Archive of Our Own

There are many things Emmeline Agreste knows she could think but never speak.

Some of these may be truths of life, such as where babies come from and why people die, but most of her secrets do not revolve around such trivial things. The things she knows she cannot speak of are those secrets about her Papa.

She didn’t… quite know how to describe Papa. He was good, as all Papas should be. He was kind and funny, and strong. He loves her and Maman a lot, and there isn’t a day when she wonders if she is truly loved. He does so many things to prove to her just how much he cares for them both.

He is a good listener; in fact, he always seems to listen no matter what it may be. He has sat down beside her for hours and listens as she tells him all the stories that live in her head. She tells him of children fastened to stars by string and how they fall to Earth in bright streaks when their lines are cut. She tells of tiny dragons who make creme brulee, cats big as houses that swat at forest trees to play, and a stuffed bunny waddling back home after being lost in a garden. Yet, no matter how long she rambles or how dark the sky grows, Papa always remains by her side, listening. He always looks truly invested, his eyes aglow in happiness and a small smile shaping his lips.

He is silly in unexpected ways. Every time Emma helps him in the bakery, he always smears something across the tip of her nose. Flour, frosting, syrup, her nose was never safe from him. His eyes would always crinkle around the corners in that way that told he was joyful, and he would laugh each time she swept her tongue out to get a taste of whatever he had harassed her with. She imagined she must look rather funny with crossed eyes and a stuck-out tongue, but that is not a good reason for him to be so cruel. Yet she soon finds herself laughing with him, and by the end of the day, they resemble human cakes, all coated in flour, sugar, and spice.

He is kind. Always kind. He opens doors for people, pulls out chairs, and offers to carry things when they are heavy. He surprises Maman with flowers and chocolate though it is just a typical day; he stoops down to meet Emma’s eyes when she speaks, and he never raises his voice at someone else, even when they are angry.

So, yes. She believes she does have a good Papa. One who is strong and brave. One who is kind and loving. One who is there and present and mostly whole.

But her Papa was also afraid.

She doesn’t know what of; she just knows that he is.

She doesn’t know precisely why she knows this or how. It’s just been one of those evident truths that had lived in their house since long before she was born.

He tried not to be obvious about it. He tried to mask his fear with a smile, a joke, or a distraction. Sometimes it worked. And sometimes… Emma was left staring at him, wondering exactly what had gone wrong and how it had gone wrong to make him carry such fear.

The fact is, his fear is noticeable, especially when he tries to hide it.

He will stop whatever he is doing, and he will freeze. His eyes will lower and never meet anyone’s gaze; his hands will shake. Especially his right hand. His right hand always seemed to shake, even when he was happy or resting, but when he grew afraid, that hand shook so much he couldn’t even hold anything.

Emma does not know what he is afraid of, and sometimes she wonders if she will ever know. Whenever he grows worried, she looks around like she might see what is attacking him, but her eyes spot nothing. He will hunch over and clutch his chest, wheezing, and Emma looks all over for the shadows that plague him. She looks to the cracks of ceilings, and the dark corners of rooms, as though she will see arms and legs emerging. Of course, Emma never sees anything of the sort, but looking is all she can do so that she will not be completely helpless. She will look around and around, struggling to spot something as Papa struggles for breath because if she sees something, maybe at least she can do something besides just standing still.

Contrary to belief, Emma is not naive. Like all other children, she has heard stories of monsters under the bed, of boogeymen looming in the closets. Most of these stories come from the bigger kids in the grade above them, who seem to like picking on her class for whatever reason. Her classmates tremble and glance away at their telling, but she will scoff at such stories. So instead, she tells the bigger kids that she has yet to meet such a monster, and besides, her Maman always makes a special potion of water, witch hazel, and lavender to keep such evil things away.

The big kids glance at each other; all their features are faceless. She can never remember them no matter how hard she tries.

It doesn’t matter. Maman tells her not to give them the time of day anyway.

But their grins stretch, their eyes narrow, and their gazes fill with something of mock sympathy. “Oh Emma,” they croon, although it is not a croon because Maman croons, and it is gentle. These noises sound low and tainted, dripping with malice and something disgusting. “Don’t you know? All charms fade eventually.”

She had trouble falling asleep after that.

And yet, it led her to a new line of thoughts.

She considered the string of what if’s. What if monsters could break out from where they are? What if monsters didn’t have horns and tails but looked like any other person walking the streets?

Most nights after these revelations, she will lay awake in the dark, blinking at her ceiling. She will lay there until the late-night hours, and she will wonder: maybe Papa is afraid because his monster is no longer under the bed.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Emmeline Agreste lives her life based on questions. She has gotten good by now at separating the good questions from the bad, but there are still some days when she has trouble deciphering which is which. With this dilemma, there is still the issue of whether or not the question should even be said aloud, and that of itself was confusing enough to make her head spin.

