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Kelsey had to get up.
Eric stood in front of her. She could see his tennis shoes and was thankful he hadn't worn his boots. Those would hurt much worse. She waited for a kick. Knew one would come. She'd found it, his breaking point. At least she was already in a hospital.
But no. He stomped past her. The door banged open.
She had to stop him. She had to explain.
She had to make sure Daniel was safe.
"Sir?" A nurse in the hallway. "Sir, you haven't been released."
"There's a woman in there." Eric's voice. "I think she collapsed."
"A woman? Wait..."
Get up. Get up. She had to get up.
Daniel...
Eric would take care of Daniel. They would protect him. They would have to, because she couldn't do it anymore. She'd been fighting too long. Fighting Carlos for ten years. Fighting to keep her son alive, fighting to keep herself alive, fighting to put food on the table and pay the bills and make a normal life for them. And all she'd done was fail.
She'd put everyone in danger.
Monster mother.
Footsteps outside the room, coming closer. She wanted to lie there and die. But she wouldn't die. She'd just put more people in danger.
The nurse came in. "Hey, you okay?"
Her time was up. She had to move or they'd think she'd gone mad. Maybe she had. She shifted to her knees and looked up. "I'm all right." She forced herself to stand, brushed dust off her clothes, because it seemed like the thing a normal person would do.
The women held her wrist, the same wrist Eric had held. The woman's touch was no more gentle as she wrapped her other arm around Kelsey's back and urged her forward. "Have a seat on the bed. I'm going to get a doctor."
"No." She tried a smile, but the nurse didn't buy it. Kelsey didn't care. She pulled away. "I just had my heart broken." Shattered, and smashed. "Unless you have an ointment for that, I'll be on my way."
The nurse looked unconvinced, but Kelsey didn't have any more words for her. She'd taken two steps toward the door when Sam came in.
"I saw Eric leaving. What...? You okay?"
She could only shake her head.
"Come on." She opened her arms, and Kelsey stepped into them. She let Sam comfort her, wondered how her new friend would feel about her when she discovered the truth.
Monster mother.
Add that to her list of sins.
You had a kid with him. Apparently your boyfriend...
Sam thanked the nurse and led Kelsey toward the door. "I have no idea what happened, honey. All I know is Brady said you're coming home with me."
#
KELSEY woke to muted light outside the window the next morning. Cloudy and gray. The clock told her it was after nine.
Sam had finally given up trying to comfort her and sent her to bed. The sun had barely gone down.
Kelsey had been sleeping off and on since. Fitful at first, nightmares and memories plagued her. It had been dark for hours when Sam knocked gently on the door of her guest room and entered carrying a glass of water and a pill bottle. She sat on the edge of the bed and brushed Kelsey's hair from her eyes the way she might for a small child.
"Are you sleeping at all?"
Kelsey shook her head. The tears that were always close to the surface leaked out and dripped toward her ears.
She should leave. She should be getting her son and running as far away as she could get. But she couldn't make herself get out of bed. And even if she knew where Daniel was, she couldn't face the people who had him. Or face him. She'd thought, she'd hoped, it would all be over and they'd be safe by the time she held Daniel again.
She was such a fool.
"You don't have any trouble with pills, do you?" Sam asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Garrison's son's an addict. Since I met him, I'm more cautious about these things than I was before."
"Oh. No, I don't take much but aspirin."
"Not an alcoholic?"
"I never cared for the stuff."
Sam smiled. "Good. I called a doctor friend and asked if it would be okay to share one of these with you. It's an anti-anxiety, not the kind you take every day. The kind you take when...well, when your brain won't stop and you just need to sleep."
"Oh."
"I could get you an over-the-counter something, but my friend thought this would be better. Make your mind quiet down and let you rest."
Kelsey hated taking pills, but she was desperate to silence the accusations. She swallowed it.
She'd slept soundly the rest of the night.
If only she could go back to oblivion and not face the consequences of all she'd done. Instead, she climbed from the bed and pulled the door open. Her backpack was resting in the hallway right outside.
Had Eric been here? Had she missed him?
She remembered how, the day before at the hospital, he'd launched himself out of the bed and nearly collapsed from the effort to keep her from leaving.
Probably now, he wished he'd let her go.
She took her backpack with her to the bathroom to clean up.
