Chapter 5: Goodnight, Mother

My thoughts are still a tempest as I help carry Enola off to bed.

I shouldn't be staying for a nighttime routine, not now, not when I've never undergone it before, but Peeta insists, and I can't find the will in me to refuse.

Gingerly, I tuck Enola in under the bedclothes. I hover awkwardly, debating whether or not to give her a kiss. The lines between caring for her and my memories of caring for Prim often blur so much, I've nearly slipped in some boundaries.

"Goodnight, dear," I settle on at last.

Enola cuddles into herself, beaming impishly, adoringly. "Goodnight, Mother."

I blink, taken completely off-guard. I save face by nodding, granting her a smile.

I take my own sweet time in plodding down the stairs into the Bakery area. Peeta is preparing tomorrow's yeast from rising, pivoting between the counter and oven. I really shouldn't fuel my own addiction by leaning against the doorjamb and granting myself a few moments of watching him.

His eyes finally lock with mine, and I still feel a thrill course through me, though it's duller now, if only from familiarity.

"She's asleep," I murmur.

"Thank you," he nods.

We hold each other in our sights for a beat too long before averting. Peeta clears his throat.

"When… Prim urged you to apply…. did she give a reason?"

I force myself to look at him. "I think you can answer that just as well as I can." My tone is sad; Peeta can only cluck his tongue in what might be pity.

"I don't blame her. Delly wouldn't have either. Surely your sister must see that." His stare probes me. "Please, will you tell her that?"

I bob my head dumbly. "I shall." My own voice has grown quite small. I'm doing that stupid nervous tic again, twisting the fabric of my frock's skirts. At last, I have out with it.

"Why… why did you name her Enola?"

Now it's Peeta's turn to look bereft. "I thought that was obvious."

I blink, thrown. "No….. Not to me."

"So flip it then." At my blank expression, he clarifies. "Flip the letters."

My charge's name suddenly flashes like neon in my brain, and when it inverts, I gasp audibly at deciphering the anagram.

"Alone," I breathe. "Enola is alone spelled backwards."

Peeta nods, and I've never seen a man suffocated by such weight. He sighs heavily, his head dropping forward. When he next speaks, it is halting. "The… the night Delly died… I felt like I had finally been able to find some measure of happiness, only for it to be ripped away from me. We'd worked really hard to get to where we could be…" He stops, tries again. "Delly crept up on me," he finally confesses.

"Wh… what do you mean?" I stammer.

"Oh, come on, Katniss, haven't you ever heard how some Merchant marriages are arranged?" Peeta throws out bitterly.

Yes, in fact, I had heard that, but it had always been my understanding that those kinds of nuptials were entered into in order to solidify business alliances. Provide multiple paths for inheritance. A business in Town is traditionally passed down to the eldest son or daughter. In the case of the three Mellark brothers, Leven by all rights should have gotten the Bakery, but he married into the undertaker's family and is now on track to take over that business with his wife. I'm not sure how or why the district law would have completely skipped over Rye, except that perhaps the Witch made some stipulation cutting Rye out of the inheritance and having the Bakery pass to Peeta. Or maybe Rye renounced the whole thing – he helps here now and again, but I think we all know he could never run it.

But that still doesn't explain. "But…. but you and Delly… your Toasting wasn't like that. You… you loved each other." I don't sound convincing, even to my own ears. I search his eyes. "Didn't you?"

"Yes, we did. But that only came later. When we were finishing school, looking past the Reaping, my mother was hounding me to find a suitable bride. Delly and I were practically brought up together; we'd always been close, so Mom got it in her mind that we'd be a natural match. She was so invested, she wanted us to Toast the bread before we'd even stood for our last Reaping. By the time graduation did roll around, Delly and I were sick of our parents riding us, so we did the one thing we knew would shut them up: we got married."

I think all the color has left my face. "And then you got pregnant," I whispered. "Almost immediately after." It had to have been; Enola was born in early spring, the spring after the wedding.

