Page 20 of Absolution

“I figured,” she says. Her tone has an edge to it. Not hostile, though… maybe slightly bitter.

I think again. No. No mothers. If they aren’t targets, or related to targets. I think of Erica Davenport. Her motherly instincts, or lack thereof, pissed me off badly. Was it because I thought of my own child, somewhere out in the world? Here, as it turned out to be.

“Like I said. You’re the most devoted mother I’ve ever met.” I flash her a grin, trying to lighten the mood. It doesn’t seem to work very well.

She sits up next to me, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, letting them dangle next to mine. “I can’t sleep. I’m too anxious.”

“Aw, come on. She doesn’t benefit from having an exhausted mother tomorrow,” I say quietly.

“How much have you slept yourself?” she whispers.

Nothing. I don’t answer.

“She doesn’t benefit any more from having an exhausted father tomorrow either.”

The world comes to an end.

Stops.

Then the wheels slowly start turning again. Slowly. Then faster. Faster. And we’re back. She’s there. I’m here. Things are as they were, except for one little thing that has changed. One word. Just one word. I’m stunned. I think it takes her a moment longer to realize what she just said.

You just called me her dad, Ker.

She suddenly stands, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “I’m—I’m gonna go and make some tea. You want some?”

I take her hand and urge her to stay still. She’s always running. Always escaping from something, or someone. Always on the move. “Let me. You stay here and watch over her.”

She doesn’t pull back her hand. Hers is so small in mine. We both look down at where our skin touches, where it burns hot with memories, and then our eyes meet.

“I’ll…” she croaks out and tilts her head toward the bed.

I nod and let her go, feeling as if her hand is still in mine.

Weary-eyed, she makes herself more comfortable by the little bed, hanging her forearms over the edges of the crib, leaning close to our daughter.

Our.

Damn!

When the fuck did all of this happen to me?

How? How have I earned the presence of these two in my life?

My heart sinks heavily as I make my way to the kitchen.

I haven’t.

Kerry

I called him her father. It just came out of my mouth without a thought, feeling like the most natural thing in the world. The change in him at my words, how his face fell, then lit up like I’ve never seen before, threw me.

He has shoved the couch all the way along the wall again until it covers the door to our bedroom. No one is locked inside the room, though. This time the door is wide open and Christian and I sit next to each other, wrapped in blankets, each sipping a cup of strong tea, staring at our daughter’s restless form as she tosses and turns in her sleep. Sometimes she wakes with a hoarse cry that tears the heart right out of my body. We take turns calming her and I don’t feel any jealousy when he holds her, and she calms in his embrace. Not anymore.

The night is slowly turning into early morning as we listen to Cece’s snoring, to her sniveling and her uneven breaths and the cough that seems to thicken in a way I don’t like at all. I suddenly feel so fundamentally stupid. I made the biggest mistake in my life when we moved here. I’ve made us so vulnerable. Just look at us now. He found us anyway, so what was the point?

We have to go. We have to get to the hospital in Sprague.

As the pale green self-illuminated digits on the clock on my bedside table flip from 4:59 to 5:00 a.m., I realize it’s impossible to stay here not knowing how ill she’s going to get, and so far away from all help. I don’t care what it looks like out there after the storm, we’ll manage, we have to take ‘our asses back to civilization’ as he so eloquently put it. I hate to admit he might be right about something.

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