Kurt wasn't a fan of change. 

When his mother died, it had hurt. Kurt spent countless nights cowering in her dressing room, her old clothes strewn on the floor, hair products lined up beside his shivering body, surrounding him like a chalk outline of a murder victim.

The loss of his mother wasn't just painful, it was inconvenient. The sudden lack of a female figure left Kurt dazed and lost. Suddenly the meals were different, and the routine changed, and instead of mommy picking Kurt up from school, there stood Burt, in his overalls and crooked hat, and the change made Kurt sick to his stomach.

Kurt spent the first two weeks after Elizabeth's death in bed, refusing to accept what had happened. He could understand why she went, and where she'd gone; he stood by her grave and left flowers and said goodbye under his breath. He could smell her perfume and bunch up the fabric of her favourite dress in his chubby, pale fists and he could stare at a photograph of the three of them and accept the fact that she was gone.

He couldn't accept the changes that followed.

Burt was a wonderful father at that time when Kurt had needed him most. But he wasn't Elizabeth. He did things wrong. And so he had to learn, for Kurt, for the tattered remains of the happy family he'd been a part of for nine years. And so he cut the sandwiches into triangles, not squares, and he begrudgingly watched the women's chat shows instead of the football game because Kurt liked to do his homework and hear the familiar noise.

Hell, Burt even sprayed Elizabeth's perfume around the house because Kurt noticed the smell of car grease had become increasingly pungent in the household, and it had given him a headache and he had had to retire to bed without dinner.

"He's an awkward kid; I'm not going to dress up the situation," Burt explained to Kurt's middle school teacher. "Losing Elizabeth has been hard. But not only does he miss his mom, he misses his routine. He misses the normal. Kurt - he just likes thing to stay the same. He's never... never had to deal with an extreme change, such an extreme change such as in events like this."

He hid the tears in his eyes with a calloused, pink hand, but it wasn't enough to shield the truth from his own heart. Burt had loved his wife; but he loved his son too. Seeing Kurt suffer hurt just as much as losing Elizabeth. Almost as if he'd lost both son and wife on the same day.

"Look, Mr Hummel, I know Kurt is an extremely gifted child, and he excels in all areas of academia. However, if he continues to disrupt my class, and refuse to learn, then I don't know what you want me to do. I don't know what I can do."

"Please, ma'am, Kurt's a good kid, he really is. Just give him... time. To settle. He wants to learn. He wants to get back to normal." Burt's eyes shined. "Let him get back to normal."

Though he was only nine, Kurt was lost. No mother, and no normalcy left him feeling alone and vulnerable. Part of him had died, and lay buried in the ground along with his mom's body. Kurt had lost his control. There was now a specific lack of order in his life, and it was becoming unbearable. Kurt would blink and take a deep breath and stare at his reflection in his mother's dressing table mirror, but it was gone. Kurt was gone. Order was lost. And life became chaotic.

Elizabeth loved to cook. As her image faded, and her face became a blur, and her lips no longer tasted like blueberries and her hair no longer smelled like honey and her eyes no longer glowed in the dark when Kurt wished away the monsters underneath his bed, Kurt remembered her recipes. In some respects, it was like she was still alive. Kurt could close his eyes and smell her tuna bake, and taste her infamous courgette risotto. Some days he'd cry at the memories, and others he'd smile and feel his appetite bite back at the memory. The control and the order and the power was sought out in Elizabeth's cooking.

Months passed, endlessly creeping closer towards a scorching summer, never really cool enough to wear a jacket, never really cool enough to feel rejuvinated and energised under the force of the sun's growing heat. On the first day of June, Kurt found the recipe books, stashed under old raggedy aprons and expensive chipped china and old VHS tapes of Kurt taking his first steps and swimming in the paddling pool Burt inflated for him, though it nearly killed him, and giggling into his mother's chest as she cooed encouragingly into the top of his head.

At first it was like a sharp jab in the depths of Kurt's stomach. He sat underneath his mother's dressing table, product bottles lined up alphabetically in front of him, her best silk dress laid daintily across his lap. He stroked fingertips gently against the fabric as he silently cried, pretending to hear her voice as she smiled and talked. "Do you want to help mommy cook dinner tonight, honey?" or "how'd my special little man like a pie for dessert?" or "choose a number from one to five, I simply can't choose what to cook!" 

Eventually, Kurt found the courage to open the books and smile sadly at her beautiful handwriting, stating her name and the year she bought the book. Slowly, over the span of five days, Kurt read them cover to cover. And like that, it was as if she was there, in the room, smiling and rubbing soothing circles into his tensed shoulders. Kurt exhaled for what felt like the first time since he'd been called out of school the day she died.

The books helped. Kurt learned calorie control; he learned simple tips on how to balance his diet, how to lower his cholesterol and why to avoid carbohydrates. Finally, Kurt had a lifeline. He had order. He had purpose. The ghost of Elizabeth and her smiles and her circles beckoned Kurt deeper into the rut; the lure of counting and keeping score and knowing, just being in control made Kurt smile from ear to ear. 

Kurt padded into the kitchen, where Burt was attempting to peel potatoes. 

"Hi sport, want to give your old man a hand?"

"No," Kurt replied solemnly, his eyes hard and pale, his mouth a thin line. "I came to tell you something."

Burt looked up, a smile dancing on his lips. He had grown accustomed to Kurt's certain lack of enthusiasm; he was a fairly subdued child. Elizabeth had been similar when they had first met in high school. The memory brought a shadow across Burt's glittering gaze, but he refused to let it show. Not in front of Kurt.

"I want to go grocery shopping. I think we need to learn new recipes. Mom's recipes." Kurt's voice was monotonous and hard to decipher, but Burt was certain he saw a glimmer of happiness in his pale eyes.  

