Page 129 of Perfect
I think of what he does when I have a panic attack, so I wrap him in a blanket and talk to him. I attempt to help him regulate his breathing the way he does for me, but he won’t look at me or listen to me or react to me at all. He stops rocking at some point, and I keep my hands on his chest and stomach to help him breathe. Eventually, his breathing slows down and gets very shallow. I help him uncurl his body and sit back on the couch, and he just lets me move him because he’s completely dissociated. I make him tea, but he doesn’t drink it.
He just stares into the fire, catatonic.
I don’t know what to do, so I slip on his flannel, wrap him in another blanket, and stoke the fire. I drink a very full glass of wine, sitting at the dining room table, staring at him and trying to figure out why I’m still here. I pick his t-shirt and sweats up off the floor and fold them, putting them near him. He’s still just sitting there, staring at the fire. I pour myself another full glass of wine and sit on the couch, trying to read the thick tome about Sylvia Plath he got me for Christmas, but I can’t make any senseof the words, so I finish the bottle of wine as I lean against him and listen to the storm.
I’m probably stupid for being here, but I don’t care. He didn’t kill me and I’m alive, so I’m going to do whatever I want, whether or not I think I should.
I definitely don’t think Ishouldbe here taking care of him.
I want to be here, though.
After three hours, it’s either very late or very early and I’m exhausted, but I don’t want to leave Theo alone. I know he wouldn’t leave me alone, and I’m worried about him.
I don’t think he’s going to kill me anymore, but I think there’s a pretty big chance he might kill himself.
I bend down, getting directly in his line of vision. His eyes are dull and unfocused, and he doesn’t seem to register me at all. He’s still so pale, but his breathing has finally evened out.
He’s done scaring me now.
“Theo?” No reaction.
“Theodore,” I say, my voice stern. Nothing.
I hold his face in my hands, stroking his cheeks. “Baby?” He doesn’t respond. I stare at him for a second, thinking, then pitch my voice low and sultry, the way I did when I told him to stay in the kitchen.
“Teddy?” He blinks, his eyes focusing on me slightly, and I almost roll my eyes. Of coursethatworked. I softly stroke his temples with my thumbs and smile at him. “Teddy, can you come back to me?” His eyebrows twitch together, and he finally seems to register me somewhat, his eyes going wide when he does. “Can you talk to me?” He closes his eyes and shakes his head in small movements. “Can I get you anything?” He shakes his head again. “Are you okay?”
“Fuck, no.” His voice is hoarse and unbelievably soft. I push my fingers through his hair, but he pulls away. “Don’t.” I stop touching him as he leans his head back against the couch andcovers his face with his hands, exhaling hard. “Oh, my fucking god,” he whispers.
He repeats it over and over and starts crying.
I stand there watching him, concern and pity and something warm and soft flooding through me. I want to take care of him, but I don’t know what to do, so I follow a vague impulse and go into the kitchen. I start rifling through the fridge and pantry, looking at what we have, pulling out ingredients and piling them on the counter. I put on quiet jazz music, the kind my dad always listened to when he cooked, and start putting things together slowly.
I used tolovewatching my dad cook. He wasn’t methodical in the kitchen like Theo, he was messy and unorganized. It was the one area of his life where he wasn’t controlling. He would improvise and try things out, put things together that shouldn’t have worked and made them work anyway.
That’s how I thought you were supposed to cook before I married Danny. I thought it was supposed to be fun, that it was something you did for people you loved, and that things didn’t have to be perfect to be good. Danny disagreed, and freaked out if I didn’t cook something flawlessly the way his mom used to, but he’s not here. I’m done letting him or my memories of him dictate any part of my life.
It’s my fucking life, and neither he nor Theo are in control of it, not really.
I wish I’d figured that out a little sooner.
I haven’t actually cooked anything in almost a year, and I’m so much worse than I used to be, but it doesn’t matter – it doesn’t need to be perfect. I remind myself of that as I feel nervous when I slice the bread a little too thick, or tense up when I have to fish a bit of eggshell out of the bowl, or almost cry when I dump a little too much cinnamon into the egg mixture by accident.
I focus on my breathing, reminding myself why I’m cooking in the first place.
Theo drifts into the kitchen eventually, his t-shirt on inside out, his tear-stained face somewhere between devastated and confused. When he sees me cooking, his head cocks to the side a little and his face goes entirely blank. He leans against the counter and watches me with wide, confused eyes, and that same warm, soft feeling spreads through my body as I smile at him a little.
“I’m making French toast. Do you want coffee?”
40
THEO
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26
I’m dreaming.
Alex is in one of my flannels, the hem halfway down her bare thighs, puttering around the kitchen and humming along to French jazz. Her hair is pulled up into a bun and she looks calm when her eyes flit over to me as she whisks milk into the eggs, and her smile is soft when she hands me a cup of coffee.