Peeta smiles wistfully. "That really is what brought us together, actually," he murmurs quietly. "Delly was so thrilled, and so was I, that we finally allowed deeper feelings to develop. By the time the baby was due, we were honestly assured that we could make this work in a…. romantic sense." He seems to bauble on that word for some reason. Me? I'm hanging onto every syllable. He chuckles ruefully. "It helped that Mom was ecstatic we were having a girl – she'd always hated me and likely Rye too because we weren't girls, did you know that?"

I shake my head, baffled. "No, I didn't."

Peeta seems to be staring off into the near distance, almost past me, remembering. "Everything about that night… the night she arrived…. was wrong." He's quick to put up his hands. "Not that that is anyone's fault, please don't misunderstand me. But when…. when Dels lost too much blood…" He chokes up. "Your sister and mother were panicking – they tried everything. But by then…. it was too late. I…. remember Prim passing Enola to me around first light, right here in this kitchen. I looked down at my daughter, and numbly felt that… even though I had her, I was still alone."

I think my heart has stopped beating. "So that's why…?" I'm nearly breathless.

He locks his gaze onto me, and I can see tears glistening, accentuated by the glow of the streetlamps just outside the window. "That's why, sweetheart. That's why."

I don't even mind that his calling me 'sweetheart' must just be another one of his pet names for me. My heart goes out to this caring, loyal, strong man, and I know I shouldn't, I know it's wrong, but I cross to him in three quick strides and hug him around the neck.

"You're not alone," I murmur. "And neither is she."

I feel him nod against me, and then we're suddenly drawing back to lose ourselves in each other's eyes, although we remain in the embrace. I quake as I feel Peeta's arms wind past where they have hovered at my hips to encircle my slim waist. My hands are splayed, finding purchase on his chest.

"Peeta…" I mean to lilt his name up into a confused question, but my mind won't let me.

Peeta is now sliding his palms up my arms until they are both framing my face, tilting it back. We're a hair's-breadth away from each other. "Katniss…" There's a huskiness to his voice that…. excites me.

Ironically, it is this knowledge that makes me snap out of it, disentangle from this inappropriately intimate tableau. "No. We – we mustn't. This isn't right. I…. I have to get home."

And run out the back door, letting the banging of the metal echo through the rear alley as I pelt away into the night, trembling in terror.

Even across the district however, safe in the Seam in my sister and brother-in-law's house, do I not feel removed enough from this situation I've gotten myself into.

Impulsively, I stay up all night frantically packing a suitcase as quietly as I can, determined not to wake the baby or my family.

As sunrise starts to poke over the horizon, I leave a hastily scrawled note for Prim on the kitchen table. Then I begin my hike across the district to Lucy Gray Baird train station.

I make sure to give the Bakery a wide berth, sticking to the backroads on the opposite side of the cobblestoned streets. The morning train is steaming along the platform as I arrive, the stationmaster caterwauling out the first call.

Up until a couple years ago, mass transportation in Panem was heavily regulated, normally privileged only for Victors of the Hunger Games, district politicians like the Undersees, and occasionally tradesmen who had the benefit of a government contract. Ordinary district citizens would need a special passport, signed by the President himself, to travel beyond their own district, even on business. But then, not long after Prim and Rory got married, reforms passed in the Capitol that allowed the easing of some travel restrictions. It was enough that when the law went into effect, Mother booked passage to District 4 on the first train leaving the station. She stayed long enough to see her youngest become a wife, and then bequeathed to her our inheritance: the Healing business. For me, Mother's fleeing constituted a final abandonment; I haven't spoken to her since.

Yet, I've allowed myself to get too close to the handsome Baker and his daughter that I can't run to anyone else. I can't go to Prim, fearing how she will interpret it and how she would likely tell me to do exactly what has me so terrified.

I purchase a one-way ticket, and allow the porter to gentlemanly guide me by the hand onto the train.

By the time the sun is rising high in the sky, I am steaming through the imposing district gates and entering land beyond Twelve.

