Then he drops the sparkler accidentally. And with that, the crash arrives, and suddenly he bursts into tears.
Walker catches my eye over the top of his head as he bends down on one knee to sort it out. We exchange a look.Hatches, battened down.
But as good as Walker always is with Jonah, right now I can tell the man’s head isn't fully in it. He's been melancholy ever since the conversation with his dad. It's showing now in the way he's approaching Jonah's tears with questions and logic. Trying to identify the problem and fix it, the way he fixes everything, when what Jonah needs right now has nothing to do with problem-solving.
I think about what I wanted to hear when I was little and upset about something. What I never got. All I needed was just a few comforting words. Someone to tell me they heard me and understood.
Maybe I can help both of them at once.
I put my hand on Walker's shoulder and lean down to murmur in his ear. “Can I try?”
He rises immediately. “Please.” He mouths two words at me over Jonah's head:save us.
I gather Jonah to me and just hold him. Don't ask what's wrong yet, don't try to fix anything. Just hold him and rub his back in slow circles.
“I'm so sorry you're feeling this way,” I tell him. “It's really hard when things don't go right.”
The story comes tumbling out in fits and starts. Somebody else got the last slice of strawberry shortcake and he'd been waiting all day for it, and now his tummy hurts and the sparkler went out when he dropped it and everything is terrible and the world is deeply unfair.
“That is a really hard day,” I tell him seriously, when he's done.
He collapses against me, limp, every last bit of fight gone out of him.
I look up at Walker over Jonah's shoulder. He's leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching us, and the look on his face takes my breath away. The warmth behind the eyes. That particular small, private smile.
Then he steps in, scooping his son up into his arms. “C’mon, JoJo. We’ll fight the world tomorrow.”
He starts carrying him to the bedroom.
“Sadie.” Jonah’s hand reaches out blindly in my direction. “Hold my hand.”
I take it. His fingers curl around two of mine,warm and loose, and the three of us walk like that through Rosemont and down the hall, Walker carrying most of him, me tethered to his small fist.
Seeing this gruff cowboy carry his sleepy little boy, nestled so peacefully in his arms, does things to me that I’m not prepared for.
For one thing, it makes my heart feel about three sizes too big for my chest.
For another thing, it makes my ovaries wake up and start contemplating things in a very serious way.
Because watching him carry his son through the dark in those big, strong arms, I find myself thinking about him cradling something smaller. Someone newer. A little baby with deep green eyes and a tiny, toothless smile.
The thought is so vivid it almost hurts.
I look at the hallway wall and remind myself about New York. The contract. The vow a young girl made to herself with her whole chest to be independent and strong. The vow that got me out of the double-wide and into a college scholarship and a future I’m building with my own blood, sweat, and tears.
I feel some of those tears coming to my eyes now. I blink them back. Now is not the time.
Jonah’s bedroom here isn’t quite the same barely-contained explosion of art and stuffed animals and scientist kits as his room at home, but it’s close. There are a dozen crayon drawings tacked to the wall and a collection of rocks lined up on the windowsill going from biggest to smallest. An ant farm with a purple lupine inside it. So very Jonah.
Walker lowers him onto the bed and pulls the quilt up and tucks it around his shoulders. Jonah's eyes are closed but he's not quite gone yet.
Bending down, Walker kisses the top of Jonah’s head. When he turns, he finds me in the doorway. The expressionon his face is unsmiling and serious. But I know him well enough now to see beneath the hardened exterior to what lies beneath it. He’s someone who feelseverythingand has spent years pretending he doesn’t. Not only has he got a big heart, it’s a soft one too.
No wonder he guards it so ferociously.
He crosses the room and puts his hand around my waist without a word, and we step out into the hall and he pulls the door gently shut behind us.
And then he just… keeps holding on. Both arms around me, his face dropped to the curve of my neck, not saying anything.