However, like all children, the question spills past her lips anyway. The listener to her questions will have a variety of reactions to the things she says. They will laugh or smile, and she will know her question was good and funny at the very least. Sometimes they will give an askance glance, their faces muddled in confusion, which will usually mean her question was weird or out-of-place. She isn’t sure what category those questions fall into, so she just keeps asking questions like those. And rarely, very rarely, she will ask a question that will make her listener glance at her in horror. Those are the bad questions and, unfortunately, the questions she lingers on the most. She doesn’t have much control over them, and trying to fight to keep that question from coming out was hard. The questions have a way of slipping out anyway; sometimes, at moments her parents deem inappropriate. These moments include when they are at the dinner table, in front of strangers, or as she’s being tucked in for bed.

Emma regrets it when she asks about the bad things, but it’s something that continually weighs over her like a cloud.

One day, she asks a question that she later regrets saying aloud.

It is a warm day, but it is still a day spent inside because it has been rainy all week, and apparently, that meant it wasn’t safe enough to go to the park right now. So Emma’s day is spent inside, where she sits patiently in a kitchen chair while Maman hovers behind her, working Emma’s short, blonde hair into two pretty braids interwoven with a pale pink ribbon.

The braids were essential because she was going on a voyage this afternoon. She couldn’t explore the whimsical woods to search for trolls as she had wanted, so she had to settle for the next best thing, and that was outer space.

Emma stares at her feet as they slowly swing, too short to even reach the floor. Squares of sunshine spill across the kitchen tile, striping over her leg as it rises to meet the light before falling in its swinging pendulum. Her head is carefully tipped back in a position that makes her neck go stiff, aching with tension in keeping still. She needed a distraction, anything to keep her mind off the bubbly sensation of tight muscles and twitching nerves from the back of her neck.

So she decided to try talking.

“Maman?”

Maman hums in that way that tells her she is listening. Her fingers rustle on the tabletop, the slight pressure on her head lessening as Mama’s hands are preoccupied, then the gentle pressure again as a thick hair band is wrapped around the base of her hair. “Oui, ma princesse?”

“Why doesn’t Papa like it when I hug him?”

Maman’s fingers still. She has gone quiet. It wasn’t a reaction Emma expected, but that only made her curious. Why the silence? It was only a mere observation.

When Maman speaks again, her voice is softer and gentler; it always lowers down like that when they talk about serious adult things. “You think Papa doesn’t like hugging you?”

“I know he doesn’t,” Emma corrects gently. Sometimes she wonders if Maman forgets about these things because she always asks questions. Always asks for things to be repeated and asks how those things make her feel. Maman also always affirms that her opinions matter and that she is loved.

But Emma knows these things. She knows better than anyone that her rules are superior, and anyone who says differently can kindly get out of her house.

It takes a while for Maman to talk again. Her fingers take up her hair and begin braiding again. Her words come out carefully, like she is braiding those together into something sensible, too. “Well, to start, everyone has limitations-”

“Limitations?” Emma interrupts. She hasn’t heard that word before.

“Yes. Things you can’t do. Like how you can’t reach the cupboards by yourself because you’re not tall enough yet.”

“Oh.”

A pause. Maman’s fingers fumble with one braid until she eventually unweaves it and starts the section over again. “Anyways, everyone has limitations, things they can’t do, and those things are different for everyone. They can depend on how old and experienced you are; sometimes, it can even depend on what feels right or what you have gone through in life.

“With your Papa, his limitations are based on things that happened in his past.”

“His past?” Emma echoes. “So, from a really long time ago?”

“Yes, from before you were born, actually,” She gently tweaks her braid, playful. But her voice grows somber once more as she continues.

“When your Papa was little, he went through some bad things. And these… bad things are what led to him having limitations. So he doesn’t do many of the things other people do because those things remind him of when he was little, when the bad things happened. And a lot of the time, people put up walls so that they won’t get hurt again. Do you remember what I told you about personal bubbles?”

Emma nods, her hair tugging her scalp. “We all got different bubbles, and- and um, some people’s bubbles are big? Like, so big that they don’t want a lot of people around?”

“Yes, exactly,” her mother hums, like a note of approval. “Walls, emotional walls, are kind of like that, but different. People have personal bubbles because they’re human, but they have emotional walls because they want to be prepared for anything bad coming their way and to protect themselves. And that’s what Papa did after the bad things happened. He put up walls because he didn’t want to get hurt again. But those walls also didn’t let anyone else in, and that started to hurt him.”

“Why?” Emma questions, her brows furrowing. “Why were the walls hurting him?” To her knowledge, walls couldn’t hurt anyone. Of course, there were walls in her stories, but they were to protect someone. The princess, the dragon, the kingdom. Walls were supposed to be good, weren’t they?

Maman blows out a regretful sigh, the expelled air brushing warm against the back of Emma’s neck. “He put up the walls to protect himself, but by doing so, he wasn’t doing a good job at feeling things. So if he wasn’t feeling okay, he didn’t let anyone else see it. And if anyone did see that he was sad or angry, he would lie about it; he would say he’s okay when he’s hurting inside.”

“Why?” Emma questions, more confused than ever. Her head began to hurt with all this knowledge. Why was asking one question so hard?

Maman continues working on her braid. They are almost done with one side; the ribbon interwoven in her hair is reaching the end of its length.

