When she was little, sometimes, when her mother was sad because her father had a woman who was not her to whom he often went after work—Tess’s mother would come into Tess’s room at night and talk to her. Not often—once a month, maybe twice. Her mother would cry and run her fingers through her daughter’s hair, ask Tess to scoot over, curl in next to her. The warmth of Tess’s mother’s body against Tess’s body was a comfort; there was not much touching in her family. Tess didn’t think that her mom meant for this to be a comfort to Tess, but it was. Sometime in the weeks leading up to Tess’s eleventh birthday, her mom began to bring her tiny blue-and-yellow cosmetics bag into bed with her. She still talked and cried, still said, Scoot over, Tess-girl, but also, right before that, she pulled out the same tiny scissors she used to maintain her perfect nails and cut nicks into Tess’s feet. Her hand was small and firm and warm on Tess’s heel, and blood popped up, and Tess stayed very quiet and very still. Her mom was careful after to stanch the bleeding, to keep the sheets clean. She always cut above the heel, below the ankles so that, even with the shortest socks, the wounds could not be seen. Sometimes, when Tess is tired and angry, when Colin acts like this and she gets scared, she worries over all the ways her mother is inside of her, inside of him; she worries over who and how both she and he might hurt.

Stella’s still standing, watching, her shirt off—never as much like the baby that she so recently was as when the perfect pouch of her belly is out in the open. She’s meant to be changing into her pajamas but stares, instead, at all three of them. Martin hardly ever notices the ways that Stella can be difficult too, the ways she clings when they’re out in public, the way she so quickly feels beat up or down by small slights. Instead, he seems to take every moment when Colin loses control personally, as if it is proof that they have failed at parenting. When, later, they’re alone and she reminds him Colin’s impulsiveness is not his fault—and Martin does look sad and sorry, chastened, able, even, sometimes, to see that he too lacks control—he still can’t quite not be infuriated by the ways their son somehow isn’t what he’d hoped.

“Colin,” Tess says. “Come here, baby.”

Colin hisses one more time but quietly enough they can all pretend they didn’t hear him. Martin loosens his grip and Tess watches, her body still, willing her son to walk toward her.