chapter 66

“Do you have everything?” asked Xander.

“I think so,” I replied.

The kitchen was mostly done and mostly clean. We had two bedrooms painted and ready, the house was starting to take shape. We had decided that there was enough done for us to move into parts of the house. The main corridors were done, not all painted but at least primed.

We had one room that we could install the TV in. It would not be our long-term living-room, but it was feasible.

Xander’s cousin came to help us move furniture inside the house, and all the boxes.

I was by far the one with the less stuff as I had sold or given away most of it, but my crate had come in with whatever I had shipped from Canada.

“You people are crazy,” said Anton, Xander’s cousin. “There is way too much work to do in this house. You wouldn’t catch me taking on something like that. Give me a nice brand new prefab and I’ll be fine.”

Xander grimaced.

Neither of us found this idea particularly enchanting.

“Let us agree to disagree,” I told him.

“Good thing you found yourself an odd bird to fit with you,” he said to Xander pointing his thumb sideways at me

“Stop whining about what doesn’t concern you and help with the boxes if you want your beer,” Xander told him.

“That’s blackmail, mate.”

I left them at it and went to check on Eloim. He had been awfully silent for a while.

I found him in one of the unfinished rooms, there were three plushies in front of him. All of them had lost their heads which were a little further around and turned down, facing the floor.

“What happened here?” I asked.

Eloim turned away from me. I had a flashback of that first time when I had met him and he had kept his back to me, not looking at my face. I looked at the plushies.

“What happened, sweetie?” I asked lowering on my shin next to him.

He turned his body away from me.

“You have to talk to me for me to understand.”

“I don’t like the weird faces,” he finally replied.

“Did they have weird faces?” I asked.

He didn’t reply.

“What do the weird faces look like?”

“No,” he said putting his hands on his ears and crouching down.

I put my hand on his back but he flinched away. Something was wrong.

I went to fetch Xander worried.

He rushed to where Eloim was. Anton’s face was a lot more serious now. I guessed that a lot of things have happened with Eloim, and the family was aware of a lot of it.

I checked by the door on the two guys. Eloim was now in Xander’s arms who was rocking him softly. Eloim’s face was buried in his father’s chest, and he was gripping his shirt tightly.

I had the feeling I was not going to help them, so I went to help Anton instead.

“How things are going down there?” Anton asked me as we moved things to the upper bedrooms.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Are you aware of how things have been going with Eloim?”

“Some.”

“Has he been known to have issues with faces?”

“I thought that phase was over?”

“He had a phase?”

“Yeah, it lasted months.”

“What do you know about it?”

He looked at me sideways unsure. “I don’t know if it’s for me to tell you.”

“Xander hasn’t hidden things from me.”

He thought about it a little. “Do you know about Enola?”

“Xander’s wife? Yes. I also know of the accident.”

He nodded. “No one is sure because, as far as I know, Eloim as never talked about it, but there have been speculations. I know Xander went to see a bunch of specialist about this.”

“About what?”

“Do you know how long it took to find them after the accident?”

“Two days,” I said.

“Yeah well, Enola was not in a good condition when they found her, both from injuries from the accident and decomp. They needed dental records to identify her.”

“And Eloim was in the car with her. He could see her,” I guessed.

“No one is sure, but it’s our best guess.”

I nodded. I couldn’t imagine how horrible that sight has been for a toddler. To see the face of someone he loved turn like this. It could be flashbacks, PTSD, I don’t know, I’m not a child psychology expert, but knowing this, I felt similar to Anton. It was probably the most logical explanation, which was why he acted like an autistic child, shying away from faces and physical contact, only it was not triggered by mental illness, but trauma.

What can you do when this happens? I’m sure Xander has asked one of the many specialists he’s seen with Eloim, and I will have to ask him about it later. If this happens when he’s not around, I’ll have to know what to do, how to deal with it. What I can and most of all can’t do. But there’s probably more there too, even if I did all the right things, it might not be enough. Maybe he was not used to having me around, or maybe the fact that I was a woman could put be at a higher risk of triggering him than his father.

That would put me in a very limited position in what I could do to help him.

Most new parents don’t deal with things like these from the get go, or at least, walk into it not expecting it, but I had known there would be challenges with Eloim. I knew and I chose to do it regardless. I was fine with this, but so far, everything had gone relatively well. Not only that, but the fact that it had gone so well had been the main reason why Xander asked me to marry him and come to live here with them to begin with.

What if Eloim didn’t get better? What if my good streak had run out? What then?

I had planned my life now around both of them. I was invested and excited about this house. I had quit my jobs, my country, everything, to come here. But my main purpose had been to become a mother, first and foremost. What happened if I couldn’t perform this task?

I liked Xander, we got along well, we laughed together, we had similar tastes on many things. I had grown to feel that we were a good match, I had not put any damper on my emotions towards either of them.

I moved out of the room and left Anton on his own to go to the bathroom.

By the time I was inside, I was already crying. Why was I so emotional now?

Was it the fear of losing them? Or the fear of not being good enough to help Eloim?

I had no idea what was going on with me, but I didn’t like it.

I thought of all the crap that Xander had to deal with, and I decided that he didn’t have to deal with this either. I would come out of this bathroom and be cheerful and helpful. I will finish the work while Xander is busy, and then I’ll make lunch, and then I’ll be my normal self with Eloim, and if it doesn’t work, then I’ll use the same trick I used the first time we’ve met, Eloim had a strong affection towards pets, if it worked once, it might as well work again.

Maybe it’s not me that Xander needed, maybe he just needed pets.