“Sometimes…” Maman says in a whisper. “Sometimes it’s easier to say they’re okay when they’re not because it’s easier to lie. It’s hard to admit that you need help, and it’s
even harder to get better. Sometimes people don’t even know how to ask for help, so they lie because that’s all they know how to do.”

Emma purses her lips, contemplating. She… hadn’t thought of it that way before.

“And as for Papa not liking your hugs, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. Never doubt that. He loves you very much, chérie. But after the bad things happened, he just has a lot of trouble showing love through hugs. It’s sad and sometimes frustrating, but that’s just a limitation he has, and we just have to do our best to work around it and show that we love him anyway.” Maman reaches the end of one braid, and the conversation seems to cease. She takes a moment, then Maman leans over the chair so Emma will see her eyes, with her fingers holding her daughter’s hair in place.

Maman’s eyes look beautiful in the sun. They are clear and shining and always remind her of the bluebells that bloom in their small garden. Now they look almost strange, crystalline, holding something desperate and questioning in their depths. “Does that make sense?”

Emma shrugs, careful not to move her head. “I guess so.” She says. Though she does not fully understand.

They do not speak for much after that. Maman continues weaving her braids, and Emma has nothing left to say. She swings her feet and tries to keep her head still, though she is bored by now and wants nothing more than to hop out of the chair, her braids finished.

Luckily, time is gracious to her.

“All done,” Maman murmurs. And sure enough, her ribbons are tied off and perfectly in place by check to mirror.

Emma shakes her head to feel the edges of ribbon against her back before hopping off the stool. “Merci, Maman.” she chimes and presses a soft kiss to the broad bone of Maman’s cheek.

Maman gives her a strange little smile, but her eyes are bright enough to express her gratitude for being thanked. “De rien, ma fifille,” she murmurs in kind and puts a hand on her back to gently push her along. “Now, why don’t you go on that adventure you promised your friend? With your hair all done now, I think you’ve got a good chance of keeping it safe in your helmet.”

“Space helmet,” Emma corrects her again, gently. She had to do a lot of reminding today. Usually, that was Maman or the sticky notes’ job, but not today. But she didn’t have much more time for other reminders. So she walks out of the kitchen, feeling suddenly silly as she turns and waves at her like she won’t see her later in the evening for supper.

Maman’s smile twitches in amusement. She waves back.

Emma disappears through the doorway, turning the corner to walk back to her room. But she stops. Something has caught her eye. She tucks herself into that corner and pokes a bit of her head out, peeking only a little.

Maman stands in the same place she had stood the entire time, body unmoving. She rests her forehead in her hand and slowly sinks into the nearest chair. Her head tips forward, bending over the kitchen table, and her other hand, the one not holding her face, comes to rest on the table before her eyes with her palm upturned. She doesn’t cry; she just sits there and stares at her hand for a long time.

Emma drew away from the corner where she was hiding and slowly made the trek to her room. Her fingers find one of her braids, and she fidgets with it. Her fingertips rub over the tail of her ribbons and trail up and down the meticulously-woven length of her hair.

She wonders as she walks down the hall if that was a thought she should have kept to herself. She wonders if she shouldn’t have spoken at all. Maybe Maman wouldn’t be so… different if she had just said nothing.

She finds it difficult to think about; in fact, it is something she would instead not think about right now, so she shakes the thought out of her mind. Then, finally, her hands release her braid to swing merrily by her side. Those bad thoughts were gone for now, and all she thought of now was her afternoon adventure with her dearest plush friend, Kitty-Bug. They are traveling to the moon in their cardboard spaceship embellished with crayon stars, and she cannot be late.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Emmeline Agreste knows things she is confident most five-year-olds wouldn’t and shouldn’t know.

At least, that is what she assumes. She assumes that most kids her age wouldn’t know how to hug someone properly so they didn’t flinch. She assumes other kids don't know just how much space to keep between someone so their back doesn’t tense up and they don’t move away.

But there are some things that, while they are not clear-cut rules, they may as well be unspoken ones in her house. They are things she knows that wouldn’t be bad spoken aloud, but they also serve no purpose in such a manner. They are rules that had existed since she was born, and before she was born, and that was all there was to it.

She knows that she can’t hug her Pa like most kids do. The hug where she leaps into his arms and wraps her arms tight around his neck, her cheek pressing to his.

She knows because she has tried once. She doesn’t remember how old she was, but she knows enough of that day for the memory to leave a stain on her soul. She hadn’t thought much of it. Fleur and Mariè hugged their Papas that way all the time, throwing themselves into their waiting arms and pressing kisses to their cheeks amidst laughter.

Those hugs looked nice. They looked comfortable and warm, and their Papas smiles’ stretched so big during those hugs. She thought they were specifically designed to make someone happy.

So she decided to try it out.

Papa always walked to school to come to pick her up. With their bakery close by, it was just easier. Today, like all days, he waits at the sidewalk corner where it curves into the road. His hands were stuffed into his coat pockets; his head upturned so he could gaze at the sky as snowflakes fell, pattering onto his cheeks. He looks away when her footsteps get close enough, and he gives her that smile he only gives her and Maman, warm and soft like the treats he pulls from the ovens.

