10 years ago
Malik remembers Tuesday morning like a photograph with half the colors drained out. His mom made pancakes — the kind from the box, not scratch(she was never really a good cook, but she had given their maid a day off and wanted to try a recipe) but she hummed while she flipped them. Something low and off-key that she always did when she was trying too hard to seem happy. The kitchen smelled like artificial vanilla and burnt edges.
Extra syrup, baby," she said, sliding the plate across the counter. Her smile was too bright, like someone had cranked up the contrast. She was wearing that floral dress — the one with tiny roses that looked more like bruises from a distance. Her hair was pulled back tight, and there were dark circles under her eyes that makeup couldn’t quite cover.
Malik was eight. He didn’t know to pay attention to details like that yet. Didn’t know that when adults smile too hard, they’re usually breaking underneath. He was 8, truly, how was he too know?
Jordan was still in her high chair, three years old and covered in syrup, babbling something about Dora the Explorer. Their dad had already left for work — early shift at the plant, same as always. The house felt normal. Quiet, but normal.
“I have to run some errands today,” his mom said, not quite looking at him. She was wiping down the counter for the third time, her movements sharp and mechanical. “Mrs. Patterson’s gonna pick you up from school, okay? Take you and Jordan to her house for a bit.”
Malik shrugged, mouth full of pancake. He liked Mrs. Patterson. She had cable and let them eat ice cream before dinner.
His mom knelt down next to his chair, and for a second, her mask slipped. Her eyes went soft and desperate, like she was trying to memorize his face. She reached up and touched his cheek with fingers that were shaking just barely.
]“You’re gonna be such a good man, Malik,” she whispered. “So much better than any of us deserve. Look after little Jordie, okay?”
He pulled away because her touch felt too heavy, too sad. “Mom, you’re being weird.”
She laughed, but it came out cracked. “Yeah, baby. I know.”
That was it. The last real thing she ever said to him.
When Mrs. Patterson dropped them off that evening, the house was different. Not empty — all the furniture was still there, all their toys scattered across the living room floor. But something vital had been sucked out of the air. Like the house was holding its breath.
“Mama?” Jordan called, toddling toward the kitchen on unsteady legs. “Mama home?”
Malik followed, already knowing. Her coffee mug was still in the sink, lipstick stain on the rim. Her keys weren’t on the hook by the door. Her purse wasn’t on the counter. The floral dress was crumpled in the laundry basket, like she’d changed into something else. Something easier to run in.
Their dad came home an hour later, took one look around, and didn’t say a word. Just walked to the fridge, grabbed a beer, and sat down in his chair. The TV stayed off. The silence stretched and stretched until Jordan started crying — not because she understood, but because babies know when the world shifts wrong.
“Where’s Mama?” she kept asking. “Want Mama.”
Their dad didn’t answer. Didn’t move. Just sat there staring at the blank TV screen like it might give him instructions on how to handle two kids and a life that had just imploded.
So Malik answered instead. “She’s… she had to go somewhere. She’ll be back.”
But even at eight, he knew he was lying He’d seen the way she looked at him that morning. Like goodbye. Like I’m sorry. But he had thought the sorry was for the burnt pancakes.
That night, Malik sat on the edge of his bed, knees pulled up to his chest, listening to the faint murmur of Jordan crying in the next room. The sound made something tight coil in his stomach. He wanted to go to her, hold her like she was a doll he could fix, but his own arms felt too empty.
The tears came suddenly, like they’d been waiting all day for permission. Hot and messy and angry. He cried into his knees, trying to be quiet because Dad was still downstairs and Jordan was already upset enough. But the tears kept coming anyway, mixing snot and hiccups and the awful understanding that his mom wasn’t coming back tomorrow. Or the day after that.
He wiped his face with his sleeve, but it didn’t help. Everything felt too big and too scary, like the house had grown three sizes while he wasn’t looking.
A soft knock on his door made him freeze. “Malik?” Jordan’s voice was tiny and stuffed up from crying.
