The kitchen table had become a graveyard for starch and copper.
Four large Russet potatoes sat in a crooked row across the floral tablecloth Elena had inherited from her mother. The fabric was faded in places from years of washing, tiny yellow flowers softened by time. Tonight it was littered with tools, wire clippings, and bits of torn notebook paper where Leo had been sketching diagrams of circuits.
Copper wires stretched between the potatoes like fragile bridges. Galvanized nails stuck out of their sides at awkward angles.
The entire contraption looked less like a scientific experiment and more like the aftermath of a small kitchen explosion.
Leo sat hunched over the table, elbows planted firmly against the wood. At fourteen, he had the serious concentration of someone attempting delicate surgery. His long limbs had recently stretched faster than the rest of his body could adjust to, leaving him lanky and slightly awkward in his own skin.
He hummed under his breath as he worked—a nervous little tune that rose and fell with his focus.
"It's not staying, Mom," he muttered.
His voice cracked halfway through the sentence, the sound jumping suddenly from boy to man and back again. It happened more often lately, and every time it did Elena felt a quiet ache in her chest.
Leo had grown nearly three inches in the past six months.
Time was moving too fast.
"The wire is too stiff," he continued, frowning as he tried again. "It keeps popping off."
Elena leaned over the table, pushing her reading glasses slightly up the bridge of her nose. The overhead kitchen light flickered softly—a faint rhythmic tick that pulsed in the corner of her vision.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
It felt like a tiny needle tapping against her skull.
"Try holding the nail with the pliers while you wrap the wire," she suggested gently. "It'll give you more leverage."
Leo adjusted his grip and tried again.
The copper wire bent reluctantly around the nail, but the moment he let go it sprang loose again.
He groaned.
Elena reached out instinctively to help him steady the nail.
For a moment, her mind drifted.
She thought of the grocery store.
Of the tall young man kneeling beside her purse, collecting spilled coins with quiet patience.
Silas.
She remembered his hands most clearly.
Large.
Steady.
Capable.
The kind of hands that looked like they understood how things fit together. How systems worked. How broken pieces could be coaxed back into place.
He would know how to fix this.
He would probably have wrapped the wire perfectly the first time.
"Mom? Mom!"
Elena blinked.
Indigo sat cross-legged on the kitchen counter beside the sink, swinging her legs so hard that her sneakers knocked rhythmically against the cabinet doors.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Her dark curls bounced with each kick.
"Yes, Indy?"
Indigo leaned forward, her eyes shining with the frantic curiosity that only appeared after seven in the evening.
"If the potato makes light," she asked, "does that mean the potato is getting a tan from the inside out?"
Elena opened her mouth.
She closed it.
Then sighed softly.
"No, baby. It's just a chemical reaction."
"But if I ate the potato while it was plugged in," Indigo continued rapidly, "would my stomach glow? Like a firefly?"
Leo groaned.
Indigo didn't notice.
"Mom, do fireflies have stomach aches?" she asked. "Why are they called fireflies if they're not actually made of fire?"
Her legs kicked the cabinet again.
"Also if I was a firefly I'd want to be blue. Can they be blue? Because yellow is kind of boring. But blue would be cool. Do they make blue bugs? If scientists can make blue bugs they should definitely do that."
Elena closed her eyes briefly.
The questions came like pebbles hitting a window.
One pebble was fine.
Two were manageable.
But a hundred?
A hundred and she could feel the glass beginning to crack.
"I don't know about the blue fireflies, Indy," Elena said slowly. "Let me just help your brother finish this circuit so we can see if the LED lights up."
"But Mom," Indigo continued eagerly, "if the LED doesn't light up, can we use a candle instead? Did people use potatoes for candles in the olden days?"
Leo slammed the pliers down.
"In the olden days like when you were a little girl?"
Elena winced.
"I wasn't alive in the 'olden days,' Indigo," she said.
"And no. They didn't use potatoes for candles."
The copper wire slipped again.
Leo groaned loudly.
"Indigo, shut up! I can't concentrate. You're making me mess up the connection!"
Indigo gasped.
Her eyes widened dramatically.
"Don't tell me to shut up!" she shot back. "Mom! He told me to shut up!"
The lower lip trembled.
Elena recognized the warning signs immediately.
Storm incoming.
"Leo, don't use that language," Elena said wearily.
"Indigo, please. Just five minutes of quiet. Just five."
Silence fell across the kitchen.
But it wasn't peaceful.
It was the kind of silence that pressed against the walls like a storm cloud waiting to burst.
Leo stared down at the potatoes.
Indigo stared stubbornly at the ceiling.
Elena looked down at the poster board spread across the table.
