One year later…
In a small, cozy house in New York City, the morning sunlight crept in slow through the blinds. Inside, the place was still quiet enough to fool anyone into thinking the world had stopped moving.
Robert lay motionless, body drained, like the life had been worked out of him. He wasn't asleep so much as collapsed. His body felt heavy, like it had been holding everything in for too long. The alarm on his phone buzzed beside him. Normally, it would've had him sitting upright in seconds. Today, he barely raised a hand to silence it. There was no rushing. No reflex to stop an alarm he was normally already awake before. Just the silence across the house where the majority lay asleep. Apart from one… Nicole, she was already up.
She moved carefully and quietly enough not to wake him. The curtains were cracked slightly, just enough for a strip of light to come in, so she walked over and pulled them tighter. No need to let it shine on his face. He'd only gotten in around three. Maybe later. She hadn't even asked this time.
She just listened to the door creak open, the tired shuffle through the hallway, and the sigh that came when he hit the mattress.
And even now, long after his alarm had gone off, he still lay there with his mouth open a little, chest rising slow and even. She looked at him for a second longer.
Let him sleep, she thought as she picked up his dirty clothes from around the room and placed them in the laundry basket before heading towards the door. As she left the room, she pulled the bedroom door shut behind her and stepped out into the hallway. The house stayed quiet,that peaceful kind of quiet that only lasted a few more minutes before everything shifted.
She checked in on Gabriel first. The oldest of her sons. Sixteen years old going on thirty, growing taller by the week, and knocked out cold across the bed. One arm off the side, braids sprawled across the pillow, the covers kicked off and hanging halfway to the floor. He looked like he'd fallen from the sky and landed face-first into a nap. She knocked on the headboard, but all he did was simply roll over and grab a handful of covers, so she banged again, harder this time.
"Time to get up Gabriel, or you'll be late to school," she said.
Gabriel groaned without lifting his head, then put his face in his pillow as he lay face down.
"Nope, not today, boy." Nicole wasn't playing this morning. She grabbed his wrist and gave a firm tug until he started sliding off the bed and landed on the cold floor.
Gabriel began to shiver, his cold body pressed up against the laminate flooring. "Mom, man, come on, that's so not cool."
"Don't Mom me, Gabriel. You should already be up. You're sixteen, Gabriel, not seven," she said, not stopping.
"I know, Mom, I know."
But that didn't stop her from what she was about to do next. She dragged Gabriel's half-sleeping body off of the cold floor and down the hall toward Daniel's room, only to find he was sleeping also. Daniel was fourteen but was wrapped up in a ball towards the edge of his bed like he was six, with his blanket pulled over his head and only his afro sticking out of the top like it was trying to breathe without him. Nicole shook him, then banged his headboard twice, but he didn't budge.
"So… you're not just going to pull him out of his bed like you did me? Or you just going to leave your baby to be late to school?" Gabriel asked with a sarcastic smile pinned to his face.
"Gabriel, now's not the time for this. Gabriel, you wake him up," she said as she stepped into the hallway and headed towards the stairs. "I want movement in five, boys! Don't make me come in here again."
"Yes, Mom, I heard you the first time you told me," Gabriel said under his breath.
"What did you say, Gabriel?" Nicole said as she walked down the steps to listen.
"Nothing, Mom!"
"I thought so," she shot back, then continued down the steps.
As she reached the bottom, she turned and headed into the kitchen, where everything waited just where she left it—the fridge humming quietly and pans stacked by the stove. She pulled out the eggs, grabbed the pancake batter she'd mixed the night before, and started heating the skillet.
But something didn't feel right. She kept an eye on the clock: two minutes passed, then three, then an entire ten minutes and she could hear nothing. It was quiet, too quiet.
"They better not have gone back to sleep," she muttered. Turning off the stove, she walked back through the kitchen and back upstairs towards Daniel's room. And sure enough, Gabriel had climbed right back into bed with Daniel, both of them knocked out again like nothing ever happened.
"You've got to be kidding me," she said as she stormed into the room, dragging the covers off of the boys and banging the headboard as hard as she could repeatedly. "I said get up! School doesn't care if you're still dreaming."
Gabriel groaned something that wasn't even words, while Daniel's dry eyes began to open.
"I get it, Mom, I'm up," Daniel said as he rolled out of bed like a zombie and headed towards the bathroom to get ready.
"And you say he's my favourite? I wonder why you feel that way. Erm, probably because he listens to me and actually gets praised when he does," Nicole said.
"Oh, here we go," said Gabriel as he rose up from his bed and followed Daniel into the bathroom to get ready.
Finally, the boys were up, in separate showers getting ready, so Nicole headed back downstairs.
In the kitchen, she turned the stove back on, then dropped the butter into the pan. It hissed and melted fast. Then she cracked six eggs into a bowl and whisked them quickly. The pancakes were ready to flip, and the bacon was already sizzling in the second pan. The smell started rising, filling the house like bait.
"What day is it, bro?" Daniel asked as the two met each other back at the sink while they brushed their teeth.
"Tuesday. It's only Tuesday. Yeah, I know, it feels like we've been at school all week."
"Ugh," Daniel replied as he headed into his room and got changed while Gabriel headed to his and did the same.
"That's a noise, not movement. Get up! And be quiet—your dad's still sleeping."
The pancakes were done and they came out fluffy, just the way the boys liked them. The eggs went in next, sizzling on contact. Behind her, the coffee machine beeped, so she poured herself a mug, took a sip, then sat down and took a cheeky bite out of one of the pancakes while she waited for the boys to come down.
