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“I had a bad dream. I went into your room, but you weren’t there. I was afraid Daddy hurt you again.”
“No, sweet pea. I just couldn’t sleep, so I came downstairs,” she improvises. How much has he seen? “How long have you been standin’ there?”
“Just a couple seconds.”
Dani walks to her son’s side and takes his hand. “Well, what do you say we go back upstairs and get back into bed, try to get some sleep?”
“I’m scared.”
“I know, sweetie. I’m so sorry about everythin’.”
“I don’t want him to hurt you anymore.”
“He won’t.” Dani sees the fear in her son’s eyes. “I promise you, I’m not gonna let him hurt any of us ever again.”
“Will you stay with me?” Tyler asks when they reach his room. “Until I fall asleep?”
“Sure thing, possum.”
The bed is narrow, but Tyler doesn’t take up a lot of space. Dani curls her body around her son’s, the heat of his body as soothing as a hot-water bottle. Within minutes, she’s asleep.
—
Sean wakes up from a dream in which he is trying to climb his way out of a deep, dark pit. But every time he’s only feet away from reaching the top, he loses his footing and slips back down to the bottom, dragging ever more dirt on top of him until he risks being buried alive.
“No!” he cries, jolting up in bed, his body bathed in sweat.
“Sean?” Olivia says, sitting up beside him. “Are you all right?”
“Sorry,” he says, wondering if he’ll ever stop apologizing. “Bad dream.”
“Try to sleep,” she says, laying a gentle hand on his arm to guide him back down, then smoothing the covers over his shoulders, and laying her head back on her pillow, smiling at him through the darkness. “It’s going to be all right,” she tells him. “Everything is going to be all right.”
Sean marvels at his wife’s support, recalling the changing expression on her face as he unveiled the depth of his deception, the full extent of his lies. They’d talked for hours. During that time, he’d watched her eyes alternately widen and narrow in disbelief and outrage, her expression careening between loathing and concern. Amazingly, the outrage and loathing had faded, replaced by compassion, acceptance, and most amazing of all, love.
He’s promised to see a therapist, to join AA, to accept help from her parents until he’s truly back on his feet. Hopefully he can eventually regain her trust.
Regain himself.
Only time will tell,he hears his father say.
Sean closes his eyes and slowly drifts off to sleep.
—
Julia is returning from her fourth trip to the bathroom in as many hours.Too much excitement for too small a bladder,she thinks as she climbs back into bed.
It’s been quite the day: agreeing to sell the house she’s lived in for much of her adult life, deciding to move to a senior living community, actually signing the lease on a new apartment. Not to mention the rapprochement with her son, the return of her grandson, the knowledge that come the fall he’ll be back in school, that he’s turned a corner, is on the right path.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
Of course, there’s always the chance that things will fall apart, that she’ll hate Manor Born, that her newfound admiration for her son will prove temporary, as will his patience with her, that Mark will drop out of college, lose his way again.
There’s also the chance that she might not wake up tomorrow, she acknowledges, accepting that there are some things she can control, and many more things she can’t.
She hopes that everything will work out. She hopes that she’ll wake up in the morning to face another day.
