Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Mum had always been strict about them not eating sweets and snacking between meals.

Father wasn’t so strict, but to keep the peace, he said nothing about it. In private, he let his children sneak snacks, and he’d buy them little sweets, but they had to eat it where Mum couldn’t see. It had been like that for all of Rainier’s life.

One of his favorite things to do was to sit on Father’s lap in his office and suck on honey swirls while Father showed him the ledger or requests and things from lords. Rainier would have to take care of that stuff when he was older, so he had to learn.

His other favorite thing was to sit on the wide swing in a corner of the garden with his sister while they shared a forbidden snack.

When he was twelve, Addy was thirteen, and her body started changing, although Rainier didn’t pay much attention. Despite Mum’s nagging and talks about self-control, he didn’t think about weight.

One day, Addy made Rainier come into her room, and she started taking off her dress. She’d already loosened the laces in the back.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Hang on a minute.” Addy finally dropped it on the floor and pulled her shift closer to her body to make the outline more visible. “Do I look too big? Be honest and tell me if I do. Don’t lie.”

He shrugged. What was too big? To him, she looked like any other thirteen-year-old girl, although he wasn’t used to seeing them in their shifts. “You pretty much look the same to me.”

“Mum said I’m getting fat, but I can’t tell if I look bigger or not. Do I look fat?”

Father was a rather hefty man, although he always said it was all muscle. Addy looked nothing like him in that way, and Rainier shrugged again. “I don’t think you’re fat at all.”

“Mum measured me for a dress, and she said I grew too many inches around in my waist, and my hips look plump.”

He wasn’t sure what she expected him to say or do. “You’re taller than me now, so doesn’t the rest of you have to grow?”

“Well, I think I should start wearing a corset. Maybe that will keep my waist in."

When he was in his bedroom later and thought about it, he didn’t see what the problem was. He was bigger now than he was a few years ago, and girls had to grow too. How could she be too many inches? Maybe Mum had just been in a bad mood while measuring her daughter. After all, she had seemed kind of odd lately and more cranky.

He forgot about it for a bit until Mum caught them one day in Addy’s room while they ate honey swirls that Father had bought for them.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She snatched the waxed parchment packet from the table. “Especially you, Adaline Luce! It’s almost empty!”

Rainier tried to shrink on the couch because whenever Mum used their last name, that meant they were really in trouble, and she might use his next.

“Do you want to end up just like your Father?” Mum asked her daughter. “What about when prospective husbands come by later on? Shall I present my chunky daughter to them? You’re already heading that way, and I bet you’ve been sneaking a lot of sweets. If only your Father…”

Addy’s eyes filled with tears, and Rainier quickly spoke up. “She just had one. I ate the rest.”

Mum narrowed her eyes at him like she didn’t believe that. “Even if you both only ate one, it’s too much. You’re not to have snacks between meals, and I’ve told you overeating is a lack of self-control. What are you? Five?”

It seemed like everyone else ate when they were hungry, and nobody was called a five-year-old if they ate something when it wasn’t mealtime. Rainier kept his mouth shut because such a comment probably wouldn’t be appreciated.

Addy wiped at her cheek. “Father said I’m not chubby, and that I’m not done growing yet because I’m only thirt-”

“You’re going to take advice from an overweight man? I better not catch you sneaking food again. Learn to have some restraint. I already told you that you’re getting plump. Also, you should be practicing your math because the tutor says you’re not doing very well. Honey swirls certainly won’t improve anything about you.”

After that, Addy started running the halls at night on her floor. Rainier joined her because she didn’t want to be alone. Besides, she said he ate as much as her, maybe more, and what if Mum started scolding him all of the time?

Rainier hadn’t caught up yet in height, and Addy ran like her life depended on it. Every night, long after their parents went to bed, he spent a good hour trying to keep up. Back and forth they went through the long halls. She said if people worked and moved a lot, they’d be thinner. Surely, they wouldn’t get chubby if they ran a lot, right? Peasants got skinny if a famine happened, and they grew thinner when they had to keep working to get the next crop in.

He said Father practiced with his sword and moved a lot, and he was still a big man. Addy said that wasn’t enough because he ate more than any of them.

