I lie there, staring up at the ceiling, just as I’d stared up into the bright blue sky on Thursday. No sense of time, thought, or direction. Just me, flat on my back, in pain. “Jake.” My voice is weak, as if I’ve been strangled. I try to sit up, but can’t. “Jake!”
The front door opens. “Bec.” Jake sprints to the base of the staircase. His hands dance delicately over my bones. “Can you move?”
Wicked fingers of pain stab my spine. “My back.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Gravity.” I wince.
“Sense of humor intact, I see. Don’t move.” He resurrects his months of EMT training, back when he had thought about becoming a firefighter instead of a cop. He takes me through an endless array of tests with my fingers, toes, and other various movements, and then finagles an ice pack out of every frozen vegetable I have in my freezer. “Let’s get you off the stairs.” He tucks me into his side like a football and guides me to the couch. My toes tingle, and my back aches. He lowers me onto the stiff couch in the formal sitting room and arranges the veggies behind my back.
“You’re shaking like a leaf.” He leaves the room and brings back a glass of water and a blanket. “Drink.” He drapes the blanket over my lap.
I drink the glass and place it on one of the thousand coasters my mom kept in random stacks throughout the house. “What did you find?”
He sits forward.
“What did you find, Jake?”
“Do we need to take you to a doctor?”
“Jake Foster Donovan, you tell me what you found right this instant.” I attempt to give him my sternest look, but my voice breaks as my torso spasms.
“Here. Lie back.” He arranges the pillows and props my feet up in a way that alleviates the injury. He adjusts the frozen vegetables. “Better?”
I nod and normalize my breathing. I close my eyes and just want him to get on with it, but the baby starts crying upstairs. I try to sit up again.
“Stay. Is he hungry?”
“Maybe. There’s a bottle in the fridge.” My words come out in angry little puffs, so annoyed by yet another interruption to a possible break in the case. I focus on Jake’s assured footsteps crossing from sitting room to dining room to kitchen. The suction of the refrigerator door. “Do I need to heat it up?” he asks.
I take him through the instructions. He heats the milk, every second he’s gone like a bomb on the verge of detonating. “Be right back.” He takes the stairs, and a tear slips down my cheek at the thought of him up there, scooping that sweet baby from Jackson’s crib, sitting in the same chair I rock my son in to feed a stranger.
Not our make-believe baby.
Not Jackson.
I turn my head to the side and sense the drowsiness working over my body as the adrenaline drains. I can’t believe I just fell down the stairs. Twice in a week. After Crystal warned me. I’ve never had an issue with stairs before. Why now?
Because you haven’t slept in months.
The truth nips at that vulnerable place in my heart that’s been ravaged by so much grief. I think of the pills Jess gave me. If it hadn’t been for those fucking pills, I would have my baby. Or at the very least, I would have known sooner that he was missing.
An eternity later, Jake returns.
I roll my head to look at him. “Did you burp him?”
“Shit.” He retreats back upstairs and I let out a good-hearted laugh.
“Grab a baby blanket and drape it over your shoulder. Check if he needs to be changed while you’re up there!” I cross my hands on my belly and revel in the help. No one’s changed a diaper since my mother. Already, I’ve grown accustomed to doing so much on my own that I take a moment to enjoy it—despite the circumstances.
“Holy moly!” I hear him cry down. “It’s like Armageddon in here!”
“Wipes are on the changing table!” I shout up. My back aches with the effort, but the silly banter lightens my spirits and almost detracts from why he’s here.
I work my way to sitting and roll my shoulders and neck and then check for numbness in my extremities. My feet have stopped tingling. I situate the ice behind my back and gingerly tilt back.