What she had done next served to shatter that smile.

She came at him in a running tackle. It was friendly, and besides, it was only to build up enough speed so she could throw herself into him. He was tall, after all. She threw herself up as high as she could, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. His cheek was cold; a snowflake melted on her warm lips.

“Bonjour, Papa!” she cheered, giggling jovially. “Did I surprise you?”

Only, Papa did not look surprised. Papa looked afraid. The same kind of afraid that glosses over his face when her hand slips from his and he cannot find her, the same kind when a stranger touches him once and does not understand the space he puts between them is intentional, and they touch him again.

That same fear terrifies her, and she quickly retracts her arms and pushes herself away to land on her feet. She does not like that look. She never likes that look on Papa’s face, because that look means that he is about to draw away and never return. She hates that look, and she wants it to go away now.

“Papa?” she whispers, her question brushing past her lips in trembling white vapor.

He does not answer. He stares at the ground with a wide-eyed panicked stare. His chest falls quicker, heavier, the air turning pale with his continuous exhaled breath. His hands drift up near his face, still, and suddenly clasp onto the sides of his neck in a vice. His breath (his voice?) comes out funny, like a wheeze and a groan all mixed together. But it does not come out funny at all, it comes out in that sound, and it terrifies her, and the tears that had been building in her eyes finally slip down her freezing cheeks.

“Papa!”

He shakes his head, some strangled form of words slipping past his lips. They all sound like no’s. He shudders and falls to a crouched position on the sidewalk, kept upright by his heels. His head turns upward again, so he may face the sky, but his eyes are all glassy, and it doesn’t look like he can see anything.

“PAPA!” Emma screams, held in place by fear and unawareness. She can’t hug him again. That hug was what made all this start, what made everything go wrong, and what made everything worse. She couldn’t touch him; she didn’t know if that would be any better. She wasn’t old enough to have a phone to call Maman or an ambulance. She wasn’t old enough to calm him down in the way only Maman and Grandmere knew how, with their fingers over his heart tapping that steady and familiar rhythm. She wasn’t old enough to help. She wasn’t old enough to do anything.

So she just sobs. Tears stream down and freeze to her cheeks; her fingers grow cold no matter how much she squeezes them in a vice grip. She sways in the cold, breath coming in hiccuping coughs, and just repeats his name over and over. “Papa? Papa? Papa, please… please come back, Papa.”

The passing minutes see that he recovers. His breathing slows to something steadier, his bent arms slowly retracting and lowering, one hand coming to his knee and the other resting over his heart. He blinks once, twice. Then, on the third, his eyes become clear and more filled with clarity. His gaze travels up to see her face, and something in his expression breaks as he looks at his daughter, who still shakes in her sobs.

“I’m sorry,” he wheezes, hand still clutching at his chest. He takes a deep, deep breath. When he exhales, winter smoke comes out of his mouth for a long time. He sits there a moment longer, hunched over, rocking on his heels.

Emma remains still, her hands clenched tightly together, trembling in her coat. She could have stopped this. She could have done nothing in the first place.

But she ruined it. She shattered it. And she does not know how to fix it.

He lifts his head while she is caught in her self-blaming, and his gaze remains on her for a long while. There are so many expressions on his face that she cannot decipher, so much that she cannot read, and part of that she blames on her age, part of the other blamed on her lack of knowledge. He eventually shakes his head, like he is ridding himself of something pesky caught in his hair, and when he looks at her again, all of those expressions are hidden under a veil of reassurance in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m okay now,” he gives her a smile, but it is more strained than the one he gave her earlier. Finally, he rises slowly to his feet and stretches a hand out for her to take. It is still shaking. “Ready to go home?”

Emma can only bring herself to nod, to take his hand gingerly and walk beside him with space. She sniffles all the way home, and it is not from the cold. Papa squeezes her hand each time, but it does not serve to soothe the frantic beating of her heart or the turmoil that zips about in her brain.

Her fault. Her fault. She could have done nothing.

She has not hugged him that way since.

Another thing most children should not know about their fathers, yet Emma does. She knows her Papa hates being called “sweet”. In fact, the very word makes him cringe and retract.

This is a rule that makes more sense for her. She does not like it when other kids call her “pale” or “weird,” and she assumes it is the same for her Pa.

Also, sometimes, people just don’t like words. Emma’s least favorite word is lugubrious. It is complicated to spell, and it sounds rather sad. She would hate it if someone said it
in front of her, and she especially would not like to be called it by someone.

One day, she learned how much that one little word plagued him.

It was on some weekday during the winter season. The bitter winds sent flurries of snowflakes careening at the windows, through their bakery door whenever opened, though they evaporate upon coming in contact with the warm air. It got dark quickly in winter, and she remembered that the sky was so dark it appeared like thick black velvet.