“Go away,” he said, but not mean. Just tired.
The door creaked open anyway. Jordan stood in the doorway in her Dora pajamas, clutching her favorite book , the one about the bunny who couldn’t sleep. Her cheeks were all red and blotchy, and her hair was sticking up in weird places.
“Nooo,” she whined, dragging out the word like taffy. “Don’t wanna go away. Want you.”
“Jordan, I said go away!” Malik’s voice cracked a little.
But she toddled into his room anyway, sniffling and wiping her nose on her pajama sleeve. “Read book,” she demanded, shoving it at him. “Read it now.”
"“I don’t want to read,” Malik said, pushing the book away.
“READ IT!” Jordan’s voice went shrill and loud, the way three-year-olds do when they don’t get what they want. She climbed onto his bed without permission, getting her feet tangled in the covers. “Read read read! Want Mama voices!”
“I can’t do Mama’s voices!” Malik snapped, his own sadness suddenly turning sharp and mean. “She’s not here, okay? She’s gone and I can’t— I don’t know how to—”
Jordan started crying again, big ugly sobs that made her whole face scrunch up. “Want Mama! Want book! You’re being mean!”
"“Well maybe I am mean!” Malik yelled, louder than he meant to. "“Maybe I don’t care about your stupid book!”
Jordan’s crying got worse, turning into those hiccupping wails that little kids do when they’re really upset. She dropped the book and reached for him with grabby hands, but he pulled away.
Then he saw her face — all splotchy and scared and confused — and something inside him broke different. She was just a baby. She didn’t understand anything that was happening. She just wanted someone to read her a story.
" “Jordan,” he said quietly. “Jordan, hey.”
But she was too upset now, crying so hard she could barely breathe. “You, you yelled at me! Want Mama!”
Malik felt awful, worse than when he’d broken Mom’s favorite mug last month. He reached out and pulled Jordan into a hug, even though she was all snotty and shaking.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her messy hair. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”
“You yelled at me.” She sniffled.
" “I’m sorry, Jordie, I won’t yell at you again.” He told her, caressing her cheeks gently with the backs of his fingers the way he’d seen their mom do when Jordan scraped her knees. "“I promise.”
Her breath hitched, slower now, still uneven but not the sharp, panicked gasps from before. She leaned into him, her sticky little fingers curling in the fabric of his pajama shirt like it was the only solid thing left in the world.
“Book,” she mumbled again, muffled against his chest. “Read book.”
Malik hesitated, then reached for it with one hand, the cover soft and bent from too many nights of bedtime readings. He opened to the first page, squinting through the blur of leftover tears.
"“Once there was a little bunny who couldn’t sleep…” he read, voice low and shaking a bit.
Jordan curled tighter against him, small and warm and trusting in a way that hurt. She wasn’t really listening to the words. She just needed the rhythm, the comfort, the idea of normal.
So he read, stumbling over some of the bigger words, making up sounds for the ones he didn’t know. Jordan’s breathing got slower and deeper, the rise and fall of her back against his side like ocean waves lapping at something broken.
Malik stared at the ceiling. The shadows from the hallway light cast strange patterns on the walls, familiar shapes stretched into unfamiliar ones. Nothing felt right anymore. Not the house. Not his dad. Not even himself.
But Jordan was asleep, soft and drooling a little against his arm.
And that meant something, didn’t it?
He closed the book and set it gently on the nightstand, then pulled the blanket over both of them. His arm had gone numb, but he didn’t move it. She needed the weight of him there. He needed it, too.
That night, Malik decided something. Not in the way adults do with long thoughts and reasons, but the way kids do — sharp and certain and buried deep.
He was going to take care of her.
Even if no one took care of him.
Even if Mama never came back.
Even if his dad stayed broken forever.
He’d read the book again. He’d brush her hair before school. He’d learn how to do her shoes right and pack her snacks and tell her not to cry even when he wanted to cry too.
He’d be the good man she said he’d be.
Even if it hurt.
Even if he was just a kid.
themmmm
