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Keith, no!
All the air in my lungs came out in one fast, rough whoosh, and I shoved Deacon away from me as quickly as I could.
For once I was able to move him.
Deacon stumbled back, caught off guard by my sudden movement, but I couldn’t look at him.
Agony pierced at my chest and made it hard to pull in a breath at that innocent, innocent question.
I’d been so careful not to kiss Deacon in front of Keith the last few days, because one good-bye kiss from Deacon that first night had nearly devastated my son, and had absolutely destroyed me.
“Keith,” I said breathlessly. “When did you wake up?”
He looked up toward the ceiling for a second, then shrugged. “I donno. Deaton, are you—”
“Keith, stop!” I pled, and fell to my knees with the grief that slammed into me. I gripped Keith’s shoulders and pulled him close so Deacon wouldn’t hear the shaking in my voice. “Buddy, stop. Remember what I said? Remember? We don’t ask that. That isn’t going to happen.”
Again, it felt like my soul was grieving. I wanted to tear myself apart, rip myself away from Deacon and any man that might come into our lives in the future.
Keith’s nearly identical question on Wednesday night had destroyed me. I’d barely made it from his room to mine before I’d crumbled under my grief and the torrent of sobs.
I didn’t want to go through it again. Not now. Not when I couldn’t escape him or Deacon.
“What’s the grassy place?” Deacon asked warily, and my eyes shut in pain.
“Deacon, don’t,” I whispered my plea.
There was a pregnant pause before he asked hesitantly, “Does he want me to take him there?”
“Deacon!” I meant to shout his name, but I would have been surprised if he heard it at all. My head fell so I was staring at the ground when I said, “If I could, I would walk. Let me walk away.”
For once, Deacon didn’t push, and I was thankful for it. I felt so beaten down from the past five minutes that I didn’t know if I could get myself standing again, and I knew I wouldn’t have been able to keep it together if Deacon forced me to talk again.
I drew in two deep breaths, trying to steady myself, then looked up at Keith. “We have to go. Do you need to use the bathroom?”
He shook his head quickly, and whispered, “Mommy. I don’t want Deaton to go to the grassy place. Is that okay? Mommy, don’t make him go.”
A choked cry forced from my chest before I could stop it. I didn’t know if I was nodding or shaking my head, only that it was moving. “Yes, that’s okay. I won’t, baby. I swear I won’t.”
I stood on weak, shaking legs, and avoided Deacon’s questioning stare as I left to go help Keith change clothes.
A few minutes later, when I approached the front door he was holding open, I glanced up and forced a smile that he didn’t return. “I’ll talk to you later.”
He nodded slowly. His face was guarded, but his eyes were searching, begging, questioning everything he’d just seen and heard.
I couldn’t give him an answer to any of the questions he had. Instead, I grabbed Keith’s hand and walked to my car.
. . . which was now no longer working again.
Deacon didn’t say anything about my needing a new car, or say anything at all. He just waited silently as I got Keith’s booster seat into his car, and kept quiet during the drive. By the time we got to Mama’s, I was ready to run from the awkward silence of Deacon’s car, but he gripped my hand in his as soon as he pulled into a parking spot.
He waited until I was looking up at him to say, “I will never force you to talk to me in front of Keith. If you want to walk from me in front of him, then I’ll let you walk—even if you physically can’t. But watching you go through that . . . damn it, Charlie. My fucking heart was breaking for you and I had no clue what was going on. I just had to stand there and watch because you pushed me away.”
My head shook slowly as he spoke. “This morning . . . I cannot handle this morning. It’s been one thing after another, and it isn’t even eight, Deacon.”
He arched a brow, and gently challenged, “So you’re gonna push it away until it comes back up? Keith normally doesn’t stop talking, and I couldn’t get him to talk or even look at me after the question about the grassy place.”
