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Moving the puzzle he’d been playing with, I expected her to take him back to the nursery, but instead she laid him on his stomach in the center of our bed. Resting her hand on his back as she lay beside him, I realized that she didn’t have her wedding ring on. How long hadn’t she had it on? It had to be since she came back, I couldn’t remember seeing her wearing it.
“What happened to your ring?” I whispered from the edge of the bed, watching them both.
She didn’t look up at me, instead she stared at Ethan as she answered. “My mother took it. I’m not sure what happened after that.”
Mother?
Since when did she start calling that psychotic bitch mother? Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and sent a quick text to Coraline. I knew what ring I wanted to her to have.
“They may not have it,” Coraline texted back.
“Offer double…triple, I don’t care. Money talks, Coraline.”
Placing the phone on the bedside table, I crawled onto the bed, to the other side of Ethan. He sighed as I did, and his fist moved, as it tried to find a way into his mouth.
God, it felt good to rest in our bed again.
“Why do you believe my disappearance was your fault?” she asked as her eyes met mine over Ethan’s head.
“Melody—”
“Stop,” she whispered. And because she had some sick supernatural control over me, I stopped. I couldn’t face her, so instead, I chose instead to stare at Ethan.
“I hate it when you call me, Melody,” she said softly. “It hurts. It hurts when you pull away from me. Everything you said before, it hurt me. I hate you for saying them, and I hate myself for caring. I hate more than anything that I…that it’s so hard for me to say how much I love you.”
Damn it, woman.
Looking up, I was transfixed. I didn’t know what to say.
“Why are you saying all of this?” This wasn’t like her at all.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel comfortable. I finally have you both; this is all I really need. Plus I may have had three or four glasses of red wine.”
“You’ve always had us, Mel. I can’t fathom why you don’t know that.” It’s like she didn’t get that she wasn’t alone anymore.
“I had a dog once,” she said, as she shifted onto her back. “His name was Rufus, which was ridiculous seeing as though he was all white and Rufus means red in Latin—”
Was she rambling? Did the Melody Giovanni-Callahan ever ramble?
“My father never let me out much. I didn’t have friends, and Rufus was all I had. I told him everything and he was always there. One morning around Christmas time, I wanted to go ice skating and ran outside. Rufus ran ahead of me and just pounced on the ice.” She paused, and her lips pressed together before they opened again. “He fell through and it was only because he was ahead of me that I didn’t make it on to the ice. Orlando wasn’t going to risk anyone’s life for a mutt. Rufus finally made it out on his own after what felt like hours. He was shaking, and no matter how many blankets I put on him, or how much I tried to warm him up, he didn’t get any better. Orlando wasn’t going to pass up this moment to teach me another lesson. He brought us both outside and handed me a gun.
“‘There are two types of pain, Melody,’ he’d said. ‘The first makes us grow, and the second gives no hope and carries us to death. Which one is he in? Why draw out his pain?’ he’d asked me and I couldn’t speak. He told me to fire and I did. I missed. I hit Rufus in the leg and he weakly cried out. I just wanted it to be over, so I kept shooting until he was silent. I cried the entire time, I told him he was my best friend, and that I was sorry. If there was anything Orlando hated, it was for me to cry. ‘Wipe your face and don’t be a disgrace. You don’t need any friends. Friends bring you down, Melody. The only person you should ever rely on is yourself. Everyone else will die and leave you. Stop wasting tears because anyone who would care can’t see them.’ I was nine.”
What could I say to that? Right now I wished I had pushed that needle in slower when I put him to sleep…the bastard deserved a painful death.
“Part of the reason I didn’t come back was because I was afraid.” Finally she tilted her head to the side and I saw her eyes. Both of them were glazed over. “I was afraid that I was Rufus.”
“You thought I was going to put you down?” I whispered.
How in the hell could she think that? Scratch that, I knew how.
“That’s what we’re supposed to do, Liam. If someone is a danger to the family, we put them down. No matter how hard it is. It’s what we were taught to do. I saw you in the back of my mind pushing me to get better, always worried, doubting; not sure if I could actually make it. So yes, you were right. I checked out. I did what was easier for me and I’m sorry.”
She didn’t say anything more.
“You trusted me,” I said pinching the bridge of my nose. “You trusted me completely when you were giving birth to him. I had never felt more…proud? Happy? I don’t know. But the way you looked at me with so much faith and joy. You’re good at protecting yourself, and the one time I was supposed to protect you, I failed. Yes, you stayed away, but if I had done my job, you never would have been gone to begin with. You were defenseless and I failed.”
“You’re not going to listen to me, but I don’t blame you. I never thought of it in that way.” With a sigh, she reached over, took my hand, and kissed the back of it.
“You’re right, I’m not.”
There it was, everything was out in the open.
“I love you too, Mel,” I whispered, as I closed my eyes. “Always and forever until the day I die.”
MELODY
We all slept into the late morning, which was odd considering how early we went to bed. But we were so relaxed and Ethan worked perfectly as an alarm. However, he’d missed his three a.m. applesauce and he was not happy about it.
I wasn’t sure why I’d shared so much with Liam last night. It’d just spilled out of me…it was just that his presence reminded me of how we were before this nightmare began, and Coraline’s damn voice kept echoing in my mind like a fucking mockingbird. Whatever the reason, I guess it worked, because Liam couldn’t keep his hands off of me after we woke up. As he fed Ethan on our small couch, his eyes looked me over hungrily. It caused me to shiver, he knew exactly what he was doing to me. I felt so…I felt like teenaged girl.
Stop fucking looking at me like that damn it.
“Our interview isn’t for another hour, he’s going to need a bath. You should take one with him,” he replied, as he put the bottle down and rubbed Ethan’s back. For not being around him for five months, he sure knew what he was doing.
Nodding, I stripped off my top and he gasped before he swallowed loudly. He was eye fucking me with our son in his arms. But then again, isn’t that what I’d wanted? At least being parents didn’t make us any less sexual.
“Please, just go, Mel, I can’t look at you like that…I’m dealing with five months of pent-up frustration.” He all but moaned.
“Pervert,” I snickered.
“You make me so.” He winked.
