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A moment later, a small hand set on his cheek again. He opened his eyes. Bri stood there, and she looked at him for a good few seconds, her brow furrowed with what had to be concern. Very deliberately, she set her blue octopus stuffie, the one that she always kept with her and always let comfort her, next to Ash’s chest. Then she reached up and took his hand and moved it until he was hugging the stuffie against him.

Bri smiled. “Un-ca ah beh-uh?”

Ash’s heart broke again, his eyes welling up with more tears. “I miss her, Bri,” he said, even though he knew he shouldn’t and he knew she wouldn’t understand. “I miss her so much.”

Bri obviously didn’t understand, but she leaned over and hugged him, one of her chubby arms wrapping around his neck. And he held her back and let himself cry, not bothering to try to stop himself anymore.

A voice in the back of his head told him he should get going. He had a class starting in maybe about an hour now, and they’d be expecting Bri at daycare. With how badly he’d fucked up his test yesterday, he couldn’t afford to miss class today, too. Yet the thought of doing anything at all today, especially letting Bri out of his sight for any amount of time, made his stomach more upset and his headache even worse.

There was no way he was going anywhere.

“Pway?”

Bri had let go of Ash’s neck and was now tugging on his hand. But he shook his head.

“No, I’m sorry. I can’t play with you right now,” he said. “Maybe later. Okay?”

He made himself open his eyes again, though his vision blurred in and out as he tried to focus on Bri. She let his hand go.

“Book? Pweas?”

Ash shook his head. “Maybe later.”

Her bottom lip pouted out and then quivered. “Da,” she said, but her voice was sad.

He closed his eyes. And he heard Bri go back to playing with her blocks.

Around ten, Ash dragged himself up off the couch to change Bri’s diaper and get her some water and a snack. Since he didn’t want to feel like a total asshole, he also forced himself to go back into his bedroom and get his phone so he could text Susan at Bri’s daycare to let them know she wouldn’t be in today. It took him a couple of minutes to actually find the phone; at some point earlier that morning, when it had kept buzzing and he’d just needed it to shut up, he’d tossed it across the room, and it had apparently ended up buried in a heap of laundry in the corner.

The battery was dead, and so he plugged it in and sat on the bed for a few minutes while it charged enough to power on. Bri sat with him, quietly resting her head on his arm.

When the phone finally turned on, he ignored all of the dozens of notifications that spammed the screen and instead scrolled right to the daycare’s text message exchange. He tapped out and sent a short message. Then he set the phone down on the nightstand and blew out a shaky breath.

The phone buzzed.

Ash’s head pulsed, sending a fresh stab of pain right down the center of his skull. He closed his eyes, which only helped slightly.

“Bri, sweetie, I think it’s nap time.”

“No, no nap.”

Ash huffed a humorless laugh. “Uncle Ash needs a nap, sweet girl.”

His phone buzzed again—this time a long buzz like an incoming phone call. Momentarily, he thought of Shaina and of Joanna and Henry, and when he glanced over at the nightstand, sure enough, Shaina’s name was lit up on the screen.

He didn’t want to talk to her right now, though. He couldn’t.

Bri scooted off the bed. “No nap,” she said again. And then she took off, toddling on her short little legs out toward the living room.

Ash wanted to cry. In fact, he was already crying. And he didn’t want to deal with chasing her around the house or listening to her cry. And he didn’t want to do anything at all, actually. He just wanted to curl up in a ball and have everything disappear—all his pain and hurt, the headache, the heartache. The whole entire last year.

Bri came back into the room then, carrying Ollie the Octopus, and she stopped right in front of Ash and held the stuffie out. “Un-ca nap.”

Ash shook his head. “I . . . can’t.”

Bri frowned. “Un-ca out? Go out?” As though that were the best idea in the whole world, Bri’s face lit up. “Out! Out!” She dropped Ollie and took off back into the living room again, and when she returned a moment later, she was lugging Ash’s shoes, which were much too big for her to be carrying. She dropped the shoes at his feet. “Out!” she declared happily. Then she sat and started trying to lift one of his feet to stuff in the shoe.

The phone continued to buzz from the nightstand.