Agatha catches glimpses of her in his laugh and the creases in the corner of his eyes. Something in her chest twists tighter each time.
Nicholas notices the way his mother’s smile drops when she studies his face too long. He can see in her eyes that she’s not looking at him anymore. He wonders what she sees when she disappears into her own head.
Sometimes Nicholas sees children at the village. They hold hands with their mothers like he does. Except sometimes, they hold hands with two instead of one. So sometimes when he holds his mother’s hand, the coldness of his other palm brings a strange ache.
*
She tucks a piece of his hair behind his ear and he glances up with big brown eyes. Her breath hitches.
“What, Mama?” Nicholas worries.
He grips the cloth of her dress near her knees. Still so short for his age. It’s the sickness.
Agatha shakes off whispers of Rio floating behind her eyes and smiles gently. She takes Nicholas’s face in her right hand and rubs her thumb near his eyes.
“Nothing, Nicky.” Agatha says.
But he doesn’t stop gripping the cloth of her dress. She can’t tell if he’s confused. He looks down and huffs. Agatha wants to chuckle at how cute he is.
“I love you, Mama.” Nicholas whispers while playing with the cloth in his hands.
Agatha ruffles his hair.
“I love you too. So, so much.”
He huffs again, “But…”
Her hand stills on his head and she tilts up his face.
“But?” Agatha pouts playfully.
“I hate when you look at me like that.” Nicholas keeps his eyes down.
Agatha drops her pout.
“How do I look at you?”
“Like I’m not there.”
She tickles the underneath of his chin. “But you are right here, silly boy.”
Nicholas tears his head away and pushes her hand down. He looks up at her through furrowed brows. She sees now, it’s not confusion.
“No, Mama. You look at me like…like I’m not me.”
Agatha sucks in a breath and retracts her hand.
“Oh.” She lets fall out.
“It’s just- it’s just….” Nicholas scrunches his face up and looks around at the forest around them.
She watches him tense up, watches his eyes search for something, or someone, to answer the questions he doesn’t know to ask. The way his little fists ball up to grasp a feeling he can’t put a finger on. A feeling that plagues him each night.
Agatha watches anger twist his face and the familiar weight of helplessness burden his shoulders.
“Nicky,” Agatha calls gently.
He turns his back to her.
She walks over to face him and holds his face in her hands. His cheeks are wet. She tilts his face so he looks at her. He’s crying and it puts a big rock in her throat.
“Oh, Nicky.” Agatha kisses his head, then the tip of his nose.
“Mama…” Nicholas’s lower lip quivers.
She lowers her face so her eyes meet his eyes. So she can’t run away from those eyes.
“I’m sorry.” Agatha whispers, but it comes out in a tremble.
“It’s okay.” He sniffs.
Agatha shakes her head. “It’s not. It’s my fault.”
“What is?”
Agatha opens her mouth, but she doesn’t now where to start.
“For making you cry, sweet boy.” She wipes his cheek softly with her thumb.
Nicholas closes his eyes at the touch. But when he opens his eyes, he searches in Agatha’s.
“What is it, Nicky?”
“Why do you look at me like that?”
Agatha swallows and backs away.
“Do I…” Nicholas starts but pinches his lips together.
“It’s okay, you can ask me.” But Agatha doesn’t know if she can answer.
He fidgets with his fingers, scratches at his palm.
“The other children in the village have two mothers or…or fathers.” Nicholas mumbles quietly.
Agatha knows this is the question he’s been wanting to ask, but just because you know you’re going to get stabbed doesn’t make the stabbing hurts any less.
“I know.” Agatha says, but it comes out sharper than she wanted.
He tenses. She bends down, sitting on her knees. She peers at him through his loose hair that blocks his face.
“No, Nicholas.” Agatha says gently. “You do not have a father.”
“Oh.”
Agatha grips his small shoulders.
“But you look just like your mother.” She smiles with tears in her eyes.
His eyes widen and Agatha can almost hear Rio call her name.
“You smile just like her, too.”
Nicholas grins, “Really, Mama?”
“Really, Nicky.”
Suddenly, he throws himself around Agatha’s neck, his scrawny arms tightly wrapped around her. She exhales into his embrace and grips his head.
“Can I see her?”
Agatha freezes. She holds him a little tighter.
“You will, Nicky. You will.”
*
"And when I die, I don't want to see your face."
That leaves Rio's mouth agape. Good. Agatha can taste the venom on her own lips. She savors the way Rio looks down, accepts a deal too fat to turn down.
"Okay."
Agatha nods slightly, but a part of her wants grip Rio's face and smash her lips against her own. To feel her hair tangled in between her fingers and the weight of her body pressed against her. The smell of earth and the taste of her tongue.
Rio looks up at her with those big dark eyes and Agatha winces. If Rio notices, she doesn't say anything. She scoffs and turns to walk away. But she stops herself.
"Do you see him?"
Agatha sucks in a sharp breath.
"Don't lie, Agatha." Rio turns to look at her.
Agatha feels her lip tremble but clenches her jaw and steels herself. She straightens her back, then smiles at Rio the same way she would smile at Nicky. It catches Rio off guard, Agatha can tell, because her eyebrows furrow the same way his did and something in her chest still twists the same way it used to.
Agatha nods.
"Every time I look at you."