Your wife, Blanche, puts the vase of daffodils on the breakfast table between you and Ethan. On either side, two bowls of cut pineapple and blood orange. You scratch the corner of your mouth as red oozes into sunny yellow.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good for you,\u201d Blanche says. \u201cEthan is eating it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Your son pinches a red segment, drops it onto his tongue, and you catch a whiff of the flowers. The vase is an empty gin bottle that plucks at the blur of a memory, of that last family get-together when Blanche stood barefoot in your garden. You had just told her it was her fault Ethan wasn\u2019t sleeping (she lets him watch too much TV), her fault he was failing PE (not enough protein in his meals). Ever the diplomat, your sister took the children for late-night donuts, while her husband, Paul, stood beside your wife, tall and reedlike with his fingertips grazing the space between her shoulders, the light from the house reflected in the bottle, in the blonde of his hair.<\/p>\n
Just then, you decide daffodils don\u2019t smell too good\u2014a ghostly, phlegmy scent. A drop of red juice falls down your son\u2019s chin as he watches cartoons on \u201cthat tablet.\u201d He wipes it away\u00a0with a long, slender arm, unlike your burly, stubby ones, and you squint at the golden sparkle in his lashes, realise you\u2019ve seen the jut of that jaw elsewhere, his little cowlick before\u2014before your brother-in-law grew his hair out, before he held your wife in your own wilting garden.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
4. You pick up the gin bottle and throw it against the wall. A waterfall of glass and yellow flowers. Your son cries. \u201cWhat the hell is wrong with you?\u201d Blanche shouts, dabbing Ethan\u2019s tears away with her sleeve. \u201cGet out of here right now, you horrible bastard!\u201d Your life dulls to black and white; you crave fresh fruit in the mornings. You don\u2019t see your wife or Ethan again, not even on alternate weekends, or your sister and her devoted husband. Instead, you sink into the sag of your friend\u2019s couch, bottles swamped around you, and you begin to think, as the room shrinks to an image of your son on your phone, those are your cheekbones, those could easily be your wild and troubled eyes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
5. The daffodils stay in their vase. You get up from the breakfast table and ruffle your son\u2019s hair with a smile, walk over to Blanche and kiss her on the shoulder, stroke her lotion-soft arm. Life continues but with more light. You take time off work; you compliment your wife\u2019s blow-dry and camellia-pink lipstick. You read books with Ethan on insects and birds and mountain adventures. Until one day your assistant returns to the office from a Starbucks run, tells you they bumped into Blanche buying macchiatos with her brother. But your wife doesn\u2019t have a brother. Pulse doubling, you ask, \u201cWhat colour was his hair?\u201d Your assistant scrunches their nose. \u201cEr, kind of dark blonde. Why?\u201d Your mouth fills with gluey spit. \u201cThat man is tall,\u201d she laughs, cheeks prickling, and hands you a black americano. The bitter steam hits your nose like a handful of soil. And you\u2019re out the door, knocking over the popcorn cart you bought to boost staff morale, and in your car with the engine firing before your assistant can finish. Before they can say, \u201cI almost didn\u2019t see his wife standing behind him. That\u2019s how tall that man is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To confront your suspicions, go to paragraph 4. To trust this is just paranoia and finish breakfast with your family, go to paragraph 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[3547,105,3546],"class_list":["post-19953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-paternity","tag-relationships","tag-suspicion","writer-catherine-roberts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19953"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20454,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19953\/revisions\/20454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}