I saw several of those lives cut short, and the tragedy of it will never leave me.”
He was fighting to keep his voice even. Nick tensed up. “I don’t like this,” he said in a low voice.
Terry jumped back in: “Did you ever wonder if you’d make it home yourself?”
Freddie’s fidgeting increased, to where it was visible even on the monitor. “Many of my friends didn’t come home. Many more yet might not.”
“You were afraid,” Terry said.
“There were times…” Freddie began, and then shook his head. “What I mean to say is, you can’t imagine how, particularly at night, when you hear…” His face looked in danger of crumpling altogether. He bit his lip and turned his face away, his shoulders beginning to shake.
Nick stepped forward. “That’s enough,” he called out, then clapped his hands authoritatively. “Thank you so much for coming out, but I’m afraid that’s all we can do for you today.”
I’m not sure who in the room looked the most surprised. Terry swiveled and stood, his hands on his hips. His head bounced from Nick to Bea, whom he clearly felt more comfortable confronting, because he directed his complaint to her: “With all due respect, I was told we’d have twenty minutes and it’s been a fraction of that.”
“We’ve had a scheduling change,” Bea improvised, crossing the room, then taking Terry’s arm and guiding him toward the room’s exit on the opposite side. She waved the cameraman and the sound guy out the door after him. “You’ve certainly got enough at this point. We’ll have your gear packed up in a flash, and naturally we’ll supply you with a lengthy exclusive statement from the prince that can give a fullness to your piece…”
The door closed behind them. Across the room, I saw Daphne pull a pack of tissues from her purse and head toward Freddie. But she didn’t get there first. It was Nick who reached his brother, Nick who put a hand on his shoulder, Nick who pulled a ragged Freddie to his feet and wrapped him in a hug. Freddie’s head collapsed on Nick’s shoulder, and he let out a wrenching sob.
My heart seized.
“Come on,” I whispered, gesturing for everyone else to hit the door. “Leave them be.”
Daphne cast the brothers one more look, then nodded and squeezed past me. Richard lingered at the door, watching.
“You could stay, sir,” I said delicately. “You have a place there, too.”
Richard thought for a moment and then looked down at me. “No. I don’t think I do,” he said. “This moment is for them. Let them have it.”
He turned on his heel and left. My hand on the knob, I glanced back at Freddie and Nick. They hadn’t moved. Freddie wept freely, coming undone in his brother’s embrace; Nick stood firm and solid, rubbing his back, the bright light of the still-burning TV spotlight seeming to keep the darkness around them at bay.
CHAPTER FIVE
Bex!” Cilla called to me across the living room. “Nick is hogging the baby!”
“I am not,” Nick whisper-yelled from the sofa, where a dark-haired infant was sleeping on his chest. “But he cries if anyone else tries to hold him. It’s not my fault that I’m his favorite.”
Next to him on the sofa, Lacey yawned expansively as Cilla began handing out teacups: to me, to Bea, to Olly, and to Lacey, who wrinkled her nose but accepted it.
“I wish this was wine. But my tolerance is terrible now,” she said, scooching up into a seated position and blowing on the wafting Darjeeling. “Nick, feel free to keep him all week if you want. I can practice getting my drink on, and he can keep you company in the middle of the night. He’s very perky at three a.m.”
“Of course he is. The middle of the night is interesting,” Nick cooed to the baby. “I understand you, Danny. No one understands you like Uncle Nick.”
On his chest, the baby wiggled his teeny fingers in his sleep. I felt it in my gut. Watching Nick be adorable with my sister’s accidental blessing was carving me up in a way that I could not control. I turned away and busied myself looking for coasters.
“I wish evolution had created babies with respect for the mother’s sleep cycle,” Lacey said, yawning again and falling against Olly.
“At least it invented a nine-month gestational period,” said Olly. “Elephants go for almost twenty-two.”
Daniel Earl Porter-Omundi had been born three weeks ago, after thirty-six hours of what Lacey called “an excruciating hellscape” of labor.