"Mother! I want a bath first! It’s not fair!"

As usual, Calista was complaining.

Now that we were three, our nightly routine had become something of a ritual: dinner—if you could call it that—followed by bath time. I always got to go first. Mostly because I actually finished my food.

Well... “food.”
Most nights it was lukewarm gruel flavored with whatever strange meat Dad had brought back from the village market. Chewy, stringy, probably not legally classified as edible. But I ate it. Because I had priorities.

“Calista, you need to finish your supper, okay?” Mother—Agatha—responded, her voice warm and endlessly patient. Honestly, after surviving Hurricane Calista as a baby, this was probably nothing.

"But… but… Mother… Kam doesn’t even play with the bubbles! So I should go first!"

She wasn’t wrong. I didn’t play with the bubbles.
But I got the hot water.
And I wasn’t about to give that up for some sudsy distractions and a toddler power struggle.

After bath time, our parents—drained of all will to parent—would collapse on the sagging sofa in front of the hearth. The fire crackled, but barely. A few desperate embers struggled to warm the cold stone room.

Calista and I sat on the rug in front of it.
She played. I read. Well—tried to.

“Kam! Play with me!” she stomped in front of me, voice sharp enough to chip ice.

“No, don’t wanna…” I muttered, carefully forming each word with the handful I had. No matter how polite I tried to be, everything came out blunt and toddler-rude.

“Dad! Kam won’t play toys with me!” she wailed, already mid-tantrum. That was new. Usually she just threw wooden trains at my face.

“Be a good brother and play with your sister,” came Dad’s voice from behind, heavy with exhaustion.

Drat. Guess that’s the end of reading time.

He leaned down, large hands plucking the book gently from my lap, and with a weary sigh, left me to face my fate.

I crawled toward Calista’s pile of toys—half of which were soaked in drool, the other half dented with tiny bite marks. This was her arsenal, and if I dared disobey her toddler monarchy, I’d no doubt wear one of these blocks as a forehead accessory.

And yet...

I never had anyone to play with in my old life.
Now that I do... I still don’t get to choose how.