Chapter 5 - Lessons in Destruction
The next morning began not with screams, but with an execution.
I woke the triplets up at seven AM sharp. I didn't serve them the organic, sugar-free quinoa porridge the previous nannies had forced on them. I carried a massive box of cheap, flour-dusted sugar donuts and three cartons of chocolate milk into the middle of the ruined living room.
The boys sat in a circle on the bare floorboards, staring at the donuts as if they were laced with poison.
"Is this a trick?" Danny asked suspiciously, inspecting a chocolate-sprinkled ring. "Nanny Beatrice said sugar makes us hyper, and hyper boys go to the basement."
"Nanny Beatrice was an idiot," I said flatly, taking a giant bite out of a glazed donut. "Sugar gives you energy. Energy is for playing. Today, we aren't doing lessons. We aren't doing French or violin. Today, we are going to finish breaking this room."
Tommy froze, his milk box halfway to his mouth. "What?"
"You heard me," I said, standing up and dusting powdered sugar off my jeans. I walked over to a stack of leftover plasterboard that the workmen had dropped off in the hallway for repairs. I pulled out four safety goggles from my tote bag and threw them on the floor. "You three have spent six months breaking things because you were scared. Today, we break things on purpose. Controlled demolition."
For the next two hours, the grand mansion of Julian Whitaker echoed with a sound it hadn't heard in years: screaming laughter.
I taught them how to safely swing small hammers into already ruined drywall. I let them hurl cheap, dollar-store plastic plates against a target painted on the brick fireplace. We turned destruction from an act of desperate, terrified rage into a therapeutic release of built-up pressure. Every time a plate smashed, I made them shout something they were afraid of.
"I hate the dark!" Danny yelled, shattering a blue plate.
"I hate the doctor!" Bobby screamed, pulverizing a yellow bowl.
Tommy stood holding his hammer, his chest rising and falling, staring at a blank piece of wooden board. He took a deep breath, his knuckles whitening around the handle.
"I HATE THAT MOMMY LEFT US!" he roared with every ounce of air in his small body, swinging the hammer with absolute, terrifying force, cracking the wood right down the middle.
He dropped the hammer, panting, tears instantly streaming down his dust-covered cheeks. Danny and Bobby stopped laughing, stepping back in shock.
I didn't offer a platitude. I walked over, knelt down in the white plaster dust, and pulled Tommy into a tight, firm hug. He didn't fight it this time. He buried his face in my neck, sobbing so hard his small body shook.
May you like
From the hallway archway, a shadow fell across the dust-filled room.
Julian was standing there. He had cancelled his morning meetings. He was watching his eldest son weep into the arms of a girl who smelled like cheap flour and syrup, his own face pale as a ghost.
