He was whimpering, crying these little bleats. “Ma-ma. Ma-ma.”
Oh God. I could feel that little boy’s pain. His own abandonment. The child so full of joy but also knowing he was missing something essential.
Evan’s voice covered it.
Soothing.
Sweet.
Loving.
Everything ached.
So badly that I curled over onto my side in a ball.
And I let myself weep.
Quietly.
Trying to hold it in while I listened to the comfort bleeding through the thin tent walls.
Carly reached out and brushed the hair out of my face, her voice a desperate whisper. “I’m so sorry, Frankie. I know it hurts.”
“It hurts so bad,” I gasped, choking around the confession. “It hurts so bad.”
“I know. I know.”
Twelve
Frankie Leigh
Five Years Old
Frankie Leigh inched down the hall, her back pressed to the wall, trying to make herself a secret.
She was supposed to be asleep, but she couldn’t sleep when she could hear the voices coming into her room.
Quiet voices.
She didn’t like the way they sounded, and her tummy felt funny as she moved closer and closer to the kitchen where the lights were shining bright.
She stopped right at the end of the hall, hidden in the shadows, her ear listening to her daddy who was talking to her new mama. Her good mama and not the bad one that was so, so mean and scary that Frankie’s tummy got sick thinking about her, too.
Her daddy’s voice was low, and she peeked out to see him sitting on a chair from the kitchen table that was turned around to face her mama. His elbows were on his knees and he was scrubbing both his hands over his face.
Her tummy twisted up.
“What do you mean?” her mama asked, sinking down onto her knees in front of him, touching him soft, trying to get his hands away so she could look at him.
“It’s horrible, Rynna. That poor little boy. They don’t think he’s gonna make it through the night.”
“Oh God.” Her mama pressed her fingertips to her lips, and Frankie could see the tears making a stream down her face. “What happened?”
Her daddy shook his head. “There was some kind of altercation with his biological father. He had a cardiac arrest. They did emergency surgery, but things aren’t looking good. Kale is a disaster.”
What were they talkin’ about?
Frankie tried to listen harder, to make sense of it when her mama started crying loud there on the floor. “Oh, poor Evan. Poor Hope. I just can’t imagine.”
Evan.
Evan.
Evan.
His name pounded on her ears.
Her favorite, favorite person in the whole world.
Her froggy boy.
Frankie all of a sudden felt freezing cold all over. Like she was in a pool of ice and all the big pieces were covering her and she couldn’t get out and she was gonna drown.
Her lungs squeezed, funny sounds ripping from her throat that stung, everything feeling so ugly.
Her stomach got sicker and sicker she thought she was goin’ to throw up.
She ran into the kitchen. “What do you mean, Daddy? Where is Evan? I want to go see my best friend right now.”
Alarm filled up her daddy’s face, and he was saying one of those bad words she wasn’t allowed to say before he was standing. He reached out for her. She jumped back and stomped her feet. “Take me now, Daddy. I wants to go to Evan’s house right now.”
“I’m sorry, Sweet Pea. You can’t.” His voice cracked and Frankie’s eyes were all blurry and she couldn’t see.
“Please, Daddy! Take me right now! I need to see him. I got to give him a toy.”
And Frankie had never seen her daddy get tears before but he had them in his eyes, and she hurt all over like she fell down and her whole body got bloody. “Please, Daddy. Right now. We gots to go right now.”
Her daddy dropped to his knees on the floor. “Sweet Pea.” His voice was so sad when he said it, and she hated it so, so bad when it sounded like that. He brushed back her hair. “Evan’s sick. Really sick. Remember how we told you he has a bad heart? It’s really broken right now, and the doctors aren’t sure they can fix it.”
She clutched at hers, her shirt in her fists. “Then let me give him mines.”
Her daddy’s face crumpled up like a piece of paper, and he grabbed her, wrapped his arms that always made her feel so safe around her. But she didn’t want him to hug her. They needed to hurry fast.