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“Oh, I believe you had a large part in it,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
“And now I feel guilty because he’s practically moving to Texas.”
“Trust me, it’s much better than getting a damned new picture from Iceland.”
“True,” I said with a nod.
The song ended and Ziggy Marley’s version of “Drive” replaced it as my eyes widened. “I love this song,” I said as Spencer kept our feet moving.
“Me too. I have a good feeling about you,” he said with a wink as Jack approached to steal me away.
“Thank you for the dance,” I said with a smile.
“No, thank you, Rose,” he replied as he gripped his wife’s hand as she approached. “Come on, baby, let’s go give darkman some chores,” he whispered to her as they drifted out of sight.
“Who is darkman?” I asked as I looked up at Jack, a sigh on my lips as he gave me a slow smile.
“For me, a bedtime ritual, for them, something else,” he said as he looked in the way they left. Crisp air surrounded us as fall made its presence known. “I’ll tell our little man or woman all about him.”
“Sounds scary.”
“Anything but,” he said as he looked down at me with soft eyes. “It’s a wish for a long future.”
After a brief grilling about what his uncle had asked, Jack swayed with me to the song we’d first danced to in my parent’s living room.
&nbs
p; My eyes on Jack’s, I listened to the words as they asked the questions, and I danced with the answers.
Jack
Seven and A Half Months Later
I was stuck in a brightly lit room full of clocks that endlessly ticked. It was hell on earth. One by one, the alarms began to sound as I raced through the room to reset them. When I’d finally silenced them all, I felt a peace take over me and sat back against the whitewashed wall in relief. It was short lived as another clock began to buzz repeatedly. Irritated and hungry for just one more minute of peace, I searched through the piles of clocks one by one and began smashing them with my fist to get the buzzing to stop.
“Jack?”
My eyes opened as I looked up to see Dallas peer down at me with concern. “You okay?”
I came to quickly, wiped the sleep from my face, and sat up in the bed. A bed I’d sought at the center what seemed like only minutes before to get some much-needed sleep.
“She’s keeping you up again?”
Brushing off the last of my mid-day coma, I looked to Dallas with a plea. “She isn’t getting any sleep, either. She spends the whole night tossing and turning. I’m fine.”
“Jack, we really don’t bullshit each other in this family,” Dallas said in warning.
I bit my cheek and exhaled. “I’m exhausted, and I don’t know how to help her.”
“Only two more days and they will induce. Hang in there,” she said as she left me to the single room and began to close the door behind her.
“Dallas?” I asked, still somewhere between delirious and guilty.
“Yeah, Jack?” she said as she looked on at me before a chuckle fell from her lips. “It’s going to be fine.”
“I was less afraid of a half-ton hungry lion in Africa,” I said as I let out a harsh breath.
“She’s been less than graceful with this pregnancy, I admit. But, Jack, you’ve been amazing. I promise you, she’s just exhausted. She’s almost two weeks overdue.”
