ACT I, CHAPTER TWO ❛soon you'll miss quiet nights like these❜ content: blood/injury, implied child prostitution, drug use (morphling).
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Dinners with the Ford family are an organized mess. It's a small army of kids butting elbows into ribs, tiny hands holding wooden spoons and pot handles, shouts for space or a dash of rosemary. It's hard to leave the kitchen unscathed after a feast like this. Madaket could already feel a bruise forming where Byatt's youngest sibling decided to butt her head against her leg. Despite the aching pain in her thigh, she feels remarkably happy, a small smile curling her lips as she works.
The loud shouting and sizzle of mutton on a skillet makes Madaket's chest swell with love. Perhaps it's a desire for a big family like this. It's just her and her mother back in their apartment down the hall. If she were to cook there, she doubted her mother would even rouse long enough to smell it. Then, Madaket would eat alone in her room, alone with her thoughts. Here, it's impossible to be isolated. This, in Madaket's opinion, is a good thing.
Tiller and Ottawa helped cook and prepare everything alongside the girls. This was a part of the deal, and, therefore, they took it very seriously lest Madaket suddenly cut them out of the feast for slacking off. Ottawa and Madaket were in charge of cooking the meat, Byatt led the rice cooking, and Tiller made salad. After a long hour of stirring, rationing, and a decent bit of arguing, there was enough of a spread for everybody to eat.
Madaket perches herself on a precarious wooden stool by the window that overlooks the fire escape. The rest of the Ford kids, plus Tiller and Ottawa, are sprawled around the living room furniture and hardwood floors. Madaket is distracted by picking the tomatoes out of her salad with her fingers when Byatt barks out a loud laugh at something Tiller said.
"I'm serious," Tiller defends vehemently, looking to his cousin for support. Ottawa raises an eyebrow and shrugs, resigning himself to neutrality. Tiller then glances at Madaket. "I swear, he was sober when he said it."
"Your dad, sober?" Byatt asks, and this sends her into another wave of laughter.
Tiller rolls his eyes at the insult but doesn't take it to heart. Everybody's parents are addicts, so there's nothing to get offended by. Instead, he raises his nose like a saint. "I know how it sounds, but it's true!"
"What's true?" Madaket asks from her corner of the room. One of the little kids has wrapped his hands around the legs of the stool and is tapping his fingers on the wood, making soft vibrations that thrummed up her spine.
"He said that there are fireballs in the sky," says Byatt's youngest sister. "Giant ones, so big that they could be the sun. But we can't see 'em because we live in Smogborough."
"My dad said they're constellations," Tiller adds on. "Ancient people used to map them out and use them to travel."
Madaket snorts and pops a tomato into her mouth. Byatt points at Madaket's reaction and turns to Tiller. "See? It's bullshit, Tiller. Your dad is a lunatic."
