I slid down onto the sidewalk and then, because I really couldn’t see the apartment, because leaving B had been a mistake, because leaving at all had been, I began to crawl along on the pavement on my stomach, dragging the bags, dragging my useless legs. It’s a game, see? I shouted now to E. It’s a game! Even as I shouted I felt the dried noodles, the tubs of yogurt pressing into my shoulders, pegging me, as brutally as a dog’s teeth, to the ground. From the apartment, I heard B begin to cry.

Skipping, crawling, dragging, jumping, we made it back to the window with almost all of our things. I tossed the groceries through the open window, then I tossed E after them. I kicked the shoes back into the grass and threw myself over the window sill as well. Threshold. Maison magique. Husk. Hull. Cocoon. Hide as in skin. Hide as in to.

I lowered the shrieking shutters back down and it was half dark again and safe, except of course the eyes that suggested themselves in the swirling dust. B had fallen out of his crib and was lying on his back beside it kicking his legs and putting his hands one after the other into his mouth. His cheeks were covered in little red marks, a swarm of tiny bites or kisses.

I cooed over him and kissed him and checked his pupils to make sure they were the same size. He’d fallen on a pile of blankets. I promised him, whispering and singing and cuddling and swinging him around and around until he laughed, that I wouldn’t leave again. That we would all stay and stay and stay inside where we were safe and cosy and together.

E had a bloody knee. I hadn’t seen her fall on the way back but she must have and I whisked her off to the bathroom and drew a bath for her and sat her in the warm soapy water and even dangled my legs in the bath beside her and smiled and didn’t take my eyes off her so she would know that I was with her and loved her always. We let the water get higher and higher and higher. We let it slop over the edges. We laughed when it did because we loved each other so much.

When the water started to get cold I plucked her out of it and wrapped her in three different towels and set her on the bed like a baby. She loved this game and I told her over and over how little she was and kissed her and wrapped her tighter and tighter until she couldn’t move. Then I dried her hair and brushed it and braided it and she dressed herself and I actually started humming as I tidied up.

There was a smell in the bathroom. That grey rotting-meat smell that comes from drains. I sprayed the tub with disinfectant. The cuts on my hands were singing with all the wet but still, the smell didn’t go away so I jumped into the tub and stuck my hand all the way down inside the drain as far as it would go. I twisted my fingers down around inside it.