The Tree of Knowledge

Home Life

I get up at five am. I shower, shave my legs, put on a nice dress, blow dry my hair, apply make up, cover my hair with a scarf. Add a splash of flowery perfume. Ryan gets mad if I don't look (like a freaking doll) presentable.

I pad barefoot down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Mara has already got the coffee started. Rebecca sits at the kitchen table, nursing Little Bird.

Esther. Rebecca named her Esther, the number two most popular baby girl name in 2013, right behind Mary and before Eve. But I call her Little Bird. She makes these funny high-pitched noises, like chirps. I also call her that because of her favorite song. Nobody else really cares for the nickname, especially Rebecca.

Mara is making pancakes while Rebecca watches.

"You're over mixing." She says. "You'll dry them out."

"They're fine." Mara insists.

Rebecca usually does the cooking. Her cooking is actually the best thing about her. Quite possibly the only thing I like about her. She's pretty much amazing at it. She's a culinary school drop out and a Food Network junkie.

My specialties are English muffin pizzas and brownies from a box. They don't let me cook much.

Near as I can tell, Mara isn't good at anything besides being a bitch.

Mara thrusts the bowl of pancake mix into my arms.

"Here." She says, "Fry these."

"That's a bad idea." Rebecca says.

"I don't care! I need to go change. Kit, make the pancakes."

She really did need to change. She is pretty much splattered in flour.

When Ryan comes downstairs Rebecca is frying the replacement batch of pancakes while I try to vent the smoke generated by the first batch of pancakes from the kitchen. Ryan sits straight down at the head of the table and says, "Where's my breakfast? What happened down here?"

"Kit burned the pancakes. I'll have more in a minute. Don't worry darling."

He turns to me, "Kitty," (I hate being called Kitty) "are you deliberately trying to waste the food I put on this table?"

"No."

"Well, it won't be wasted on you. Rebecca, you and Mara make sure she doesn't eat breakfast. She's getting fat anyway."

"Are you going to send me to bed without supper like a delinquent child too?"

He stands up, rage on his face.

Shit.

Little Bird starts crying. We freeze there, Ryan standing, Rebecca making pancakes, baby crying.

Ryan sits back down, waves me away.

"Will you make her shut up?"

If I could be said to have a strong suit, domestically speaking, it seem to be making Little Bird shut up. I am the baby whisperer. I sit on the couch with Little Bird while my stomach grumbles and Ryan, Mara, and Rebecca dig into pancakes. Little Bird cries all the time. Sometimes I think she cries because she knows the kind of world she's been born into.

But that's probably giving her squishy little brain a bit too much credit.

The trick is, I sing to her. I look into those big brown eyes and I smile at her and sing. And she just stares back at me and quiets. Her favorite is "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" from Sweeney Todd. The song is about a girl trapped in an abusive home asking her caged bird how it finds the will to sing when it can't fly away. "If I cannot fly, let me sing."