A prod.
A pull.
That fucking gravity that she exerted.
I couldn’t help but move.
Something unseen coaxing me into action.
But it was hindered.
Held in the trepidation that blustered through my insides. Warnings and reminders of who I was. Of the things I’d done and what I caused.
It didn’t seem to matter because I found myself standing in the hall two feet from Kai’s door.
Hazy light spilled out into the hall, and I could hear Brinley murmuring, “There we go,” as fabric rustled, and I could imagine her pulling his sleep shirt over his head.
The sleepy smile he’d give her as he squirmed on his changing pad.
This child who I wanted so much more for, too.
“Which one do you want to read tonight?”
“Doggies.” Kai giggled, and the book scraped as she pulled it from the small bookshelf, and I could feel her settling with him onto the rocker that Elena had set up in the corner of the room.
Drawn, I lowered with them. My back sliding down the wall as I sank to the floor. My head rocked back as I listened to Brinley begin to read.
Her voice soft and tender and lulling Kai right into a dream.
One where he felt safe and secure and loved. The way he should be. The way I wanted him to be.
And I could almost remember the sound of my mother’s voice. Could almost hear it whispering through the dense, rippling air.
It’s your heart. It’s your heart.
A tremor rocked through me.
Fuck.
I roughed a hand down my face.
What I wouldn’t give to be the man my mother had wanted me to be.
Brinley continued to murmur those soothing words, slower and quieter as Kai drifted to sleep.
For a few moments after she came to the story’s end, a hushed silence whisked through the atmosphere, then the rocking chair squeaked as she stood and I heard her feet padding across the room.
Overcome, I stood, too, and I shuffled to the doorway to watch as Brinley carefully laid Kai into his crib. Only a dim nightlight glowed in the room.
She stood gazing down at him, but I knew she felt me.
Hell, I was pretty sure she’d known I’d been there all along. It wasn’t like either of us were immune to the simmering fire that smoldered at the fringes of our beings.
Her back rose and fell with her uneven breaths, a slow severity rising and falling over me.
A breaking tide that kept crashing, riding higher with each undulation.
I took a single step through the door.