Upstairs, the usual chaos finally kicked in. Slamming drawers. Feet running back and forth. One of them spraying deodorant like it was cologne.
Gabriel came down first. Shirtless, braids tied back, eyes half-closed. He dropped into a chair like the weight of the day was already hitting him. Daniel followed a minute later, dragging his feet and combing out his hair with his afro comb.
"Morning," she said, placing their plates down.
"Mornin'," they both mumbled, already focused on the food that was laid out before them. They dived into the pancakes and they disappeared fast, bacon gone even faster. The once clean kitchen was a mess: syrup everywhere and food all over the table.
"Keep it down, your dad's asleep," Nicole said.
Gabriel chewed slower this time. "Why's he still in bed, though? Isn't he usually out by now?"
"He is, but he's tired. So keep it down and let him rest," Nicole answered, not looking up.
"Since when is tired a reason to skip the lab?" Gabriel asked through a mouthful of pancake and bacon as he wiped the syrup dripping down from his lip.
Daniel laughed mid-sip and choked on his juice, coughing it out across the table.
"Daniel, you're not a wild animal," Nicole said as she got up and passed him some paper towels to clean it up.
Gabriel chuckled, then said, "Nah, jokes aside, he hasn't sat down for breakfast in, like, four or five months. This is rare."
Daniel sat there quiet, cleaning, pretending like it wasn't getting to him that his father wasn't around, but it was hard for him; he felt like he had no one he could relate to. Gabriel was doing his own thing and his mom—she had enough on her plate with work, church, and having to look after them. He didn't want to burden her by adding more to her plate.
Nicole sat there for a moment, thinking of the right thing to say. But in situations like this, she found herself asking herself as a mother what it was. She knew she had to say something, so she said:
"He wants to be here, you know. He just needs to—"
The boys just sat there, staring at each other in an awkward alliance.
"Alright. Finish up," Nicole said, forced to break the awkward silence. "You're running late."
She stood up, walked over to the kitchen counter, then packed two brown paper bags with sandwiches and brought them back to the table and handed each one.
"Chew. Don't inhale. I'm not trying to do the Heimlich maneuver today," she said, looking at Daniel who was helping himself to seconds.
"Sorry, Mom," Daniel said, grinning. "It's just really good."
Gabriel rolled his eyes. "You say that every morning."
"Because it's true every morning… duh," Daniel shot back.
"Gabriel, watch your mouth. Daniel—thank you. At least one of my kids is thankful for making them breakfast. I don't see the rest of your friends' parents doing it, Gabriel."
"Rest of his friends?" Daniel laughed. "He only has Jai-Lee, Mom."
"Oh, we're going there, little bro? That's low. Almost as low as your failed attempt at trying to join the school soccer team," said Gabriel as he spat back at his brother.
The bickering between the two of them filled the space where the unusual silence was, and for a moment, the house felt normal again. Once the last bites were gone and the juice cups were empty, Nicole wiped down the table while they rushed upstairs to throw on the rest of their clothes and grabbed their school bags.
Nicole looked out the window and the sun was out in full effect, washing over the street. She opened the garage. And there was Gabriel's bike, resting up against the wall next to his father's car.
Two minutes later, the boys came running down the stairs. He ran towards the garage and began shooting the bike out fast. Nicole stepped in front of him.
"What now, Mom?" he asked.
"Remember, Daniel's to ride shotgun. So where are you off to in such a hurry? And I need you to do me a favour."
"Well, if he doesn't want to miss his ride, he better get a move on because my teachers aren't going to accept 'my mom made me wait for my brother' as an excuse, are they? And of course, Mom, anything for you."
"Awww, you're such a sweetheart, aren't you, Gabriel? Well, as you've already agreed, I need you to keep an eye on your brother."
"I take it back. Anything but that," he said as he rubbed his hand across his eyes, then looked at his mother through annoyed eyes. "He's fourteen, not five, Mom. Who was looking out for me when I was fourteen? No one. He needs to learn how to look after himself."
"Gabriel."
"Okay, Mom, okay. Whatever you say. I'll do it, but I'm not happy about it."
"He's your brother. Your family, and family look out for one another. If I had a child before you, it would be exactly the same for them too."
"But you don't, do you? So it's left to me, unfortunately," Gabriel said under his breath, but his mother heard him and gently slapped him across the head.
"Ow! What was that for?" Gabriel asked as his eyes squinted as he looked up to his mother.
"You know exactly what that was for, Gabriel. I guess you can't whisper as good as you think you can," she said, half-laughing.
Daniel overheard everything and as he entered, his face showed it. "I can make my own way to school, Mom. I don't need him. There's no point forcing me on him when he doesn't care."
"Problem solved, Mom! You heard it from the horse's mouth. Daniel can make his own way to school; he's a big kid now."
"Gabriel, my decision is final," Nicole said as she handed Daniel his helmet. "I will get you a bike as soon as I get a chance, but for now, this is how it's going to go."
Daniel groaned. "But Mom, I'm not going to get into trouble, I promise. Just give me a chance."
Nicole stood there with a smile on her face and her arms crossed. "Give you a chance? I gave you one last week and the week before that, and you arrived late to school and I got a call from your principal. So that's a hard no from me. Now go, before you're both late."
Daniel walked past his mom and got onto the back of the bike and Gabriel began to pedal.
Already well into the drive, Nicole came rushing forward. "Wait! Gabriel!"
"What now, Mom?" Gabriel said, clearly frustrated.
"You forgot this—your helmet," she said as she handed it to him.