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Although, if one hair on Alice’s head was harmed, it would be hard for Ezra to remember that he was a Christian and was supposed to forgive. Because he would want revenge.
He hoped it didn’t come to that, because he knew what was right. God said vengeance was His. But, sometimes it seemed God moved too slowly, and Ezra wouldn’t want to wait. He would want Chalmer to be punished immediately.
Regardless, he stood, promising Alaska he would be back, before he went outside, stood on the porch and called his lawyer.
Chapter 24
“It’s the police,” Phoebe said as her phone began to ring.
Alaska’s head throbbed, and her brain still felt fuzzy, but she straightened up in her chair immediately, wincing against the sharp pain that shot down her temple and felt like it came bursting out her elbow.
“Answer it!” she said as Phoebe swiped.
Please let Alice be okay. Please.
She couldn’t get any more words out than that, but God knew what she was asking, begging, for.
“Hello?” Phoebe said as she put the phone to her ear and spoke in such a calm voice that Alaska wanted to grab her.
“Oh, thank God,” she said. Then she shifted the phone down just slightly and spoke over the receiver to Alaska. “They have Chalmer in custody, and they have Alice. She’s fine. They want to know how much she usually eats and they’re making her a bottle.”
“Four ounces,” Alaska said, relief making her weak so it was hard to sit up. She wanted to set her head on the table and cry, now that it was over. She hadn’t wanted to cry before. Maybe she’d been too scared.
“They don’t want to bring her back, because she doesn’t have a car seat. We can go get her anytime.”
“All right. I’ll be right there.”
“No.” Caleb put a hand on her arm. “Ezra will die if you go anywhere without him. Just hold on until he’s off the phone.”
“Wait.” Phoebe spoke, and then she held the phone back up to her mouth. “That would be awesome. Thank you so much.” There was a pause and then she said, “All right. We’ll see you in a bit.”
She swiped off.
“They’re bringing her out. They found a car seat in the back room.”
“Right now?” Alaska said, wanting to see her baby that second, make sure that she was okay.
“Yeah. They’ll talk to us when they get here. But they have Chalmer in custody, so I assume they weren’t buying his idea that because he was the dad, he could just take her whenever he wanted to.”
“I hope not. I feel like even though their mine, it’s like...like I’m not worthy to be their mom and anyone can see that and they’ll just take them from me,” she said. She couldn’t help it, she covered her face with her hands and started crying.
“You’ve been very strong, but this is excruciating,” Phoebe said as she put her arms around her on one side and Priscilla hugged her on the other, and Alaska cried, but felt comforted at the same time, because there were people who were standing with her. It made a huge difference in a person’s life when they had people who they knew they could depend on. She’d never had that before. That was something Ezra had given her that she would always be grateful for.
She didn’t cry for very long, and thankfully, the pain meds that they’d given her kicked in, and her head quit sending sharp pain that seemed to knife throughout her body.
She took Eugene from Ada, and he was content to sit on her lap holding a truck while she held him as tight as she could.
It was at least fifteen minutes before Ezra walked back in.
His face looked as serious as it always did, but it didn’t look angry, or frustrated, and Alaska allowed hope to blossom in her chest. Maybe things weren’t going to turn out as terribly as what she thought they would.
For some reason, she always went to the worst case scenario, thinking gloom and doom on everything.
“Hey. You don’t look quite as bad as you did earlier,” Ezra said, like it had been an hour or two since he’d seen her last, instead of fifteen minutes.
“They have Alice. The police are bringing her out. Chalmer is in custody, and they’re going to talk to us when they get here.” All the words tumbled out, all the things that she wanted to share with him, because there wasn’t anyone else she wanted to talk to.
She knew Ezra wanted the best for her, and for her children as well, and somehow telling him was the most important thing.
