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“You know, she has it in audio. I could lay in the bed next to you, and we could listen to it together while I knitted,” I offered.
He grumbled something under his breath. “I could do that, but then I wouldn’t get to hear your voice.”
I felt the tears course through me at his words.
I didn’t let them spill over, though.
Not when I knew what crying did to him.
“Okay,” I offered, picking up the book.
I’d read it before, of course. It was one of my favorites.
The name of the book was called Hide Your Crazy.
It was one of my favorites because of the two main characters. At first, they’d hated each other.
Kind of like Murphy and me.
That had to be why I’d liked it so much.
Getting up, I decided to join him in bed anyway.
His hand went to my leg as I snuggled in deep, and his head moved so that it was resting on my stomach.
His face turned so that he was pressing the side of his face against my belly.
Then I began to read.
I stared at the ceiling, wondering if I’d done something to God to make him hate me.
Three weeks ago, I’d moved out of my old apartment into this one because my old neighbor liked to hold orgies at all hours of the night.
Now, I had a pacer above me that never slept.
“What in the hell have I done to deserve this?” I asked the ceiling.
Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Shuffle to the left. Step. Step.
Step. Step. Shuffle to the right. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step.
Over and over again it went.
It was on my second hour of listening to it when I finally decided enough was enough.
Grabbing the broom that I’d gone and gotten from the kitchen but hadn’t worked up the courage to use over the last two hours, I walked to the middle of my bedroom and came to a stop at the foot of my bed.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
Then, with trepidation, I lifted the broom and tapped on the ceiling.
Lou, who’d been on the end of my bed sleeping blissfully, started to bark.
I whipped my head around and growled, “Quiet!”
He settled down into a low growl, but the stepping, thank God, had stopped.
At least, it did for all of twenty seconds.
Then it resumed again.
Step. Step. Shuffle to the left.
So, I tapped the broom a little bit harder, biting my lip.
“He’s asleep.”
I looked up, swallowed hard, and felt the tears come to my eyes at Giulia’s words.
“He’s not sleeping much,” I admitted.
“I know,” she whispered, her eyes on her son.
My son was asleep in her arms, and I felt my heart lurch. “You going to go?”
She nodded, walking farther into the room, and hefted Vlad in her arms slightly. “I can’t remember the last time I picked my son up like this.”
Her words felt like a dagger to my heart.
Vlad had done a lot of growing in the last few months, growing that had been somewhat overshadowed with Murphy’s illness.
But Vlad, being the good baby he was for everyone but me, had hung in there.
I smiled as I thought about how heavy he’d gotten lately.
“I read a book when I was pregnant with him,” I said, smoothing my hands across Murphy’s hair. “Pretty much said to cherish everything, because one day you’ll pick them up for the last time. I never really put much thought into it, but last week I found one of his old pacifiers under my bed, and I thought, when was the last time he’d used one of those?”
She smiled sadly and brushed a kiss onto Vlad’s forehead, then walked to the bed and looked down at her son.
My heart felt heavy as I said, “Want to switch places for a bit? I can get him ready for bed.”
She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing as if she was swallowing past a large lump. “I think I’d like that.”
We switched, and together we moved the man that held my heart until he was resting in his mother’s arms instead of mine.
She curled her hands around his face, and then bent low to press a kiss to his forehead.
“When he was little,” she said softly, “he used to sleep in a ball. Like curl up so tight that I could barely see him in his little bed. From the moment that he was old and strong enough to do it. There was one time that I went to check on him and swear to God, I thought he’d been kidnapped. I tore his bed apart. His room. Then the whole house. Then to go back into his room with this frantic feeling in my heart only to find him sitting curled in the middle of his crib with stuffed animals surrounding him.”
Vlad made a fussing sound in my arms, and I rolled my eyes. “I seriously don’t understand what everyone else does for him that I can’t.”