Emma sat on the bakery floor, her back pressed against the counter and her hands occupied with Kitty-Bug performing some very peculiar flapping motions with his arms. She liked sitting here, hidden in her space. The floors were warm from the ovens, and the air was always filled with the comforting scent of fresh bread. She also liked sitting here because it was where her Papa would most often be. If he weren’t pushing things in and out of the oven with a peel, he would be taking orders and receiving compensation at the register.

Maman hadn’t been too sure about him taking the register at first, something to do with talking to too many people and wouldn’t that make him more frazzled? Maman’s eyebrows were all furrowed, so Emma knew she was concerned.

But Papa shook his head and smiled. He told her it was wonderful of her to worry, thank you, but he wanted to get better at talking with people and besides, their conversations wouldn’t get too far anyway. He kissed her on the cheek after that, and Emma turned her head because it was both gross and uninteresting.

So, out front, Papa remained. Maman had her job at some big fashion company that she always leaves the house late for, shoving her shoes on her feet and a pastry in her mouth, giving Papa and Emma chaste kisses before she whisks out the door in a flurry.

Papa is the only one left in the house, and since he insists that she stay where he can see her, please, she sees no problem staying as close as possible, seated on a warm floor within his eyesight.

With reasonable distance, of course. He still needs room to pace the floors, retrieve the goods from the ovens and put things away in nice and neat packaging for the customers.

So Emma will remain on the floor, lost in her own fantasies with just her and her best friend she’s had for forever, Kitty-Bug. Though occasionally, Papa will make his presence known in her world. He gives her winks and smiles as he passes by, and taps her on the nose with whatever popular baked good he had prepared that day.

She allows his disruptions. But only because he gives her desserts long before dinner.

Despite life in the bakery being good, there still came days of struggle, where it seemed Papa’s past just could not leave them alone.

She remembers one such day.

It had been normal to start. Maman woke her up and departed in a rush, though not before placing a kiss on her cheek. Emma descended sleepy-eyed to the bakery steps, where Papa had been awake and prepping since five-thirty in the morning. He gave her a smile, a chocolate croissant and a cup of milk for breakfast, and Emma departed to her usual place on the floor.

Emma is content as a five-year-old child could be in her Papa’s bakery. She sits on a warm floor, plays with her favorite stuffed friend, flips through as many picture books as possible, and helps Papa with the little things of running a bakery. She eats a vegetable sandwich for lunch and feeds the corners to Kitty-Bug. He likes the corners.

Time passes. It is not such a busy day, and Papa is in no rush to do things, so he hums while he works. Orders are placed, an abundance of treats and loaves are made, and customers are satisfied. The day goes by smoothly, as all days should.

Trouble made itself known in their last customer.

She was an old woman, and seemed nice, so Emma had thought it would be a normal encounter and everything would be harmless.

She was wrong.

It was a bit difficult figuring out what she wanted at first, and since they were so close to closing time, Papa was growing anxious. His eyes remained trained on the woman, but his fingers tapped an unsteady rhythm beneath the counter. His bad hand began twitching so severely it looked painful, though he tucked it out of sight when he noticed Emma peering at it.

“What was it? What was it?” The woman muttered as she shuffled across the floor at an old woman’s pace. It was rather dizzying to look at, even from Emma’s viewpoint of peering around the counter. “Something small, something chocolate, a lot of it. Croissants? No, no, the poor girl wants dessert, not breakfast. Pain au chocolat, mousse, ganache, truffles… no, no, no- oh!” she suddenly starts, her attention swiveling to the counter like she had entirely forgotten there was another person present. “Forgive me, monsieur, I know I’ve been here too long.”

Papa slowly shakes his head, a small not-smile on his face. “Take your time,” he says.

His fingers, tapping an unsteady rhythm beneath the counter, say, “Leave.”

“Something small, something chocolate,” The woman continued to mutter, her shoes scuffing the floor. “I had just thought of it, I had just thought of it.”

The woman continued to stand out in the open space, where she paced for the longest time. Emma felt a little sorry for the woman. She knew it was harder for older people to remember things. Grandmere sometimes had trouble remembering and felt so guilty, and this woman looked even older than she.

Although, Emma also could not help but feel angry. She was still here long after closing time, and she was upsetting Papa. Emma huffed, scooted along the floor until she sat closer to Papa, and reached out to tug on his pant leg.

He glanced down.

Emma gave him the same look she gives whenever he takes too long in the store, and she wanted to go home right this instant, please.

Papa gave something of a grimace and a nod. He clears his throat before calling out, “Madame? I hate to say this, but it’s past closing time. Would you like me to give you a recommendation as to what you could take home?”

The old woman gives a small, sad sigh and shuffles up to the counter. “Yes, that may be best,” she admits. “What would you recommend, dear?”

Papa shifts in place, his head tilting to the side as he ponders. “You- you said a chocolate dessert, right? Because in that case, I would recommend cake, marquise, or even cookies if you wanted something simpler.”

“Cookies?” Her voice came out much softer at first, and it was like a light switch had flipped on in her brain, and now she was overjoyed. “Cookies! Yes, cookies! That was what she had wanted!”

