Page 19 of Daddy Detectives: Episode 1
“I’m not sure.” My pulse starts racing, and I can feel my heart pounding. I should tell him how I feel—that I want to stay home with them. Ingrid made me promise I’d tell him tonight, but I just don’t know how to go about it. “We have six weeks. We’ll figure something out.”
Before long, Will has relaxed himself right back to sleep.
“Bedtime,” Tyler says as he takes Will from me and returns him to his cradle.
I switch off the bedside lamp as Tyler crawls back into bed.
He rolls me to my side, spoons me from behind, and wraps his arm around my waist. I sigh, reveling in this closeness.
Tyler yawns and kisses the back of my neck. “Goodnight, babe. Sweet dreams.”
I smile. “Goodnight.” I contemplate bringing up the topic of childcare again, and telling him how I feel, but the truth is I’mafraid. I don’t know how he’ll react, and I can’t bear the idea of disappointing him.
I’ll tell him tomorrow.
Maybe.
Chapter 8 – Tyler
Something wakes me in the middle of the night. Immediately, I’m on alert, although I’m not sure yet why. I assume it’s one of the babies that woke me, so I lie still, listening intently for one of them to cry. But there’s no sound coming from the bassinettes.
I slowly allow myself to relax. My arm is around Ian’s waist, and my nose is tucked against the back of his head. I breathe in his scent, and it calms me. Just as I’m drifting back to sleep, it happens again, but this time I know exactly where it’s coming from.
It’s Ian.
He shudders in my arms and with a heartrending whimper, he tries to pull away from me. Naturally, I tighten my hold on him, thinking that will reassure him, but it has the opposite effect. He starts fighting me, even in his sleep. The sounds he’s making—cries of pain and fear—break my heart.
It’s always the same dream—he relives his nightmarish childhood, being locked in a dark room for hours on end with little food or water. The windows are boarded up, blocking out even the moonlight. His birth mother—a crack whore—prostitutes herself downstairs, entertaining multiple johns a night. And all the while, for hours at a time, her terrified young son is locked upstairs, alone and afraid and hungry.
“Shh,” I murmur, my lips in his hair. “Ian, you’re safe. I’m here.”
His struggling increases.
“Ian!”
He jerks in my arms as he tries to pull away and screams, “No!”
“Ian, wake up.” I roll him to face me and grip his chin. “Look at me.”
His eyes flash wide open, but his gaze is unfocused. He blinks once, twice, then looks around the darkened room before settling on me. “I—” All his energy deserts him.
It was always the same. All night long, he’d hear all sorts of sounds coming from downstairs—men shouting at his mother; his mother crying, begging, and even sometimes screaming. Every night, it was the same, a never-ending nightmare, until one day, after a neighbor reported hearing Ian’s frequent cries, the local children’s protective agency got involved and removed him from the home.
After months of going back and forth between his birth mother and foster care, Ian’s birth mother lost her parental rights permanently, paving the way for Eleanor and Martin Alexander to adopt him.
Thank God.
I fully believe Eleanor and Martin saved Ian’s life.
He turns away from me, his breathing choppy and uneven.
I rub his arm. “Do you want to talk about it?” Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t.
Ian shakes his head. Instead, he pulls my arm around his waist once more and holds tightly to it. He presses his face into his pillow and lets out a muffled, agonized cry. His pain hits me like a punch to my gut.
I roll him back to face me. “You’re not in that room anymore, baby. You’re free. You’re safe.”
Tears stream down his cheeks as he violently shakes his head. “No,” he gasps, his voice shaky. “It wasn’t—me—in there.” His voice breaks on a quiet sob. “It wasn’t me locked—up—in the dark.” He sucks in a breath.
