chapter three. i can't remember how to say your name
﹙ season one, episode three ﹚ tell it to the frogs
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JULIETTE REMEMBERS SITTING AT the dining room table in her dingy kitchen. It was brown, made of some substance that was supposed to replicate wood but didn't quite achieve that goal. It was rounded, a circle, and it was only big enough to hold three people. Four, if you were bold enough to try, if you didn't mind brushing shoulders with the person next to you.
She remembers being the only one sitting at that small and round and brown table, making it seem even smaller than it already was. In front of her laid a lone cupcake, vanilla with pink, creamy frosting, just the way she liked it. Tucked in the frosting—poking out so you could see them on display—there were two different candles: one, and a four, placed close together, symbolizing her age.
The kitchen was dimly lit. The curtains were lightly colored and thin, so if the sun had been shining, it would have siphoned through. That day, a light trickle of rain hit against the glass of the windows, and the sun was nowhere to be found.
The fire flickered in front of her face, illuminating her tired features, the heat reflecting the fire burning in her chest. A fire that never seemed to burn out, constantly making itself known with every step she took. And when she puckered her lips, leaning closer to the two candles, using her breath to blow the flame out, she expected the fire in her chest to blow away, too.
It did, like a quiet acceptance of her situation, resigned to the fate the universe had given her as soon as she had blinked her eyes open that morning. That she was destined to be alone, listening to the landline phone ringing while attempting to call her mother, trying to find her whereabouts to make sure everything was okay. A few rooms down slept her little sister, who she didn't dare bother, who needed the sleep.
Jules understood, didn't make a fuss when her mother unlocked the front door a little past midnight. She didn't question the wad of cash in her mother's hand, the new bruises on the skin visible from her clothing. And when her mother ushered Jules into her bedroom, asking softly into the night if Jules wished for anything when blowing out the candles, the girl wanted to answer. Yes, she wanted to tell her mother the reality of the cheesy wish she had made, I wished for all to be right. But she could not say that, could not complain, could not add on to the weight resting on her mother's shoulders. So she did what she always did, kept quiet, kept her thoughts to herself, and offered a small smile instead before falling asleep.
FAMILY. A WORD AND concept unfamiliar to Juliette, something she's never quite been able to reach out and feel for herself. In her sixteen years of living, she's never felt like she's had a family, or at least never been able to call her household one.
It started when her father died thirteen years ago while her mother was still pregnant with Jules's little sister, eight months into the pregnancy. Jules doesn't remember him much, or the accident. She hardly remembers sitting in the waiting room, trying to grasp the fact that he was dead. something a little girl like herself couldn't quite understand yet. She hardly remembers seeing her mother bawl her eyes out after the surgeon stepped out of the room, leaving her wondering why exactly her mother had been crying so hard in the first place. She hardly remembers the way her mother caressed her enlarged stomach as if to soothe herself, sitting next to Jules in the waiting room a day later with a faraway look in her eyes. She's not sure that's how it happened, if it went down like that. She'd like to believe that's what happened, because that's how people react to deaths of loved ones, and she's sure her mother loved her father, even if all she ever did was complain about him once the wound of his death had been healed.
