The Night of the Knots
Elena’s arms trembled as she held the crying babies to her chest. Their small bodies pressed against the blue uniform, their tiny hands clinging to any fold as if, by pulling, they could wrest from her a comfort deeper than milk or a lullaby. The young woman’s lips brushed against their warm foreheads.
“Shhh, my darlings… please… don’t cry, you’ll wake her… sleep, please…”
The twins, barely five months old, seemed to have made a pact with insomnia and fear. One would begin to sob as if remembering something sad, and the other would respond with a higher note, until both rose to a chorus that echoed through the mansion’s corridors and made the windows tremble
Elena rocked them as best she could. Her wrists were tied to the headboard with linen strips that cut into her skin. With each movement, the yellow latex gloves—which she hadn’t yet had time to remove—crunched with that alien clumsiness of someone attempting tenderness with gagged hands. She hadn’t eaten since morning. She hadn’t slept more than two hours straight in weeks. All she wanted—no, what she needed—was an hour. Sixty minutes to rush to the hospital and sit by her son’s bedside. Eight years old. Lungs filled with infection. Skin as pale as the fabric of the sheets. A raging fever. And his gaze—that gaze that begs a mother not to leave—stuck like a hook in her memory
