He watches me with an ennui that’s so convincing I almost believe that he doesn’t care.
“It’s ringing.” I lift my eyebrows in exaggerated excitement and give my brothers a mental high five.
“Yeah right, you’re probably calling your bestie or something,” he says with a churlish little laugh.
I hit the speaker button just as the call connects, “911, do you need police, medical or fire?”
His eyes nearly bug out of his head at the recorded voice. “Stop,” he bellows and then springs off the cabinet and races to me, hands straining ahead of him, his eyes trained on my phone.
I hightail it out of the storage room and out into the kitchen, racing to put the huge marble top prep surface between us.
I hold the phone up over my head. “Don’t come any closer, and I’ll hang up.”
He screeches to a stop across from me. His dark, tear damp eyes are blazing, his flushed nostrils flare. He’s so small, but if he was the same size as his anger, he’d fill this entire room.
“Why couldn’t you just pretend you didn’t see me?” he seethes through clenched teeth. His eyes shimmer with unshed tears.
Guilt and compassion replace my annoyance. He’s just a scared kid and I don’t want to add to that already overflowing bucket. “I didn’t really call, okay?” I put the phone down and lift my empty hands so he can see I’m as defenseless as he is. “Now, tell me who you’re hiding from.”
His eyes widen just enough for me to know I hit that nail on its head before he narrows them angrily. “No one,” he insists.
“You can trust me,” I coax softly. Instead of the reassurance I hoped to inspire, his bottom lip trembles and his throat moves convulsively. I reach across the counter, my palm open in invitation.
He stares at my hand with wide, wary eyes before he lifts his gaze to my face. The bleak, haunted look in his eyes makes my breath hitch.
“I won’t let them hurt you again.”
“You can’t do anything,” he snarls then turns to make a run for the door.
I sprint to get ahead of him, stop short, and pivot with my arms open to catch him. He may be small, but he packs the punch of a freight train and his momentum sends us crashing to the floor.
I roll over and wrap him in a bear hug. The press of his too-prominent rib cage against my arms and the thud of his sprinting heart and against my torso firms my resolve to find out what happened to him.
“Let me go,” he screeches and bucks against me. His head flails between my breasts and I crane my neck to move my face out of harm’s way.
My wildly beating heart is lodged in my throat and my arms ache but I hold on tight.
He’s scared and so alone that he’s managed to find his way here on a school night without triggering an Amber Alert.
“You’re safe with me.” I whisper.
“Please, please let me go.” His voice is still colored by anger, but it breaks at the end of his sentence and he starts to cry. His hot tears dampen the front of my shirt.
I rest my cheek atop his head. The touch seems to startle him and instantly, but for his heaving chest, he goes completely still. After a few seconds of this, I risk loosening my hold and move my hand to caress circles in the center of his back. He stiffens and then our embrace changes.
His fisted hands were trapped between us. Now, they slide around my ribcage, his small hands press into my back. He holds me so tightly it’s uncomfortable and cries like his entire heart is broken.
I recognize the grief that’s pouring out of him. It’s the keening, festering kind that comes knowing that with losing something you’ll never get back. Whoever said you can’t miss what you’ve never had was selling a pipe dream.
My father died before I was old enough to have a single memory of him. But I’ve felt his absence so keenly at times, I was sure my grief would swallow me whole.
What always saved me from those emotional hurricanes was having a safe place – usually my grandfather’s arms – to see the storm through. He didn’t insult me with platitudes and promises he couldn’t keep. He’d let me get it out, chuck me under the chin, and send me on my way.
“Whatever you’ve lost, is gone. But you’re still here, and