When he asked why they didn’t do this outside during the day, she said they had to hide it. Mum might grow suspicious if they were suddenly doing a bunch of running. She’d probably get mad at her daughter for darting about like a peasant girl. Also, it was too hard in a corset, and Addy didn’t want to go outside without it in case others thought she looked plump.

After a couple of months of that, Father collapsed outside from a heart attack one day. The physician said he’d likely been dead by the time he hit the ground. His weight had likely contributed to his weak heart, and that’s why he’d been having pains. The physician seemed quite anxious when he mentioned that he’d already told the King that he needed to lose some weight to ease the strain on his heart. Perhaps he thought the Queen would blame him.

Mum didn’t. She wailed that she’d tried to get her husband to eat less as if she thought the physician would place all of the blame for her husband’s death on her shoulders.

Rainier hadn’t had a clue that Father had been having pains in his chest or any issues. A few times, he had seemed out of breath when he’d been helping his son train with his sword outside, but Rainier had assumed he was simply tired or perhaps he needed to sit in the shade.

Maybe that’s why Mum had been cranky lately. She’d known about his heart, worried, and kept it a secret to avoid scaring her children.

Addy started spending more time in her room after the funeral. Mum did too if she wasn’t in the office and doing all of the work Father did as King. Rainier sometimes sat on the swing in the garden and cried by himself.

Nothing would be the same. He didn’t care about the lack of sneaky snacks from Father. He wanted to feel his big arms around him, train with him, hear his booming laugh, and go horseback riding with him through the local glass forests. He wanted the time when he thought Father was invincible and nothing could happen to him. The time before he knew a heart attack could sneak up and lay Father out on the ground in a second.

Mealtimes were the worst. They all picked at their food while Father’s chair remained empty.

He went to the kitchen one day, and the cook must have had a stash of cookies for the servants. She gave him a pitiful look and a bunch of cookies. His sister let him into her sitting room, and they sat on the floor while they ate in silence and tried to fill the void in them.

Mum saw cookie crumbs on the floor later that day.

She yelled at them and said they would end up overweight and in poor health like Father. His lack of self-control had cost him his life. He’d known his heart wasn’t well, and he hadn’t done a thing. Did they want to die so young and leave behind a grieving spouse and children?

Addy refused to eat snacks with Rainier for a bit, and sweets had rather lost their appeal for him. He spent more time on the swing outside while he stared at the glass roses, the crystal plants, and listened to the white, red, and green glass trees tinkle their branches overhead.

When Addy was fourteen, and Rainier was thirteen, Mum openly scolded her daughter at the table and said she ate too fast. She ate too much. She was probably still sneaking snacks because she was gaining weight. Mum started on Rainier too and said he looked a bit plump.

It was so humiliating, he sometimes swore to himself that he’d never eat again, but then he’d be hungry at meals and eat the whole plate. He didn’t think he appeared chubby in the looking glass, but Mum insisted he was, and that he had no self-control just like his sister and Father. Maybe he was going to get fat, but how was he supposed to not be hungry?

Addy made him get his teeth cleaning brush and brought him into her privy room one night after dinner.

“I figured something out,” she said. “If you throw up a lot, you lose weight. If we throw up our meals, we’ll get skinnier.”

“You have to be sick to throw up,” said Rainier. “Or pregnant.” Aunty had once said she’d thrown up a lot while pregnant with Natalie, and she’d lost so much weight due to that.

“You can make yourself throw up.” Addy wore an expression like she’d found a great treasure. “If we’re careful about sneaking stuff, we can eat whatever we want and simply get rid of it. I’ve practiced. The cook’s been giving me brownies all week, and I’ve been throwing them up along with dinner too. I think my waist is smaller, so that means it works. It’s not as small as Natalie’s, but I’ll keep doing it until I’m thinner than her.”

“But she’s younger.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s a twig, and I have to look like that too. Mum never says she looks fat.”

Rainier looked her up and down. He was pretty sure her dress fit like any other young lady her age, and despite Mum’s words, he couldn’t see what she saw. “But you don’t look fat either.”

“Yes, I do! Why do you think Mum keeps saying it? For her health?”

Addy told him to tie his hair back so it wouldn’t get in the way because nobody wanted puke in their hair. She handed him a ribbon to use and started to put up her long black locks. While Rainier gathered his back, he stared at himself in the looking glass. Was he plump too like Mum said? Maybe he couldn’t see it because he didn’t want that to be the truth.