The Power of the Earth, Leo had written in thick black marker.
The letters wobbled slightly where his hand had slipped.
Elena felt a sharp pang of loneliness.
Three years.
Three years since she had thrown their father out of the house.
And six months since the state police had called to inform her that he had died alone in a motel outside Wichita.
Even when he lived with them, he hadn't been present.
If he were here tonight, he would be slumped on the couch with a beer in his hand and a sports game blaring on the television.
He wouldn't have noticed the potatoes.
Or the wires.
Or Leo's frustration.
Or Indigo's questions.
Elena had become everything.
The breadwinner.
The teacher.
The handyman.
The emotional anchor.
Some days she felt like the anchor was dragging across the bottom of the ocean.
"Mom?"
Indigo's voice was softer now.
"Mom, look at me."
Elena rubbed her temples.
"Look what I can do with my ears."
Indigo wiggled them enthusiastically.
"Not now, Indigo," Elena snapped.
The words came out sharper than she intended.
Indigo flinched.
The girl didn't cry.
But her shoulders folded inward slightly, like a flower closing in the cold.
She turned away and began picking at a loose thread on her sleeve.
The silence now vibrated with hurt.
Guilt flooded Elena's chest.
She looked at Leo.
He was staring at the potatoes with complete defeat.
Then she looked at Indigo.
A little girl who simply wanted to be noticed.
Elena suddenly felt the full weight of the day pressing down on her.
She thought of Silas again.
Rough night?
He had seen something in her.
Something invisible.
Something she had been carrying alone for years.
For a few minutes in that grocery store aisle, he had shared the weight.
Just holding the cart felt like relief.
Like someone had stepped in long enough for her to breathe.
And suddenly Elena realized something.
She was trying to force a light bulb to turn on…
when her own battery was completely empty.
"Okay," Elena said softly.
She stood up and took a deep breath.
The pliers slid gently from Leo's hand as she placed them on the table.
"Mom?"
Leo looked confused.
"Leo," she said, resting a hand on his shoulder. "I want you to take a break."
He blinked.
"Leave the potatoes. Leave the wires. Go to your room and put on your headphones."
She squeezed his shoulder gently.
"Just exist for thirty minutes."
Leo stared at her.
"We'll finish tomorrow," she said. "We have all weekend to make it glow."
His shoulders dropped instantly.
Like someone had removed a heavy backpack.
"Really?" he asked.
"You're not mad?"
"I'm not mad," Elena said.
"I'm tired."
She smiled faintly.
"And I think you are too."
Leo nodded slowly.
Relief washed across his face as he pushed away from the table and shuffled down the hallway.
The sound of his bedroom door clicking shut felt like the room exhaling.
Elena turned toward the counter.
Indigo still stared at the loose thread in her sleeve.
Elena walked over and lifted her gently off the counter.
Her daughter wrapped her arms around Elena's neck automatically.
She smelled like apple juice and laundry detergent.
The smell of childhood.
The smell Elena worked herself to exhaustion trying to protect.
"I'm sorry I snapped, Indy," Elena whispered into her hair.
"My brain is just a little bit full tonight."
Indigo squeezed her tighter.
"Is it full of potatoes?"
Elena laughed softly.
A wet, tired laugh.
"Yes," she said.
"Potatoes and wires and science projects."
Indigo pulled back slightly.
"Can we go sit on the big chair?"
"The marshmallow chair?"
"The big chair," Indigo corrected.
"I want to tell you about the dream I had where we lived in a house made of marshmallows."
Elena smiled.
"Yeah," she said quietly.
"We can do that."
She carried Indigo into the living room and sank into the oversized armchair by the window.
Indigo curled against her side like a warm blanket.
"Okay," Indigo began seriously.
"So the marshmallow house had chocolate doors…"
Elena listened.
Really listened.
Not while thinking about the next chore.
Not while mentally reviewing tomorrow's schedule.
Just listening.
When Indigo finished describing the marshmallow roof, the gummy bear neighbors, and the chocolate milk river, Elena glanced back toward the kitchen.
The potatoes sat silently on the table.
The wires drooped uselessly between them.
The LED bulb remained dark.
The light hadn't turned on yet.
But as Elena held her daughter and listened to the story of the marshmallow house, something inside her loosened slightly.
For the first time in weeks…
she wasn't rushing.
Her mind drifted again to the rainy parking lot.
To the young man with the steady eyes.
Silas.
She didn't know if she would ever see him again.
But the memory of him lingered like a small warmth in the back of her mind.
Like a quiet permission slip.
A permission slip to pause.
To breathe.
To let the light stay off…
just for one night.