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Again.
Again.
Again.
He’d promised to be there, and he’d been there. Always.
She’d been there for him, too. All through the up-and-down drama of his relationship with Patrick, the endless working out of his guilt about his niece. She’d encouraged him to get his GED, take some college classes, learn what was necessary to know to start building the homes he felt so much more interest in. She’d helped him sleep. She’d taught herself to cook because someone had to feed them. Learned how to be a mother, quit her job at the community center because Tony needed to work more than she did, and he was making better money.
He’d taught her to accept what she couldn’t change. For a decade, she’d been a mother above all else, and none of it had frightened her—not the way she’d been frightened so much of the time since Jacob started first grade a few months ago.
And now … now she had to remember how to do that again. Accept what her choice had brought her. Put the yoke on, pull together with Tony. Bear up against her fear.
If it felt too heavy—if she felt too tired—she could lean on him. Because there were things that scared Tony, but they were different than the things that scared her. He had more strength than she did to keep going. He could do it forever if he had to—do it and appreciate whatever small crumbs of happiness they found to share between themselves. He could live on those crumbs for years and never forget he had them or how much they meant.
He would do that. Take the door off the hinges. Fly to Jamaica and rescue her from her own fear.
Amber had to find the strength to do it, too.
To go home, and to keep going.
* * *
As soon as he heard Jake so
bbing in the background, Tony knew.
Never mind that his mother-in-law was saying “It’s nothing to worry about,” and “I just wanted to check in” and “a very slight fever.”
Jake sounded awful, and he was begging for Mommy.
“What’s his temperature?”
“One hundred even. But I think his pajamas were too hot, and aren’t you supposed to subtract a degree?”
“With the digital?”
“Yes.”
“No, you add one.”
One-oh-one was high enough that there was no decision to make. Tony would tell Amber, and she’d want to fly home as soon as possible.
“He’s just overwrought, I think,” Janet said.
“Is he sleeping?”
“A little bit, today.”
He heard what she didn’t say. Last night, not at all.
Poor Jake.
Poor sensitive, anxious, terrified kid.
“Put him on,” Tony said.
“Are you sure?”
