Page 55 of Just a Heartbeat Away

It had been honest. More honest than she was used to from almost anyone. She thought that probably Fin was the only other person who would have told so much truth.

“Miss DeRosa, are you cold?” Matty asked as she ran the bath for him, readying his shampoo and a washcloth.

“No, why?”

“Your hands are shaking,” the little boy observed.

And so they were. Actually, all of her was shaking as that thing inside her just kept folding down tighter and tighter. Soon it would be microscopic, and dense as the entire world smashed into the head of a pin. Tiny as it was, there was no room for this inside her. There was no room for this in her life.

“I’m all right.” It was a bald-faced lie. “Sometimes that just happens.”

She held out a hand to Matty, and naked and shameless, he climbed into the tub. “I can be by myself in here as long as you check me.”

She nodded, handing him his soap, and went into his bedroom to turn down the covers on his bed and choose a few books to read together. She took a deep breath. She needed to hold it together for another hour, and then she could go home. She could go home and call Fin and figure out what the hell had lodged itself somewhere between her lungs. Every time she breathed, her heart rubbed against this dense, sharp little intruder.

Via picked some pajamas from the drawer and headed back to the bathroom. She couldn’t help but smile at Matty’s beard of bubbles and the matchbox car he was racing down the highway of his own shin bone. She slicked electric blue toothpaste onto his redCarstoothbrush and grabbed his Kermit towel off the hook.

“I assume this is yours and not your dad’s?” she asked, knowing it would make him laugh.

“Daddy’s is the blue one. You can tell because it’s Daddy-size.” He smacked his hand to his chin and made the bubble beard explode in every which way.

Via ignored the way that knot between her lungs did a little pulse at the mention of Sebastian’s size and held the towel out like a cape for a prince. “Your Majesty.”

Matty pinched his nose between two fingers and collapsed backward underwater, rinsing himself clean. He rose from the tub and Via wrapped him up like a little boy burrito. She handed him the toothbrush, and he brushed while a tiny lake formed at his feet.

“Are you feeling all the way better from being sick or just most of the way better?”

“All the way. Except right now I feel a little sick.”

“Really?” She automatically reached out and felt his forehead with the back of her hand. He was hot, but he was also medium roasted from a hot bath.

“Yeah. In my eyes. They’re scratchy.”

“Ah.” He was just tired then. That quelled her worry. “Get your jammies on, and then we can read a few books.”

His eyes lit up and he spit toothpaste into the sink, tapping the toothbrush on the side to get the residue off in a way that made Via smile. She could imagine Sebastian and Matty brushing their teeth side by side, the son imitating the father.

Via handed over the pajamas and it was just a few minutes later that Matty came scampering back from saying good night to his dad.

“Miss DeRosa?”

“Hmm?” Via sat across Matty’s bed and leaned against the wall.

“Do you think my dad will be better tomorrow?”

“I hope so. But it might be the next day.”

“Okay.” Matty inserted himself between her and the book with enough force to make her say “oof.”

“Oh!” Matty was back up like a shot and rifling through one drawer of his craft table. “I almost forgot, but I made this for you. Because you visited me when I was sick.” He held out a lanyard with all sorts of colored beads on it. He’d even carefully braided part of it. “It’s a key chain.”

“I love it,” she told him, completely honestly. “I’ll put it on my keys right away. Thank you!”

“Welcome,” he told her and snuggled back in to her side.

She’d chosen three books, but she folded and read him a fourth and by the last page, his eyes were glassy and blinking with all the speed of a tortoise crossing a highway.

She wished him good night and didn’t get much of a response as she pulled the covers up to his chin. He immediately kicked his legs out one side of the covers and pillowed his hands under one cheek. Via closed the door halfway and headed back out to the living room.

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