"Of course, kiddo. What did you have in mind?"

Over the weeks and months, Burt taught himself to sautee mushrooms and dry fry courgettes, to make stews and soups using wholegrain wheat and pulses he'd never even heard of, let alone consumed at any point in his life. He stocked up on rye bread and pumpkin seeds, and he stacked pots of greek yogurt and houmous in the fridge. Though Burt was wary of Kurt's sudden fascination in what he was eating, he couldn't ignore the stream of light that had steadily begun to radiate from Kurt, lighting up the cowering darkness in the corners of the seemingly deserted son that had moved in since Elizabeth had passed.

As more months passed, Burt could certify the change in Kurt. He woke up smiling. He played and he sang and he smiled. Kurt was once again himself, and he was blossoming into a beautiful young boy. As he neared puberty,  Burt was certain he'd make a handsome young man as well.

---

"Two rye crackers, one spoonful of cottage cheese. Good food; good mind. Clean and healthy. Ordered and neat. Two rye crackers; fibre, sugar, salt, carbohydrates. Cottage cheese; dairy, fat, sugar. Sugar? No. Cottage cheese is dairy and fat. Dairy and fat." Kurt sat in his mother's dressing room with his eyes closed, clenching fistfuls of purple velvet dresses and holding the fabric taut against the soft skin of his cheek.

Sometimes, Burt joined him. Not often, but sometimes. They'd sit together, and Kurt would close his eyes and smell the womanly scent and feel the womanly presence and pretend. He'd pretend she was home, and that she'd cut his sandwiches correctly and kiss him goodnight properly and he'd finally be able to bathe in peace, to feel clean, surrounded by lotion bottles and vanilla shampoo and honey bath milk. He'd share her face masks and braid her hair and snuggle on the couch in the evenings. And Burt would be Burt. He'd be Dad. He wouldn't be housekeeper and cook and he wouldn't do everything wrong.

Kurt's eyes snapped open as he heard the familiar shuffle of holey socks on the spotless  carpet. "I don't eat sandwiches anymore, Dad."

Burt lowered himself on the dressing table stool, his eyebrows furrowed. "I know you don't, sport. You've developed an allergy to them, remember?" 

Alongside allergies to peanuts, ice cream, chocolate, pancakes, beef, meatloaf, pie, waffles, strawberries and cheese. 

"I don't have baths anymore."

"I bought you that new shower gel, didn't I? With the 'no tears' formula those adverts rave on about?"

"I want mom back."

Burt skimmed his fingertips over the back of a silver hairbrush. "So do I, kid. But she's not coming back."

Kurt pulled himself to his feet and crossed his arms. "I'm never eating again. And you can't make me eat. I'm never going to be hungry again."

Two hours later, a tearstained little boy was throwing up his forcefed dinner, and a fumbling father paced the perimeter of the living room, begging Elizabeth to come back, please, please to just try, to just come and nurse their little boy back to life. Regression. Panicking, hiding, lost in motion. Kurt was retreating, back into the angry folds of wrong wrong no control nothing is okay anymore nothing is right it's all wrong wrong wrong. Burt packed away the recipe books, underneath the expensive chipped china and moth-eaten aprons and cried himself to sleep.

As august crawled into the present, Kurt went to summer camp as he had done so every year since he was five. Burt waved goodbye to his skinny son, his hand wavering against his thick chest as his heart threatened to leap from his body. Four days later, Kurt collapsed whilst playing baseball. There's only so long a tiny body can run on empty. Kurt couldn't handle the change. The food wasn't Elizabeth's. As far as Kurt was concerned, it wasn't edible.

A flustered Burt arrived at the hospital, still wearing his overalls, and a greasy handprint stained into the folds of his forehead. "Where is he? Where's my Kurt?" he bellowed to the receptionist.

His legs were numb by the time he reached Kurt's bedside, and tears of suppressed worry and fear seemed to drown him, his soul, his heart. He tried everything; he kissed Kurt's pale, thin forehead a hundred times, he rubbed life into cold limbs, he talked and talked as if poor exhausted Kurt could hear his pleas for him to wake up. 

"Why did you do this, Kurt? Why didn't you just eat the food?" sobbed Burt, as the boy continued his uninterrupted sleep.  The words from previous conversations rang in his pounding ears. "I'm never going to be hungry again." 

Silence seemed to stretch to impossible limits, the sound of the hospital fading to white noise, buzzing in the back of Burt's mind, far far away where it seemed like a distant memory. Burt looked at his son like he was a stranger. How had they become so separated, as individuals, where a ten-year-old boy was underweight and sick, and he was clueless as to how his own son had become so ill?

Burt aged ten years in five minutes. Kurt seemed to be wasting away, becoming a ghost before Burt's own eyes; a ghost of his former self, his happy-go-lucky, beautiful character that Burt used to admire so.

When Kurt awoke, he found a voice inside his weary, empty body. "I just wanted to eat our food, dad. I wanted to be at home again."

"You wanted your mom."

"I wanted you."

It took a couple of months of therapy, but eventually Kurt seemed to overcome his problems with food. He ate a sandwich twice a week, and he succumbed to the temptation of ice cream after dinner in front of the television.

However, Burt never shook the fear, the worry that Kurt was going to be forever haunted by this, and that one day he'd fall further than Burt could stretch out to catch him.

As Kurt became a teenager, he became consciously aware of the way his body looked. As his limbs grew longer and thinner, he cared less and less about the food he was putting into his body. He was always counting, though. And as the numbers grew, his ego diminished. But as long as his stomach was concaved and his ribs jutted out, Kurt was okay. He was normal.