AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The stampede is loud in the hallway as all of them tear through the house, then they are all in the kitchen at once.
I know the instant Kieran sees Finn. With his heart in his eyes, he watches Finn as he takes his shoes off and places them in the rack by the mudroom.
I feel his eyes when they rise to me. He sets an empty glass down on the counter. I nod. That’s him. Our baby.
He drops his face, scrubs the back of his neck and takes a big breath. I move to his side and loop my arm around his waist. My shock is barely containable. I never knew how it would be to see Finn and Kieran together. But holy mirror-image. Finn is one hundred percent his father.
I shake myself, then say, “Everyone. This is Kieran. Say hello.”
In socked feet now, the entire pack swarms us. Asking lots of questions. Kieran chuckles, “One at a time, please. I can’t keep up.”
Finn’s taller than most boys his age, so he doesn’t look like the youngest, even though he is. He makes a beeline for Kieran, pushing one of the boys aside. He looks like he’s about to pop to get to talk to Kieran. “Is that your black car?”
“It is.”
“Looks fast.”
Kieran laughs. “It is. Very fast.”
Finn drops his voice to a creaky whisper, “Can you drive me to baseball next week? Momma Nikki makes me late and the coach fusses.”
Kieran looks over at me, then drops to a knee in front of Finn as he presses his lips flat. The question hangs in the air. I know I'm on pins and needles, Nikki and Marcus probably are too.
“Maybe sometime, if your folks say so. But no speeding. The ladies don’t like it when I speed.”
Finn rolls his eyes. “Bummer, because I like to go really, really fast.”
My heart decides to squeeze itself in half.So does your daddy.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
I’m open and raw. Peeled back. Laid open with salt poured in great heaps inside of me.
I feel as exposed as a newborn when it comes into the world. Only, beneath the rawness is a razor’s edge of hurt and sorrow that can only be known by someone that’s walked through fire.
After a few moments of sunshine—children’s laughter—the hazy glow of love at first sight, I came crashing back to earth without a parachute.
And I’m not the only one that’s DOA.
There’s a silent processional behind us as we exit the elevator and walk toward the Presidential Suite. Somber faces atop heavy bodies. Uncertainty making the footfalls weigh thousands of pounds. As if we’re all waiting for the collective relief of some unknown decision.
The grim mood appropriate, as if lives hang in the balance. Because many do.
A child’s life. A family’s life. The lives of the thousands of people I’m trying to save. All of it riding on Carra and me and the days ahead.
Carra wept all the way back to the hotel from Nikki and Marcus’s house. Tears of relief or fear, or of mourning for the things we lost.
Years gone, sand through the hourglass. The shared moment of our child’s birth. First steps. First words. Messy fingers covered with birthday cake. Skinned knees. Muddy clothes. Monsters beneath the bed.
Monsters living inside of us.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I thought I’d left my sensitive underbelly behind when I was throwing off the cloak of being a child. Now I know how much of a lie that is. The gaping wound that stretches the length of everything that I am is the proof.
