Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,45
like some derelict has snuck up onto our porch swing to sleep.
I approach slowly, because if someone is nuts or high enough to sleep on a stranger’s porch . . .
“Casey?”
She rolls herself up to sitting in the porch swing. She’s shivering hard, her wet hair plastered to her head. From here her lips look blue, where they’re not red with the blood from her lip, which has split again.
“What are you doing?”
Her words are clumsy, like she’s been at the dentist and her mouth is numb.
“I’m l-l-locked out.”
I pull her up off the chair and get my own keys out of my pocket. “Didn’t you knock?”
“No one heard me.”
When I get her inside the warmth, she shivers harder. I wonder, with Mallory right there on the couch, why she didn’t hear the knocking. But I look over, and she seems to be snoring already.
“Go upstairs and take a bath. I’ll make you some tea.”
She nods and walks hunched, as if she’s frozen so stiff her joints won’t stretch.
After I make Casey some tea, I’m going to the computer to map a route to Cleveland. I’m not going to sleep until I know he’s safe.
I bring up Casey’s tea, and she’s wrapped in her bathrobe, the running tub steaming up the small bathroom. She nods her thanks.
Before I go, I take out her phone and rest it on the bathroom counter.
Our eyes lock for a moment, her face passive, watchful, before I close the door. I’m weary, and my sleepiness causes me to prop up for a moment against the hallway wall and close my eyes.
I’m a caretaker again, still, always.
Chapter 17
Mallory, 1995
Not until I heard Angel squeal “Daddy!” did I even notice Michael was in the house. I’d been concentrating so hard on Dylan’s little forehead. He’d been staring at me as he sucked away on his bottle like he was trying to figure me out and I was thinking, Join the club, kid, and my stitches hurt and Angel was jostling me as she pretended to read me Goodnight Moon and said good night to all the things in our living room.
I wondered how long he’d been standing there, staring at us. I imagined how we looked sitting there, how very domestic, and found myself amazed again at how normal things were.
He swung Angel up and nuzzled her neck, then as Angel wrapped her arms and legs around him to hold on like a barnacle told me, “Guess what I found out today?”
“Yeah?”
“I got the job!”
I hadn’t meant to startle Dylan, but I couldn’t help but shout with joy. He’d been slaving at that internship for too long, with a little money but no benefits, while his dad had been paying all our hospital bills.
Dylan shrieked fit to make my ears bleed, ignoring the plastic nipple. I teased his lips with it, and a shivery panic started to creep up my spine. But Michael untangled from Angel and scooped up his baby in his big hands, and I swear Dylan took one look at those clear blue eyes and settled right down.
“You’re amazing,” I told him, ignoring the whispering thought in my head, He loves his daddy better than you. “Professional reporter and father of the year, too.”
I rose gingerly, wincing at the stitches pulling, and gave him a peck on the cheek. “How are you today?” he asked me.
“Fine,” I answered breezily.
He didn’t answer, and when I met his eyes, he was staring hard at me. “Better,” I answered. “Pretty good.” And it was true.
Michael interrupted my thoughts by suggesting we go out and celebrate. I told him yes please, as long as I could shower.
I should have known dinner wouldn’t go well. Angel had missed her nap and Dylan was fussy, but I didn’t mind taking off early with doggie bags, since it made Michael so happy to take his family out at all. He was celebrating being a provider for us, with a steady income and everything.
On the way home now, with our still-warm food in Styrofoam containers in our laps and the kids dozing in their car seats, I stole a glance at Michael, the early autumn sun glowing in the car. I found myself stunned nearly every day that he loved me, was still with me, even knowing my sordid past, how I’d buried myself in sex with half strangers as a way to forget, maybe punish myself.
He always insisted it didn’t matter. He also insisted—the ever-practical doctor’s son—that we both get tested.