her.
He turned for home when he saw her face. Meg would be waiting. It was late, already. “See you tomorrow, Wrecker,” he said, but the boy was oblivious to him.
They ate the meal slowly and talked softly about small matters, about things of no consequence, and then they moved together into the next room. Wrecker lay on the big chair with his head in Melody’s lap and his eyes closed, though she knew he wasn’t sleeping. The others clustered near enough to each other that any of them could lay a hand close to him. On the edge of the chair, or on its high back. On the soft down of his cheek. He had come with his shoulders high and his chin jutting forward, his every muscle on alert, but the plank of his body gradually softened as Melody smoothed the hair behind his ears. They let the flow of their voices surround him. No one said a word about the next day. Or the day after that. Or the long days to come, the string of days that swam like fish waiting to be caught.
When his breaths lengthened and he let go at last of the weight of himself, Melody lifted Wrecker onto her hip and carried his slumped body over the moonlit path to the barn. She woke him just long enough to let him pee outside and to climb the ladder to the loft, and then she helped him shed his shoes and socks and jeans, tug his shirt over his head, wrestle his inert body into a soft clean shirt of her own to sleep in. She pulled the covers up to his chin and she sat on the bed beside him with her knees up to her chin and, for a long time, she watched him breathe.
She would call in sick to work the next day. She would drive to Eureka and get him his own bed. A permanent one. For tonight he could have this half and she would sleep with one eye open to make sure he did not disappear again. A pulse in his temple beat like a butterfly trapped beneath his skin. There were dark circles under his eyes. Melody felt her own fear mount with each breath she took. If there were no one else to raise him up, if it were Melody alone rising to stand beside him, then God help him. She had never been enough at anything. If she failed at this—
“Melody?” Willow’s voice filtered up from the darkness below.
Melody rubbed her nose and pressed her hands against her eyes. She took a deep breath. Then she rearranged the blankets so Wrecker would stay covered, and she quietly descended the ladder.
They stood outside and talked softly. Their voices made clouds of mist in the moonlit air. The light pooled in the hollows of Willow’s cheeks and splashed in her eyes and Melody thought, Just because you’re beautiful and charming does not mean you are always right. Sometimes you are plain wrong. “I didn’t plan this, Willow. This is as much a surprise to me as it is to you.”
“A surprise? Yes. Definitely a surprise.”
“I won’t let go of him again.”
The briefest smile lifted the corner of Willow’s mouth. “Don’t you think that’s a decision we should make together? Not just the two of us, but Ruth and Johnny, too?”
“Ruth and Johnny want him.”
“Ruth and Johnny love him,” Willow said quickly. “But they’re not foolish enough to think they know anything about raising a child.” Melody scowled but Willow reached to take hold of her arm. “I do, Melody. I do know. And you know what? It’s no walk in the park.”
“I don’t expect it to be easy.”
“Easy?” Willow gave a little laugh. “Easy’s not even on the spectrum. Try all-consuming. Try heartbreaking. You might start by giving up everything you ever wanted just to do this one thing, and you might as well recognize that you’re as apt to fail at it as you are to succeed.”
“I won’t fail.” Melody said this softly, through clenched teeth, but it marched out and stood in the air between them.
Willow’s face went through a painful transformation. “Have a little humility,” she said.
Melody shied back and shut her eyes. Humility? That was the one thing she had in spades. She had a supernatural excess of it. She thought so poorly of herself, in fact, that she would have to climb several rungs up the ladder just to get to the