She showed him how by sticking the wooden end of the brush down her throat. She said the trick was to keep it there even though it made her heave and gag, and wiggling it helped. He watched in partial disgust as she vomited down the privy. He was also partially fascinated because he hadn’t known that anyone could force themselves to puke.

Once she was sure everything was gone, she had him try, but when he stuck the slim piece of wood back there, he immediately heaved and panicked, so he pulled it out.

“You have to keep doing it and practice. Dinner won’t fall out of you in one go.”

He hated it. Sticking the wood back there made his gut heave, his eyes watered, and he felt sick even though nothing actually came up. She didn’t let him quit, and he finally managed to get some chunky liquid out.

She said that would have to do for now, but he’d have to keep at it.

It grew easier with practice, although he was pretty sure he wasn’t getting out as much as her. Food didn’t taste the same or nearly as good on the way out like it did when it went in, and the acid burned his throat. Addy said he was doing better, and soon, they’d both be skinnier. They could eat what they wanted and never get fat.

They did it together every night after dinner, and while he hated puking, he liked doing something with his sister again. It was their own special thing. When they finished, they’d use the bristle end of the brush for its intended purpose to clean their teeth with a gritty paste that contained crushed mint. Addy said she felt lighter afterward, and she wondered if Natalie secretly did this too because she was quite skinny.

Rainier still didn’t like the act of vomiting, and it made him guilty because if Mum knew, she’d say they were hiding their lack of restraint. Addy started eating more when they snuck snacks, but she would throw it all up. Eventually, she didn’t even need the brush anymore. She could use her fingers.

It seemed so easy for her. Rainier wondered if he was so lacking in control, that was why it was harder for him. He stopped eating snacks and only threw up his dinners.

Addy started getting rid of lunch, and after a time, he was sure she puked away breakfast too. She showed Rainier how the waist of her dress was looser, and she had to tighten her corset quite a bit now.

She looked skinnier to him, and he had to go down a hole on his belt, but the nagging continued. Mum wouldn’t stop no matter what.

What scared him was that Addy seemed different to him in other ways after a while. Her skin didn’t look so clear and healthy as before. Her hair seemed a bit limp, and she complained that quite a lot came out when she brushed it. Despite growing thinner, her cheeks would get puffy, and if Mum noticed, she’d say that’s what eating too much did.

He was sure vomiting so much wasn’t healthy. Natalie was skinny too, but whenever he saw her, she was always glowing with health. He wondered if he should say something to Mum, but he was too scared. She’d yell at Addy like usual, and it’d be his fault.

Food was supposed to have important things they needed to keep their body going, and if his sister was getting rid of everything, what would her body use?

He asked her to stop and suggested they only throw up dinner together. They could skip all snacks too. She said she liked eating, and she loved that she could eat whatever in her room, and Mum didn’t have to know as long as she cleaned up and puked afterward. He begged her, but she still refused.

A servant found her dead one morning in the privy with bloody vomit on the wooden seat.

He knew he’d never forget Mum’s scream when she found out. The physician couldn’t figure out what happened. Had she been ill?

Mum said she didn’t know of anything wrong, and she demanded answers from Rainier. He finally admitted what they’d been doing and how Addy had been vomiting more than him. Mum raged at him for keeping such a secret, blamed him, and said it was all his fault that his sister was dead. He should have said something instead of keeping it a secret.

With the truth in the open, the physician said such repeated vomiting must have broken her stomach. Puking made it contract, and repeatedly doing that would surely weaken it and make it rupture. That explained the blood, and if she’d bled inside, there was often no hope. Even a good healer couldn’t stop that unless they cut her open. Vomiting could also strain the heart.

Mum raged at the Goddess for taking her husband and her daughter. She screamed at Rainier since he’d been puking too, although not nearly as much. When she grew tired of that, she barely spoke to him for weeks.

He didn’t want sweets anymore. He was too scared to throw up again in case he died like that too and couldn’t heal himself.

When he sat on the swing, the space beside him seemed too vast and unfillable. Mum kept Addy’s rooms exactly the same as if she were simply on holiday somewhere, but that made her absence even worse to him. Sometimes, he curled up and cried on her bed while the guilt ate him from the inside out.

He should have said something.