✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

92. My Victory

Tess could smell dinner cooking now, I was sure. And she wanted to cook too, so I let her play with a toy cooker, one of her presents, while I went to finish off the dinner. It didn't take long to steam the last of the veg, and then all that was left to do was putting everything out. In Grandma's house, there had always been a bird in the centre of the table, ready for Grandad or Uncle Walt to carve in front of everyone. But with only three of us, and when Ffrances wasn't able to enjoy the occasion properly, I thought that it would probably be easier if I put everything on plates before I left the kitchen. Tess had enjoyed serving herself at lunch time, but I didn't think that would work so well when we had meat, a whole variety of vegetables, and two types of gravy to choose from.

I started with the duck. I'd done it the way Grandma had evolved over the years, wrapped in two layers of bacon with a lemon glaze between them, and with a whole chain of sausages bundled up inside, and with the juices dripping down onto a bed of roast vegetables. It had been so long since I had even tried something like this, and it took a little effort to break off the first pieces of the crispy bacon shell, but once it had started everything seemed to go smoothly. The bacon cracked apart in pieces, which I could confirm were delicious. I put a handful on each plate, and that uncovered enough of the bird for me to start carving. I instinctively gave Tess a child-sized portion at first, before realising that didn't make any sense. She might be a little, but she still had the nutritional needs of a growing girl, so I gave her the same as me and Ffrances.

It took longer than I had expected to make sure that each plate had some of everything; especially when I was setting out Tess's dinner on a childish plastic plate with pictures from some comic series, which made it harder to estimate how much I was putting on there. But eventually everything was ready to be served, and I could call my little into the dining room.

They were playing with the toy cooker, and I couldn't help laughing at that. When I called that dinner was ready, Tess walked over and, with great ceremony, handed me a toy pan containing a random selection of other toys, including one of the dolls. I think she might have been little enough to be a bit confused there, but I didn't want to put her down for it. She told me that Ffrances had tried making soup, and I promised that we could all try some. I pantomimed pouring from their little pan into three bowls that already contained our starter, and then carried them through into the dining room.

Tess was already in her seat, pretending that she didn't need my help. And she was fussing over Ffrances as well, trying to assert her power. Again, I found it hard to believe that such a sweet little girl could be turning into a bully. But today was too important to spoil by rebuking her too soon. This evening she would be a real baby, and I didn't want to get her upset before then. So I tried to focus on my own soup, and allowed Tess to look at her meal. She wanted to feed Ffrances as well, and she didn't do too badly. Watching the two of them in their childish outfits, it would have been easy to get confused over which one was the actual little if I didn't already know. It was strange watching them behave like that; but it made Tess happy and Ffrances didn't seem particularly upset. This was something I could put up with.

When dinner came, Tess was more excited by the meal. And I had to agree with her, it really was good. She could barely pull herself away from her food, so she mostly allowed Ffrances to eat by herself. The only interference was cutting up everything on her plate into bite-size chunks, like you might have to do for a really small child. I contemplated doing the same to Tess, just to emphasise how dehumanising it was. But I knew that if I pushed her to feel bad about it, treating her the same way in future would start to make her uncomfortable, making it harder to keep her in her headspace. That was a price too high, I thought, so I would have to tolerate this behaviour for now.

Ffrances was eating with her fingers in any case. I noticed that Tess had moved her cutlery to the other end of the table when I wasn't paying attention. I considered giving them back to her, wondering what had prompted that. But then I remembered what a mess we'd had at breakfast, and that made me confront the fact that my girlfriend was still struggling against the hypnotic suggestions that Tess had forced on her. She might still be following the suggestions from this morning that made her unable to use a knife and fork, and in that case giving her the opportunity to feed herself wouldn't actually help. I could let her keep on eating like that, and hope that she wasn't too upset when she returned to adulthood and thought about how she had acted.