Isaac runs up to him, all toothy grin and sticky fingers. “Can you help me fix the wheel? It’s broke.”
Declan glances at Caroline, then back down at the boy. “What do I look like, a mechanic?”
Isaac just blinks at him.
Declan sighs, leans forward, and takes the car with surprising gentleness. “Right, let’s see what we’ve got here.” His fingers are far too big for the tiny toy, but he frowns in concentration, fiddling with the wheel like it’s a puzzle he intends to beat. “You have to be gentle with your toys.”
The sentiment surprises me, and I laugh absurdly at it. At Declan of all people promoting gentleness.
Joshua scampers over to me, crashing into my knee like a battering ram. “You wanna see my car? It’s a Lamborghini!”
I crouch beside him, surprised by the tightness in my chest. “A Lambo, huh? Would you want to see a real one?”
Joshua’s eyes seem to expand, like he makes more room on his head for them, and he inhales one giant gasp, clutching the car to his chest. “A real one? Where?” he whispers.
“Right here,” I whisper back, pointing to the ground. “In the garage.”
“You have aLamborghini?” he asks with reverence, but he can’t quite pronounce his r’s. It comes out “lambowghini.”
“I do.” I glance toward Caroline, but she doesn’t meet my eyes. She’s pretending to read again, but I see her hands, clenched in her lap. Like she’s holding on to something she doesn’t trust us not to break. “I’ll show it to you when your mommy and Alaina go out for coffee later.”
He beams at me and looks back at his mom. “Mommy, when are you and Alaina going?”
She puts her book down, and I see the hidden fear that she’s pushed back. It’s like a shadow behind her real self, screaming from beyond her pupils. She chuckles, a fake laugh, and chides him, “Oh, now that you’re going to see a fancy car, you’re done with Mommy?”
He looks at me sheepishly, and I realize that his hands are resting on my knees. It’s an innocent touch. He doesn’t know he’s touching someone holding his mother hostage. He doesn’t know he might be touching his father. All he knows is that I have a Lamborghini.
I look back at the boy and reach out for his toy. “Mind if I take this for a test drive until then?”
He beams and hands it over.
I roll the toy between my fingers, feeling the weight of it, the dust in the wheel well. Something about it feels sacred. Something about all of this does. Like I’ve stumbled into someone else’s memory and I’m not supposed to be here.
But I want to be.
For the first time ever, I want something that doesn’t come with blood.
23
CAROLINE
When I getto the coffee shop, Alaina has already ordered me an Earl Grey steamer and a cheese Danish. The small example of love, of being known, makes tears bite at my ducts. She’s right there. I could scream at her to run, and we could just go.
But then Isaac and Joshua would be lost to me forever, and I couldn’t live like that. I spent four years in complete isolation just to keep them.
“So, tell me everything,” she says when I sit down at the metal table, and the feet scrape across the concrete as I get comfortable.
Everything?I can’t even start with something. I sip my steamer just to fill my mouth with something, and Alaina runs her tongue over her teeth in annoyance.
“You look like you haven’t slept in a week,” she says gently, stirring cream into her coffee.
I force a smile. “That’s because I haven’t.” I push the drink away from me and fold my hands in front of me. “Alaina.”
She tilts her head and rests her hand on mine, prying into my eyes with hers, begging me to say something, anything. “Yes, Caroline. I’m here.”
“I just want to thank you sincerely for taking care of Isaac and Josh. I know that was probably hard.”
She nods slowly. “Hard,” she repeats, looking up at the sky for a moment, then past me, like she’s searching the skyline and the streets for a response. “Hard doesn’t really cover it, kid. I’ve got two of my own.”
