Page 49 of Surrender

Fruit, yogurt, and toast. I blame the lack of creativity on someone keeping me awake for most of the night.

We went another round, another two orgasms for each of us before we collapsed into a sweaty, boneless heap and promptly passed out. I thought we’d also wake up together, but it appears Jack had his mind made up and didn’t want to face what the morning would bring.

Maybe he expected me to be clingy and ask him to stay again. And perhaps he’d be right.

Not about the clinginess, but I probably would have invited him to stay for breakfast. And he probably would have found a task to do around the house to keep us comfortable. A meal to make or snow to shovel or something to fix. Morning would have turned into afternoon, and who’s to say when nap time rolled around, I wouldn’t have tried to seduce him into another orgasm or two. By then, it’d be dinnertime again, and we’d eat while he held Bennett in his arms, and after, we’d settle the kids down and find ourselves alone with another twelve hours ahead of us.

Really, I should be thanking him for having the foresight to get out when he did. This cycle seems all too easy to fall into because Jack makes it easy. Despite all the things I have to do.

The listing for that house he told me about needs to be called along with an email to confirm my start time at the hospital on Monday. I need to drop a check off at the daycare to cover payment for the remainder of the month. I should do some shopping. Winter gear for me and Christmas presents for the kids because the holiday is only about two weeks away.

“Momma, I see Dadda,” Lucy announces from my left as she chews a mushy bite of banana.

“You had a dream about him?” I slip a crisp bite of apple in my mouth.

“No, I seed him outside. He looked like a wolf.” She scrunches her face to bare her teeth and holds her fingers out like claws. “He had hair all over.” She waves her arm in a circle around her head.

My heart aches with her little story. Her doctor mentioned there might come a time when she starts to process his death, and it can bring a delayed sense of grief. I add a mental note to call her pediatrician this afternoon.

“I’m sorry, Peanut. Should we look at a picture of him?”

She nods solemnly.

I retrieve my phone from my pocket and find an album of pictures of Devon. I created it for the kids after he passed. I tap the first one and hand it to her.

Her little blond eyebrows squish together as she gazes at her dad. “He’s not a wolf?”

“No, baby.”

“I was scared.”

The guilt hits hard. I should have been with her last night. I should have slept in that big bed with her rather than rolling around on the living room floor with Jack. My kids need me. She needed me.

Last night was... I swallow hard as I search for the word.

Perfect.

Unfortunately, it can’t happen again.

I squeeze Bennett tight to my hip and lean down to press a kiss against her hair. “It’s okay to be scared. But when you’re scared, it means you’re brave too.”

She turns the screen to me, now black. “I watch show?”

Thank goodness toddler attention only lasts a few minutes. I follow her lead and let the subject drop. “Finish your breakfast, and I’ll turn on the big TV, okay?”

She eagerly shoves a spoonful of yogurt into her mouth, making me smile.

* * *

After breakfast, I let Lucy watch a show while I played with Bennett on the floor. He rolled to his stomach and pushed up to his knees, rocking back and forth, teasing a crawl. My heart ached a little thinking about him hitting milestones when we don’t even have a house to remember them in. I’d rather not have to tell him someday that he learned to crawl on a stranger’s floor. The same floor I had the best orgasms of my life on the night before.

Once my mom guilt began to tingle that she’d watched enough TV, I bundled them both up, found a spare pair of gloves in the laundry room, and we trudged outside for a bit of playtime in the snow. Lucy lasted about half an hour of bounding over huge snow drifts and helping me build a snowman before she was cold and tired enough to come inside for some warm milk.

With the two settled down for a midmorning nap, I gaze out the front windows at our creation with a hot cup of coffee clasped between my hands. We didn’t have a hat or a scarf, but Lucy found perfect twigs for the arms, and we used rocks for the face instead of buttons. A straight orange carrot juts from the irregularly shaped sphere for the head.

A gentle smile tips my lips. I’m grateful for these memories Jack made possible by letting us stay here. I might even be a little sad we have to leave so soon.

The sound of my phone ringing pulls me from my thoughts. I straighten and set the coffee cup on the table beside the recliner in order to dig my phone from my pocket. My heart leaps into my throat, immediately sinking at the name flashing across my screen.

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