My hands shake against the formica as I accept the cup of tea from Mother, its bottom rim clattering against the accompanying saucer. There is a muskier smell to the air here in Four. Glancing piningly out the window of my surviving parent's cottage by the seaside, the picture of misery, I can hear waves crashing and gulls cawing.

I can feel Mother's inquisitive stare on me, but don't turn my head. I have hardly looked at her at all since I stumbled off the train platform in this coastal land, on what I believe is the far side of Panem. As far from District 12 as I can get.

"Katty, dear…"

"Don't!" I squeak, hearing it in the husky voice of a man and I simply can't bear it. "Please. It's Katniss."

Mother sighs, as though even this courtesy is burdensome to her. I want to glower at her, but I haven't the energy.

"Is everything all right? Why didn't you write ahead and say that you were coming…?"

My jaw clenches, my teeth set on edge. "I told you, Mother, it was last minute."

"Clearly. And you're assured you can be away that long from your work? Primmy's been writing to me – she said you're a governess to the Baker's child…? Dannel's youngest boy –"

"Don't!" I blat out again, the retort as sharp as a thunderclap, masking the underlying tremble in my timbre. "I… I can't talk about it."

A pause. And then:

"Did something happen, darling?"

Meekly, I nod my bowed head.

"Between you and…. your ward? Or between you and…. Peeta," she lands on his name, and I flinch.

"Mother, please," I beg. "I… I can't go back."

Another lull, and within it, I finally manage to look her in the face. She's weathered out here in the salty sea air; it hasn't aged her well. "I see. Why not?"

I exhale a shaky breath. "I can't face him again."

With those five little words, I have just about confessed to everything. Mother is scrutinizing me more than she ever has in my life. I can tell she is deeply curious, quite surprised, and maybe even a little….

Hopeful?

"Katniss, my child, if you don't mind my asking: do you love this man?"

"I don't know!" I moan it helplessly, all but tossing my teacup aside. "Sometimes, I could be sure that it was No, but then he would stare at me, and… the State damn me, Mother, I could scarcely breathe. And the child! – the child…" I shake. "I could never do something so wicked and betray Enola!"

Mother says nothing. "Enola…." She sounds it out nearly. "Beautiful name. Filled with such emotion."

I study her, bewildered. "What are you saying…?" I gasp.

Mother dips her head in my direction to silence me. She stands, floating over to the open window. It is a time before she speaks:

"Did I ever tell you of how I was engaged to another man before I married your father?"

I gawp at her. "You most certainly did not! When was this?"

"Before you and your sister were born, naturally."

I scowl at her savoring what she must perceive as a foolish question. "Who was he then? Your… fiancé."

Mother turns her head, the setting sun bathing her profile in fire. "Dannel Mellark."

The world stops spinning. Oh, Snow's Roses… I am truly damned, aren't I?

Mother is smiling at me sadly. "When I fell in love with your father, it was quite sudden. It left me confused and frightened. It took me some time before I cowardly went to Dannel and had to break it off. Cancel our Toasting. Oh, it all worked out in the end, but not without some people being hurt." She gazes down at me with the most fondness I've ever known from her since before I was 11. "I don't want that for you, my girl. Which is why you must go back."

I nearly topple out of my chair. I compromise by falling to my knees in genuflection and pleading with my own mother not to send me away. "Don't ask me to do that. Oh, District 13 help me, Mother, please don't ask me to do that!"

Mother can only observe me with resignation. And though I scarcely can believe it… regret. "You can't run away from your problems, Katty, my dear – you have to face them!" Taking me by my hands, she lifts me to my feet. "You've grown into a fine woman, my daughter. Now it is time for you to fight for the happiness you would deny yourself. Now go. Follow your heart."

Something deeper in me listens, hears and obeys, for I am suddenly stumbling, staggering out of the seaside cottage in a haze. Then I'm running for the District 4 train station, clambering onto the first locomotive bound for Twelve. Bound for… home.