The Favorite Son

He saw it all happen in slow motion: the chubby hands pressing against the wooden drawers, the cupboard shaking, the blue vase tumbling at the top. He jumped over the couch and pulled Charlie away from the imminent disaster. For a fraction of a second, the vase remained suspended in the air. The toddler landed on his diaper-padded bum as the vase came crashing down. The sound sent a shockwave through his ears.

“Uh-oh,” Charlie uttered, looking at the pieces of blue and white ceramic that had exploded across the floor.

Toby held him back by the neck of his onesie. Over the shoulder of the yellow-haired boy, he contemplated their mom’s “three-thawsund-doler” vase, pulverized. She had been repeating those strange words all day on the phone: three thawsund doler. Whatever it meant, it sounded important to her.

Charlie stretched an arm towards the broken pieces, its edges pointed up like a wild sea of tiny daggers. Toby tugged at him from behind, but the toddler’s wiggling made his grip around the onesie weaker by the second. The cloth made its first hiss: the sound of an impending tear. Toby widened his eyes as he witnessed Charlie’s fingers nearing the sharp fragments. The cloth hissed again. With a final wiggle, the back of the onesie ruptured, setting Charlie free. He held his breath as he watched the toddler pick up the nearest piece with his tiny fingers.

“Charlie?!” A voice sounded from above.

The toddler froze right in place. Charlie released the blue triangle from his hand and let it hit the floor with a cling. Footsteps thumped down the stairs. The whiff of the familiar scent made Toby’s muscles tremble.

Uh-oh, indeed.

Mom flew across the living room, taking her hands to her head as she reached the scene.

“Oh no, no, no,” Mom spurted out as she ran towards them. She picked Charlie up, swung him to her hip, and inspected his palms.

“Toby, stay right there, okay?” She looked down at him.

He sat still, heart pumping in his throat.

She shifted her eyes to the remnants of the vase by her feet. Tears started gushing out of her blue eyes.

“Not the vase…” she croaked. “How— What happened, baby?”

Charlie popped a finger up his nostril as he avoided Mom’s gaze. She turned Charlie’s cheek her way, “did you knock mommy’s vase over?”

From below, Toby watched Charlie bend over the pressure. He seemed to start a nod of the head, then stopped midway. He removed the finger from his nostril, carrying a trail of clear snot with it. Charlie pointed the wet finger down at him.

The treason.

Toby’s heart sank deep into his chest. The finger that pierced him was sharper than any of the broken ceramic pieces. He felt the hairs on his back rise as he watched Mom’s face transform. Her lips turned thin and curled downwards, and her eyebrows inched towards one another until her eyes got lost in the furrows of her skin. She inhaled audibly through her nose, and her chest cast a massive shadow over him as it swelled up.

“Get out,” she sentenced.

Toby opened his mouth to protest. She stomped a foot on the ground, startling him with the wave of vibration, and pointed a finger towards the patio.

“OUT!”

Charlie’s eyes widened like an owl’s. Toby followed the finger out, head bent low as he passed beneath the fire of her eyes. A black sky closed in, and a gust of wind made the brown leaves of the patio twirl around him. As he spun around, the glass door was slammed shut in his face. A burst of light cut through the clouds, making him quiver. He pressed his face against the cold glass. On the other side, he saw the hazy figure of Dad entering the living room. Mom turned to him as she sat Charlie on the couch.

“Why weren’t you looking after him?” Mom’s voice reached his ears, muffled by the thunder.

He raised his hands up in the air, “I looked away for one second, Melissa.”

“He could’ve cut himself!”

“I swear I don’t know what happened, I thought he was in the room with me.”

She snatched the phone from his hand and looked at the screen. “Because you were watching the game? Seriously?!”

“I was keeping an eye on both!”

“Right, and now my vase is ruined!”

The clattering voices got further away as they moved to the open kitchen. The clouds let out a deep rumble before the rain started to pour. Toby pressed more of his body against the glass door, seeking refuge under the thin piece of roof. The raindrops bounced off the tiles and sprayed his body with a cold mist.

“Are you gonna make a scene over a vase?”

“It was three thousand dollars!”

“Why would you even buy one of those stupid things?”

“So now it’s my fault? For wanting to have one nice thing?”

“You—” Dad shook a finger at her, “You’re the one who’s blaming me!”

None of it made any sense to him. Judging by Charlie’s wide eyes, that followed each of their parents back and forth like a match of ping pong, he didn’t understand anything either. Instead, Charlie giggled as he stretched his index finger in front of his nose and waved it in the same motion as Dad.

“You see? This is exactly why I want to divorce you!” She roared louder than the rain.

“Oh, you want to divorce me?!”

“Yeah! You know what—“

“No, I don’t want to hear!” he covered his ears.

“I was gonna sell that vase to get the fuck away from here! From you!”

Dad dropped his hands, the veins of his neck throbbing under the collar of his shirt. “And you planned on taking my son, too? You did, didn’t you?!”

“You can keep your damn dog!” She stormed out of his sight.

Toby glanced back at his brother, who wiggled his feet some inches from the edge of the couch and still amused himself by drawing circles in the air with his finger. He wondered why Charlie got to rejoice in the warmth of the couch, while he had to be locked outside in the rain. It had been him, after all, that had saved him from getting that vase to the head.

Why did Mom like him more? Was it because Charlie had recently learned how to say “Ma”? She seemed to gush over it every time; sometimes he would even get smothered in kisses for it. As much as he craved them, Toby had never gotten one of those from her. Toby had been barking “Mom” for years, yet rarely seemed to get any other reaction than a “Shut up!”

He curled up on the tile, his wet tail reaching up to his snout, and sighed. Would Mom believe Charlie too, when he in some years started accusing him of eating his math homework? A bitter feeling bubbled up in his stomach, but it settled as he kept looking at the doe-eyed boy, with his torn-up onesie and snotty nose, playing with an accusatory finger.

Who was he kidding? He would be honored to chomp away at that tasteless paper for his little brother.

What blame wouldn’t he take for that kid?