SUTTON
TWO YEARS EARLIER
“If I eat allmy vegstables, will I be big enough to play hockey?” Luca asked, his words slurring as sleep tried to pull him under.
My lips twitched, as I tucked the blankets around him. “I think it’s a good start.”
The last thing I wanted to think about was my sensitive five-year-old trying to play a sport as violent as hockey. Or any contact sport, for that matter. Because I knew all too well what the outcome could be.
“Can we go…to the rink…tomorrow?” Luca asked, yawning his way through the question.
“We’ll see,” I hedged. Inwardly, I cringed, doing the mental math to figure out if I could swing the rink fee, skate rental charges, and snack Luca would inevitably want. The restaurant I worked at afforded me good tips, but living in Baltimore was expensive, and I could never work the dinner crowd. It wasn’t as if I could trust Roman to be home to watch Luca consistently.
On my breaks between the breakfast and lunch shifts, I’d walkaround the nearby park and dream of living somewhere the air was always fresh, and Luca had a yard to run around in. Somewhere safe.
We’d had that once before everything changed. Now, I was running myself ragged, just trying to keep my head above water.
“Mommy?” Luca asked, his voice barely audible now.
“Yes, baby.”
“Love you.”
My chest gave a painful squeeze. “Love you more than bees love honey.”
Luca didn’t answer this time. Sleep had finally won out. We followed the same pattern every night: one book and then endless questions until they grew slower and farther apart.
But even when I was exhausted beyond measure, I relished every second of it. Because I knew those moments would be fleeting.
I leaned over Luca and brushed his light-brown hair out of his face—hair that was all Roman. But Luca’s eyes were me. A unique blue that was more like turquoise. Roman said it was the thing that had stopped him in his tracks.
Part of me wished I had boring eyes so Roman would’ve skipped right over me. But then I wouldn’t have Luca, and he was the gift of a lifetime.
Slowly, I pushed to my feet, waiting to see if Luca stirred. Nothing. His tiny chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm until he finally let out a little snore. A grin tugged at my lips.
I knew I was good to do my fairy cleaning now. The only time I could successfully dust and mop in here was when Luca was comatose. Otherwise, there was a Tasmanian devil on my heels. One that left toys, books, and puzzles in his wake. Or thought he could use my freshly mopped floors as a skating rink.
Grabbing my duster from the spot by the door, I moved around the tiny room. Back when life was golden, Luca’s nursery had been four times this size. Before everything fell apart.
But it wasn’t the size of the room I missed. It was the family we’d been. The dad Roman had been. A man who’d playfully teased andtold epic bedtime stories. Before an endless spiral of opiates forever changed who he was.
I looked down at my left hand where the ring used to be. There was still a faint line. Maybe it would always be there, marking what was lost—or maybe what had never been to begin with.
Even with Roman working his program now, too much had been fractured to repair, at least for me. But I had hope that he could still be the father Luca deserved.
My duster skimmed over some action figures and a robot. A football his dad had given him that still made me cringe because it had been a sports injury that had taken Roman down the dark path to begin with. I moved over an array of photos—happy moments of us all together from years ago and more recent ones of just Luca and me.
I walked to the set of cube drawers that held all Luca’s toys, tossing a few stray ones in, then frowned when I saw a charging cord hanging free. It must’ve come loose when Luca grabbed something today. He would riot if he didn’t have his tablet for the bus ride we took to get him to school.
Sliding open the drawer, I stilled. No tablet.Crud.
I set the duster down and quickly pulled out each drawer. No tablet. It wasn’t like it was a super fancy one, but it had taken weeks of saving to get it for Luca. I hurried over to his nightstand. It wasn’t there either.
A feeling of unease slid through me, and my eyes closed. The sensation was too familiar. Missing items of value. Roman’s accusations of me being careless and losing things. But it was never that. It was him hocking them to feed his addiction.
I straightened my spine, sending myself a silent assurance that the tablet was simply under a couch cushion or forgotten in my tote bag I carried all our most important things in to get through a day. Crossing the room, I slipped out and closed the door softly behind me.
I’d given Luca the bedroom in our small apartment while I took a Murphy Bed in the living area. It was the most practical solution and the safest. But that also meant my clothes and our few remaining valuableswere scattered in unlikely places. The hall closet. A sideboard I’d gotten at a garage sale and refinished. Even one of the kitchen cabinets.
