The thought of leaving the safety of their locked room scared the spit out of her. She did not want to qualify for the too-stupid-to-live starring role in one of those slasher films. She jostled Joshua faster, patting his back and making shh, shh, shh sounds. God forbid he wake up others in the house and have one of them see Hugh running around the compound.
Okay, so the decision not to go downstairs wasn’t as clear-cut as she’d thought. She eyed the door, then the yard. Was that Hugh darting behind a tree?
Joshua’s bottom lip jutted out with only a second’s warning before he started crying again, harder this time, louder. If he kept this up, the whole house would be awake.
Keeping Joshua happy and quiet would be the best way to help buy Hugh more time and safety—which was in the best interests of all three of them.
“Okay, okay, sweetie. We’ll go find a banana.” And now that she thought about it further, she might as well use this opportunity to store up extra food in case they did need to leave when Hugh got back.
And she definitely needed to make this fast so she could be sure to return before him.
With each step down the worn wood staircase, she pushed back those thoughts of high school horror flicks. Picking her way through the dark didn’t exactly help steady her heart rate.
Whispers from the kitchen slithered down the corridor. She hugged Joshua closer and walked softly on. Peering into the kitchen, she found Jocelyn’s nieces, Erin and Courtney, standing at the island with their heads close together as they talked. Courtney’s long strawberry blonde hair contrasted with Erin’s sleek brown bob. They didn’t look much like sisters, about twenty years apart in age. Or were they cousins? Jocelyn hadn’t been clear about the relationship between her nieces.
Both still wore the same jeans and T-shirts they’d had on at dinner time, which seemed strange this late at night. But then they could have gotten dressed again as she had, not wanting to wander around in a nightshirt with strangers around.
Their voices weren’t loud enough for her to understand what they said. Their quiet could be chalked up to good manners, trying not to disturb others.
Amelia stepped deeper into the kitchen, fears for Hugh making the air too thick to breathe. “Where’s Jocelyn?”
They jolted apart sharply. With guilt?
Courtney picked up a bottle of juice off the counter, her ponytail swinging, she moved so quickly. “She’s asleep. What do you need?”
Easy enough to answer truthfully. “The baby’s having trouble sleeping. I just need to find something for him to eat. Jocelyn wouldn’t happen to have any baby food left over from that nephew’s kid?”
Erin opened the cupboard doors. “Afraid not. But we have plenty of canned goods. SpaghettiOs? There’s some applesauce. Crackers. Help yourself. Aunt Jocelyn has an open-pantry policy.”
Courtney extended her arms. “Let me hold the little guy while you look.”
“Um, thanks,” Amelia clutched him closer, and God love the little imp, he locked his arms around her neck. “I have to confess I’m clingy with him after all we’ve been through.”>His eyes slid back to Joshua in the crib and nodded once. “I did. And we stared at Tilly’s face when she slept, and yes, we talked about what we thought that precious angel-faced baby would do with her life.”
Amelia watched him with those piercing eyes, her lawyer eyes that saw so much.
“Tilly colored on walls and defended her rights in the playground sandbox. She was tiny though, born two months prematurely. She spent three weeks in the NICU.”
He set the guitar aside, the fear of that time filling him up again even in memories. “I prepared myself to lose her during that time. But once she made it through?” He shook his head. “I let my guard down. I got complacent, let myself dream of the day she would start first grade, ride a bike, get her license… And while I know it’s unreasonable to expect I could have saved her, I took her for granted, and that’s what I find the hardest to live with.”
She rested her hands on his knees and stayed silent, thank God, she stayed silent. There weren’t words that could make this any better. Although the pain didn’t continue to grow. Her touch didn’t make it go away, but at least it didn’t increase.
He thought that maybe he could actually explain how they died, something he always left to other people to explain. Staying silent, staying busy had been how he survived for five years.
But right now in the silence with Amelia, he found himself saying “I told you before that my wife and daughter—Marissa and Tilly—died in an airplane crash. A fluke, couldn’t even pin it on mechanical error or pilot error. A wind shear forced the airplane down shortly after takeoff. There was no chance for recovery. The jet broke apart.”
Looking in her eyes became too much, so he glanced away and stroked the neck of the soundless guitar.
Her hand rested on top of his. “I’m so very sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine how painful that must have been, must still be for you.”
And she needed to hear the rest. He needed to say it, finally. “It happened when Tilly was in kindergarten, the Christmas after the pet-rock preschool incident. They were going to spend a month with her mother since I was deployed for the holiday. We didn’t really have the money for the tickets, but I surprised her anyway. Put the whole thing on a credit card because I felt so damn guilty about being away too much.”
“You can’t possibly feel responsible.” She clasped his hands, dipping her head and forcing him to meet her eyes. “You couldn’t have predicted that.”
He tapped his temple. “Up here, I know that.” He tapped his chest. “Down here has a tough time comprehending. If I’d gotten out of the air force and taken some regular nine-to-five job, she wouldn’t have needed to go to her parents. She wouldn’t have been so lonely and stressed-out. I wouldn’t have missed over half of my daughter’s too-short life.”
She squeezed his hands harder… Except he realized he was the one holding so tightly. She hadn’t winced even when he must have been close to breaking her fingers.
He let go abruptly. The reason for all this pouring out of his guts came to him. He needed to make her realize. “Amelia, I may be good with the kid, but I can’t go there again.”