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“Okay, too. I’m supposed to be on bed-rest this week, and then follow up with Dr. Sturgeon on Monday. It’s ok. All is well.”
Maddy clears her throat as she comes back in, and I stare at her. “It is,” I insist.
“I know,” she says, setting my tray down. “I coined the phrase.”
“You did not,” Gabe guffaws. “Brand taught you that.”
“Oh, did he?” I ask, my eyebrows raised, and Maddy has the grace to look sheepish. Brand grins.
“It’s something my grandma used to say,” he tells us. “Are you feeling ok, Mila?”
I nod. “Yeah. Thank you for bringing Pax.” I turn to my husband. “My car is at the hospital. We’ll have to go get it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he reassures me. “It’ll be taken care of.”
Maddy covers my legs with a blanket. “Are you ok now? Do you need anything else?”
“If she does, I’ll get it for her,” Pax tells her. “Don’t worry, Mad.”
“As if,” I say under my breath, and Gabe hears. He grins.
“You know her too well. You’d better silence your phone tonight. She might try to call you at midnight to check on you.”
“Good idea.”
“Very funny,” Maddy announces. “You guys think you know me so well.”
“We do,” Gabe tells her. “Now let’s go and let your sister rest.”
She kisses me. “If you need anything, you call me. I mean it.”
“Thanks, Mad.”
They leave, and Brand goes with them. Pax and I are left alone.
“What’s happening?” I ask him quietly. “Why do I feel so nervous?”
But Pax holds my hand and everything is fine, because it always is when he’s with me.
“All is well,” he says, and he smiles and it is like the sun.
11
Chapter Ten
Pax
I just lied to my wife.
I feel it in my gut.
All is not well. Not with me.
But I refuse to trouble Mila with it. I’m even more convinced of that now.
So I hold her hand, and stroke her hair, and ignore the pain in my leg, and I ignore the feeling of slipping down a hillside. I’m slipping, and I don’t know how or why. I just know that I am.
I walk with her to our bedroom, and she stops to kiss Zuzu’s forehead. Our daughter is sleeping peacefully, with her lamp on that makes stars dance on the ceiling. I turn it off.
