4.3.25 - The Book Keepers Dilemma pt 3

Parable 3: The Flame Between the Walls

The scent of bleach and pine clung to the hallway like a second skin. Birthday prep had reached its middle phase—too far in to stop, not far enough to coast. Mother was deep in the warpath of organization, flanked by a mop, a playlist of 2000s R&B, and a stack of gift bags that had yet to be assembled.

Father wandered through the living room, holding a broom like a forgotten weapon. He swept half-heartedly around the playpen, pausing every few strokes to check the baby monitor. On the screen, their youngest sat surrounded by alphabet blocks, more interested in chewing on the corner of a book than stacking letters.

A wave of drowsy warmth moved through Father’s chest. The light hit just right, soft through the curtains, turning the cluttered room into something gentle. Briefly, the tension eased.

He thought of Paris.

It returned not with the clarity of memory, but as a slow dissolve—colors before details, warmth before dialogue. The hotel room had been too small, the balcony even smaller, but it had felt enormous then. A single slice of sky framed by stone.

Mother had worn his hoodie, the sleeves pulled past her fingers. Her cheeks flushed from wine, her hair frizzy with rain. They had been in their early twenties, two soldiers on leave, delirious with the illusion of normalcy.

“Do you ever think we’ll have kids?” she asked, stretching her legs across his lap.

“Like soon?”

“Like someday.”

“I don’t know,” he had said. “I barely know what day it is.”

She smiled and leaned in close, her lips brushing his ear. “I think I want twins. Just to get it over with.”

He laughed. “God, no. Don’t wish that into the universe.”

Later that night, when the rain grew heavier and they’d lit a candle to make the room feel less damp, they made love with the unselfconscious urgency of people who had just remembered they might die young. The city moaned with thunder outside, and he remembered her fingertips tracing his spine like she was writing a prayer she couldn’t speak aloud.

He came back to himself standing in the hallway, holding a bottle of all-purpose cleaner.

The baby squealed from the other room, dragging a plush toy by its ear.

Mother emerged from the bathroom with a stack of towels and a glare that said she’d been calling him.

“You gonna help or stand there time traveling?”

“Sorry,” he muttered, blinking hard. “Was just thinking about that hotel in Paris. The tiny one. You remember?”

“Barely. Why?”

“You asked if we’d ever have kids. Said you wanted twins. And we did.”

Mother looked at him. For a moment, something soft passed through her face.

Then she said, “Yeah, well, maybe next time wish for a housekeeper too.”

She walked past him, and the softness vanished.

Father looked back at the living room, where the baby now clapped at nothing in particular. A television ad played on mute. The light had shifted. The warmth had gone.

He went to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and stared at nothing until the cold hit his skin.

And the flame—whatever memory had ignited it—retreated behind the walls again.

Waiting.