Papa gives a small, relieved sigh Emma was sure only she could hear. “Wonderful to hear. I’ll get them right out for you.”

He went to the counter to package up a dozen cookies for the customer without further issue. He slips the box of treats inside a brown paper cookie bag with their bakery’s stamp on it and folds its ends nicely so nothing would fall out. “Here,” Papa says, holding the bag out to her. He’s got a smile on his face again, but this time it is less strained, more genuine. “I’ll only charge you half on these. Another customer before you paid more than what was due, so please consider it as on the house.”

The old woman gives a loud and relieved sigh, pressing a worn hand over her heart. “Oh! Thank you, monsieur. You’re so sweet.”

Papa’s smile freezes. His body goes stiff, and his eyes flicker in that way when he is trapped or nervous.

The woman does not notice, taking her bag from his loose fingers without issue and peering at the cookies within.

His bad hand gives erratic flutters beneath the counter, irregular and rapid like a butterfly trapped in a jar. It is such violent shaking that Emma sees from a distance, and she slowly lowers Kitty-Bug to be still in her lap.

“How much do I owe you, monsieur?”

He blinks slowly, like he is underwater and his world is distorted and blue. “Three– three ninety-nine,” His voice comes out in a sharp exhale of breath, like a rasp or a wheeze.

Emma frowns.

The customer pays without issue. She deposits her money in Papa’s outstretched hand, the one that wasn’t doing cartwheels beneath the counter. He is handed bills, some coins, and a disc of hard candy wrapped in pink plastic. She gives him a wink at gifting him the candy, patting his hand with her wizened fingers like she was asking him to keep a secret.

His fingers curl over the change. His smile is still frozen.

The old woman departs with a wave and another, “thank you!” There is a great whoosh of winter wind and a flurry of snowflakes, and the woman shuffles out into the dark, where she disappears. The door groans and shuts behind her.

A quiet settles in the bakery. There are only the distant thrashes of wind at the windows, the crackling of fires within the ovens, and her father’s deep, raspy breaths.

Emma unfolds from her sitting position and plants her hands on the warm tile to support her as she leans out, head craning to see Papa better. She looks at him, with a tilted head and a gaze that asks, are you okay?

Papa gives a strange smile, shakes his head, and dismisses her look with an, “I’m okay.”

They do not speak of it for the rest of the day.

Emma knows one more thing that she is pretty sure other children her age do not know. For once, it is not a bad memory but a good one. This is one thing Emmeline Agreste has known since birth but has not had to keep a secret.

She knows how to play piano by ear.

A long time ago, before she was born, her Maman learned all the keys on the piano and taught herself to play one song perfectly.

Clair de Lune has surrounded Emma since she was born. It was her lullaby when she woke in the night. It is the rhythm she taps out for habit and comfort. The rhythm makes itself known on desks, walls, floors, and any available surface where the melody will ring loud and clear for her ears to hear.

She does not remember when she was taught the melody, though she has a faint, passing memory to which it may be connected. She was sitting in the lap of someone familiar but whose face she could not see. Their knee kept a steady tempo to keep a steady rhythm. Their hands rove over the keys, playing the same song she has heard in her lullabies and the old music box in her parent’s bedroom. It has deep cracks mended with tape and glue that will never fade, but its song still chimes out strongly despite its state.

Her little palms were pressed atop the pianists’ hands as they played, and she remembers enough that she had given them a broad, delightful smile.

A quick blink and the rest of the memory is lost.

Yet the melody remains.

Emma carries that melody with her. She carries with her on the bad days, when everything around her is too loud, when the questions all piled up in her brain begin to hurt, when the world breaks Papa and she does not know how to fix it.

Emma has a song in her head that will never leave. She is not quite sure why it is there.

And yet, she is grateful.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Papa is lost when Emma finds him again.

It is just a day or so after the incident with Maman, where she asked a question she should not have said aloud. It was not her intention to traverse the hall of the piano room, but she had to find her wooden building blocks, and she figured a roam around the house would be a good starting point. So she finds herself walking the halls, passing by the room which holds their piano, its door ajar. She doesn’t think much of it.

But something makes her stop.

She pauses in the open doorway, hovering for a while, debating on whether or not she should look and whether that is allowed.

The piano sounds again.

At this, she throws caution to the wind, leans towards the door, and peers out the crack.

She sees her Papa.

He is sitting on the bench, back to her, one hand loosely atop the keyboard. His finger is poised on a single note.

She watches, through her slanted peephole, as he lets the soft sound ring out again. His finger is positioned on a C note. He lets it echo out, hollow, only lifting a finger when the sound is so far gone not even the pedal can bring it back. It takes longer for the note to repeat, as without moving his hand, he echoes the sound again. It rings the same.

Something in her pushes Emma to move, and she is inclined to obey. She softly pushes open the door, uncaring of how it creaks. Her socks make no sound on the hardwood, but she knows he hears her anyway. His back always tenses when he hears someone approach from behind.

She takes the soft trek to the piano, each step like a careful ballet maneuver. She goes to the empty spot on the bench but does not sit. Instead, she hovers at the corner of the piano. This way, Papa can keep an invisible human between them, so he won’t be uncomfortable.

