ATE AROUND the fireplace like most nights. The fire smothered them in heat and cast a yellow glow into the room. Some nights it even felt cozy.
Elise placed a large cast-iron pot filled with vegetable and meat slop on the coffee table and sat down herself. “All right, we need to say grace,” she said before anyone took a bite.
Sean grimaced. A common reaction when Elise asked to pray, but this time he was snarling and rocking back and forth.
Elise didn’t seem to notice. “We always want to be thankful for what we have.”
The group joined hands and bowed their heads. Sean made no move to join them.
“Father,” Elise said, “we want to thank you for your provision to us this evening. We know that you’re in control and looking out for us, and we pray that we would glorify you this evening in our eating—and in all that we do. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.”
Everyone except Sean uttered an ‘Amen’ and started devouring the chunky stew. It tasted a bit like pizza sauce mixed with something vaguely like beef, but sustenance was sustenance. “What have you guys been up to today?” Elise asked Molly.
“We’re almost done with a jigsaw puzzle upstairs,” she said, slurping.
“Oh, I didn’t know you guys were working on that,” Kelly said. “I would’ve liked to help.”
“We’ll probably do it over again. There’s only, like, five puzzles in the house.”
Everyone chuckled but Sean. He carried a scowl on his face while shoveling spoonful after spoonful into his mouth. The conversation continued, but Sean sat on the stone hearth, disconnected from everything. Each passing moment seemed to fuel an anger deep inside, each bite he took more forceful than the last, his teeth gnashing together and gritting. His cheek muscles pulsed under his skin and he exhaled strained, quick breaths from his nose.
Michael stopped and set his bowl down. Kelly glanced up at him as if to ask what he was doing. He said nothing. Soon she caught on and turned her head. She stopped eating too.