By the time Vijay was two years old, Nita had given up on her art entirely. She didn’t even think of it anymore. Her French was now good enough that she had managed to get a job waiting tables at a bistro in the second arrondissement. Most of the patrons were tourists anyway, and they needed English servers, so the owner did not care that her French was heavily accented. Her wages had become the only steady income used to support Mathieu, Vijay, and herself. Mathieu had found himself bouncing between highs and lows, depending on his drug du jour. Nita often worried about leaving Vijay home alone with Mathieu, but she had no choice, given she was the only one willing and able to hold down a job. She had begun to crave the drugs, too, so she didn’t even ask Mathieu how he managed to procure them with so little money. She knew how resourceful he could be when he needed a fix.
She came home from work exhausted one night around midnight and found Mathieu and Simon sitting on the couch, smoking a joint and listening to some music on the radio. Vijay was crawling around the living room, pushing a red toy ball around the floor. He brought his little body to standing when he saw her and reached his arms toward her. She scooped him up and gave him a kiss before turning to the adults.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “I told you to put him to bed by nine.”
Mathieu’s eyes were bloodshot, the same as Simon’s. Crumbs from the half-eaten baguette on the coffee table dusted his shirt.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“After midnight,” she said, her lips pursed.
He turned to Simon. “You said you would remind me at nine!”
Simon stared at his watch, narrowing and widening his eyes as if trying to put it into focus. “She’s right. We’re late.”
“How long have you been high?” she asked, cradling Vijay on her hip and taking him to the refrigerator in their small kitchenette. “Did you even feed him?”
She opened the door to the fridge and saw the full bottle of milk and had her answer. She would have been furious had she been less tired. The truth was that she had wanted to come home after her eight-hour shift and find a sleeping Vijay so that she could smoke a joint and relax before she had to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again. Vijay nuzzled her neck while she heated his bottle, and tears stung her eyes.
How did everything get so fucked up? she thought while looking at Simon and Mathieu.
Simon moved to stand from the couch. “Sorry, Nita. We should have taken better care of the little guy.”
She glared at him. “Yes, you should have.” Her look said that she expected better from him than she did from Mathieu.
“Won’t happen again. But you should know it was my fault and not Mathieu’s.” Simon approached her and Vijay and ruffled the soft dark hairs on his head. “Sorry, buddy. Your dad and I got carried away because we’d had a rough day.”
Nita’s eyes asked him what he meant. If Mathieu was going to be in one of his moods again, she wanted to know why so she could avoid a fight. She was too tired to argue with him.
“？lise and I broke up. No big deal. Probably for the best.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She didn’t want to pry into Simon’s personal affairs, so she brought the warmed bottle to Vijay’s mouth and readjusted him so he could drink.
“Turned out she didn’t want to settle for an artist long term when her parents were able to set her up with a stable banker.” He ran his hand through his hair, trying to seem nonchalant about it.
Nita wondered if Mathieu had shared his story of losing his first love. Seemed there was a theme between women and starving artists, and only Nita had been dumb enough to stay.
“She’s wrong to think that,” Nita whispered so that only the two of them could hear. “A good man isn’t measured by his money.”
Simon shrugged. “No need in her staying if she’s not happy.”
Nita looked past him to Mathieu, who had passed out on the couch. She wasn’t happy, and she was staying. But that’s because she had made a mess of her life and was saddled with a child now and had no other options. ?lise had been careful not to put herself in that position, and, for that, Nita was envious.
Nita’s thoughts were jumbled and cloudy, but she heard a familiar voice. She squinted her eyes to discern where it was coming from.
“Maman?”
The room felt like it was shifting beneath her, and she tried to steady herself even though she was already sitting on the floor. Sunlight crept through the narrow slit between the curtains above the bed. Her heartbeat quickened upon her not knowing who the stranger in the room was.
“Maman?”
The high-pitched voice was closer now. The sun was blinding her, and she could not see anything beyond that light. She stretched out her hands, trying to find the voice but feeling nothing other than the air around her.
“Maman.” It was more urgent now. She felt a tug on her sleeve and brought her focus to the small hand pulling at her. Her eyes followed the skinny limb to a bony shoulder that eventually led to a gaunt face. She knew that face. She strained her mind to give it a name. Vijay. She felt her pulse lower upon identifying the source. The tugging continued, and she forced her eyes to remain open.
“Maman, j’ai faim.” I’m hungry.
Nita’s head rolled from looking at her four-year-old son to the sunlight peeping through the curtains. She glanced around the room, trying to orient herself. She had no idea what time it was. She couldn’t even remember the day.
“Maman, j’ai faim.”
She brought her attention back to her son, blinking and squinting to bring his features into focus.
“J’ai faim,” Vijay said again, his voice a cross between whimpering and resigned. “Tu es encore malade?” Are you sick again?
Encore. She mulled the word over in her mouth, tasting it like she could taste the metallic tinge of the heroin on her tongue.
Finally, she could muster words. “Il y a du pain sur la table.” There is some bread on the table.
Vijay shook his head. “Je l’ai mangé hier.” I ate it yesterday.
Yesterday? What day is it? she asked herself.
“Où est ton père?” Where is your father?
“Il est malade aussi. Dans le salon.” He’s sick too. In the living room.
Nita’s maternal instincts to help her son were repressed by the drugs still coursing through her system. She saw the needle she had used was just under the bed beside her. An easy target for Vijay to grab, and she could have done little to stop him in her current state. She couldn’t remember how it had gotten so bad. They only got high when Vijay was asleep so they could care for him when he woke up. That had been the rule. But she couldn’t remember if they’d followed the rule this time.
“J’arrive.” I’m coming, she said, telling herself she would close her eyes for just a moment and then go find Vijay some food. That was the last thing she remembered when she woke up again. This time the room was pitch black.
She found Vijay curled on the floor of the living room, sucking his thumb. She stumbled toward him and cradled him in her arms. Vijay did not react to her and continued sucking his thumb. Mathieu was passed out on the couch, oblivious to them. Tears slid down Nita’s face and onto Vijay’s soft brown hair.