His fingers go still on the piano again.

They stand there for a long, long time.

He is the first to break the quiet. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and his voice goes all soft in that way it sounds like glass, fissuring with hairline cracks.

Emma drops her eyes and scuffs her feet on the hardwood floor. She doesn’t know exactly why he is apologizing because he hasn’t dropped a plate or done anything wrong. But what she does know is that Papa apologizes a lot and for a lot of things, and she has learned from Maman that it’s just better to listen than try fixing that. She shakes her head anyway because she doesn’t understand, but she does not lift her gaze.

The bench creaks as Papa shifts in place, nervous. She can hear his throat move as he swallows, and she does not have to look up. She likes to think she has gotten better at listening. “Maman and I talked this morning. She… mentioned something to me. About you.”

Ah. So that is why he is apologizing. For talking about difficult things.

The floor is easier to look at than him right now. She traces a toe along the seams of the floorboards, wishing desperately that she were on a train and that the mistiness gathering around her eyes was just a sign of rain

“She said… that you think I don’t like hugging you?”

Something pangs within Emma’s heart. She isn’t sure what would be more painful, being in a trainwreck or living with the memory of looking up and seeing the raw grief on her father’s face. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs.

He gives a sharp intake of breath. “No, no, cherie, I’m sorry, I-” He cuts himself off, his head turns away. He brings his fingers to his eyes like he is hiding or wiping away tears, but when he brings his hands away, his cheeks are dry though his eyes ring red.

There is a tightness in Emma’s throat, a sensation that comes just before her eyes overflow with tears. She swallows and shifts in place. Then, finally, she opens her mouth, perhaps to speak, but before she can even get a sound out, Papa finds his voice again.

“I don’t think I’m a very good father,” He blurts out.

Emma goes quieter. He is voicing things aloud again, like he can’t keep the thoughts inside any longer, which is something Emma is all too familiar with. So, she stays quiet as his voice spills out, and he goes on and on.

“I know I’m not a good father,” he continues, lacing and loosening his fingers together, hands shaking. “I’m not strong, I’m not brave, I’m not very good at being protective. I do a horrible job of hiding things, I do an even worse job of keeping myself together. I can’t even hug you like I want to because I just freeze up and-” His words fail, cut off by a choked, broken noise in his throat. He sits there for a moment, shaking, swallowing thickly, and his throat bobs in movement. He settles his hands to his knees, his head drops, and when he next speaks his voice is so quiet Emma has to lean forward to hear.

“I always feel so ashamed when I lose myself like that, especially when it ends up scaring you.

I just could never, I could never get it right, you know? Every step forward feels like a step back. I don’t feel like I’m getting better, and the fact that I can’t give you some normalcy is what kills me-”

She is quiet, and so is he. In words, at least. He makes noise in his slight sniffling and his slow and continuous breathing. His fingers patter on his knees in that familiar memory she has known since birth, his right hand giving erratic flutters like it constantly, often uncontrollably, does.

“I want to be better for you,” he whispers it like it is a secret, like it is something precious. “It’s just- I just can’t-” He trails off again. His fingers twitch and his hands move like he wants to grasp something, but he grabs onto nothing. So, instead of speaking further, he drops his hands back in his lap, shakes his head like he is berating himself, and falls silent.

Emma does not know what to say.

What is the right thing to say?

She does not know that, either. She doesn’t have the right words like Maman always does. She doesn’t know how to read Papa like she does. She does not know when it is best to hug him or when it is best to sit still and listen. She doesn’t know the right words to say, and she hardly knows what to say or when she should say things.

But she does know, more than anything, that she needs to be strong right now.

So she breathes, slow and deep. Like Maman taught her, taught them both.

She reaches and settles a hand softly on his shoulder. Her fingers lightly curl into the material of his shirt, linen pinched between her fingers

For the first time, he does not flinch. Instead, his fingers still, and his head lifts just a fraction, like he wants to look at her but doesn’t have the strength to lift his eyes.

But it still gives her the strength to move forward.

She could have said a dramatic speech, she could have said something inspirational like the heroines in her stories say because they always have the words to say such things.

But Emma does not have such words, nor would she know how to say them in a poetic way that makes any sense. She is five years old, standing in a room with a father who has laid bare to her his fears. Not all of them, certainly not all, but she is certain she will know everything when she is just a little older.

So instead, she speaks only the words that come to mind. Finally, she says, firmly, “It’s okay, Papa.”

His eyes cast over to her, holding a hesitant look that suggests he does not fully believe her. But he says nothing. His fingers drift and settle on the board, coming down on the keys without pressing hard enough to make noise.

Emma waits patiently. She knows he always taps when he is trying to think. Maman said it's because, sometimes, words are big and hard to get out, so they sort of flop around in Papa’s brain like big fish.

“He taps his fingers like that because he is thinking. He’s thinking of what words to say, and his fingers tap tap tap away because it helps him organize things easier. It’s like he’s slowly getting all the fish under control and figuring out which fish to let go first.” Maman smiled after that, and her fingers do that same tap tap tap that Papa does on Emma’s thigh so she could see. “Doesn’t that seem much cooler, ma princesse?”

It didn’t, really, not at the time, and she made sure to vocalize that. Wouldn’t it just be easier to pick up all the fish at once and let them go? It would make everything go along much faster.

But now as she watches his hunched posture and flickering fingers, she cannot help but imagine those fingers plucking up those wriggling-fish-thoughts and carefully arranging them in one long line. Into something more orderly and tidy, even as the fish flop in confusion.

Even if it's still a little messy, it is much neater than if he had plucked them all up at once. It works for him.

It is something Emma has just realized, something new to add to her observations of Papa.

Papa suddenly gives a little snort of amusement, and that becomes a more pensive hum. His tapping still, finger pausing atop the wood as he gazes at the piano. He appears to be considering something, another something. This time, he turns to her, and there is something hesitant but curious in his gaze. His voice is soft when he speaks to her, and his smile isn’t so happy that his eyes crinkle, but at least it isn’t sad. “Would you like to accompany me?” he murmurs, gently patting the space on the bench beside him.

Emma grins, throws her arms around the edge of the bench and begins hoisting herself up. It isn’t that much taller than her, and logically, she could have walked around and thrown herself on the seat back so she could sit. Of course, it would have been easier, but she always found easy to be so boring.

Papa chuckles, a low and soothing sound to have above her head. He gives a soft, “Hold on,” and his hands scoop under her arms and lift her up to set her on the seat beside him.

She wiggles in place, satisfied, and gives him a big grin. Her feet are nowhere near close to the floor.

He shakes his head but still smiles, so she knows he is not angry. He turns, and his fingers find their places on the keys again, his feet going flat to the floor. He takes a pause, a breath, and presses the beginning of the song on the piano. Three notes. They ring soft and resonant in the space, thrumming along the walls in its gentle melody and echoing true in her ears.

Papa looks to her on cue, and she does not even have to look to the piano bed to play the next part. Another three notes.

He smiles, and with much less hesitance, he begins again.

And that is how they play. His fingers dance over the keys like he is reciting a familiar dance, with Emma following in orderly tandem. They’d long ago found a way to play the song with four hands, which is not the only way she knows.

She knows how to play when Maman joins them, when their voices are quiet but the piano speaks for them. She knows how to play when Grandmere comes over, her cane leaned against the bench with her hands drifting across the piano in a trance, as if she were repeating a memory. She knows how to play alone, in quiet rooms with big walls where the melody can sing back to her. She listens to the song of her childhood, the song that Papa plays to mend the torn pieces of his heart.

Emmeline Agreste doesn’t know much about bandages and what defines them as such. But she believes that the piano acts as the perfect bandage for Papa’s heart in this case. It keeps him together, so he doesn’t bleed, and Maman can always kiss him where it hurts so he can feel better.

She knows her Papa is different. She knows he is more fearful than most, more sensitive than others.

But he is her Papa. He says silly, unrelated things that Emma cannot understand, but they make her Maman groan in exasperation. He knows the perfect strawberry-blueberry ratio for her pancakes, he knows how to read recipes that make her own head spin, yet he manages to create those complicated words into something extraordinary.
He sometimes cranks the radio's volume all the way and swoops Maman into dancing with him, and they laugh like they must have laughed when they were younger. He holds Emma’s hand tight when they walk busy streets, sneaks her bits of dessert while he’s working, and gives her such bright smiles and warm laughter that never fail to reassure her.

He always, always asks if it is okay to touch her, pick her up, hug, kiss her. There has not been one day she remembers where he has not asked, not a day since she came into the world. Maybe it is something she will understand later when she is older, but for now, she is merely grateful because it is just another aspect of who her Papa is.
He surprises her every day, with his love and his humor. She is amazed by him, by what he does and who he is.

And looking at her Papa, here and now, she could not imagine him any other way.

The melody ends. Its song stores itself in the walls, in their memories. It is not the last time she will ever sing or play this song. She knows this, yet it does not make this memory any less precious. She savors the melody even as it passes, closing her eyes and enjoying the quiet and the warmth.

For her, Clair de Lune brings calm. It assures her in its tempo, reminding her that it has been a constant presence, a statement of peace. It is a reassurance that it will always be there to comfort, it will always stave away the fear just enough to make it through another day. It turns her Papa from a breathless, shaking human to a man who can breathe and live again.

She owes so much to music, to its rhythms and breaths. It is what saved her Papa.

Emma breathes again. She gently retracts her fingers from the keys and pivots in her seat so she can look at her father clearly, tucking her sock-clad feet beneath her skirt.

He is looking much better. His eyes are clear, and his expression is bathed in peace. His body is loose, no longer rigid like a rod.

By this testament, Emmeline Agreste swears that the piano is a bandage or, at the very least, a soothing medicine. For what else could bring someone such peace other than a thing that heals?

Emma leans over and smiles at him. Then, in a warm hush, she asks him, “Are you okay?”

And the world rights itself as Papa smiles at her. “I’m okay.”