Showered and dressed, she went downstairs. Garrison was in the living room, working on his laptop. The TV was on, and a weatherman was pointing at a multi-colored map. The sound was muted. Garrison looked up when she came in. "Good morning."
"Hi."
Sam came around from the kitchen, crossed the room, and pulled Kelsey into a hug. Silly to hug somebody good morning, but Kelsey wasn't complaining.
"Come get some coffee." Sam took Kelsey's hand, settled her at the kitchen table, and reached for the pot. "Wait. Eric said you prefer tea. All I have is black. Is that okay?"
"Coffee's fine. I just need a lot of sugar."
While she sipped from her steaming mug, Sam made her two pieces of toast, set them in front of her with the butter and a jar of apple jelly, and prattled about the weather. Apparently, a storm was coming, and it could be a big one.
"Could be," Sam said. "But you know how weathermen are. Every storm is the storm of the decade."
Kelsey swallowed a bite. "The last one was pretty bad." She could still feel the chill.
"On Monday?" Sam said. "I think we got three inches, maybe four. They're talking about more than that this time. Assuming it even comes."
Garrison called from the other room. "It's coming. You don't have to be a meteorologist to see that."
"The question is, how much." Sam walked around the wall and peered at the TV. She whistled, lifted her eyebrows. "Estimates have gone up."
"To?" Kelsey asked.
"Nine to twelve."
"Inches?" Kelsey said. "Holy smoke."
Sam laughed. "Don't worry. We can handle it. And it's not coming until tomorrow."
Too bad. A snowstorm might keep Carlos from getting there. She'd have to get Daniel and get out of town, fast. Today, before the storm trapped her.
Where would they go? How would they get there? She had no idea and couldn't think, still fuzzy-headed after the pill she'd taken the night before.
She hadn't eaten since the few bites of sandwich at lunch yesterday. Maybe food would help. She forced another bite of the toast.
Sam returned to the table. "You want some juice or something?"
"A glass of water. I can get it if you'll just..."
Sam was already up. She grabbed a glass. "Ice?"
"No, thanks."
A moment later, Sam rested the glass in front of her.
"Thank you. I'm sorry to be such a bother. I really appreciate you guys letting me stay here."
"Just me, actually," Sam said. "Garrison doesn't live here."
"Oh?" She'd just assumed.
Sam stood, pointed out the slider. "See that building there?"
Kelsey looked out the back, past a playground and basketball court and covered pool to another condominium about a hundred yards away.
"The corner unit on this side...Garrison lives there."
"Is that how you two met?"
Sam returned to the table and sat. "Actually, we met through friends, Nate and Marisa. They... Oh."
Kelsey's face must have registered her surprise at the names. Nate and Marisa. They were the people who had Daniel.
Daniel.
Was he safe? Surely Carlos didn't know where he was. Carlos couldn't have put together that the boy who'd been abandoned nearly a week earlier was her son. Except... Eric had been with Daniel. What if someone saw them together? What if...?
"Your son is safe," Sam said. "Eric told Nate what's going on, and Nate took his whole family away for the weekend."
"Away?" How could she grab him and leave, if he was gone? "Where are they?"
Sam shrugged. "He wouldn't say. He figured your son would be safer if nobody knew where he was."
Tears filled her eyes. Of course Eric had thought of protecting Daniel. And these foster parents, Nate and Marisa... What a sacrifice they were making for Daniel.
So many people were involved now. People trying to help. People she'd put in danger.
Why, why, why had she come back here?
But she knew why. Because she couldn't live like this anymore. She'd thought, even if she died, she could give Daniel a future. Even that was at risk now. And with Daniel out of town, she couldn't grab him and leave. She'd set this in motion, and she couldn't back out now. Tears burned Kelsey's eyes.
Sam handed her a napkin. "Nate and Marisa are friends of ours. Very nice people. Good people."
Kelsey swallowed, nodded, couldn't think of a thing to say. She wiped her eyes with the napkin and pushed her plate away. Maybe she'd eat tomorrow. "Garrison sure spends a lot of time here, if he doesn't live here."
Sam shifted subjects with her. "He's here a lot. But right now, he's here because of you. Eric didn't want you left alone. And apparently nobody's impressed with my superior fighting skills."
Kelsey attempted a smile at the joke. "I'm sure you're deadly."
Garrison piped up from the other room. "You haven't tried her spaghetti. Terrifying."
"Watch it!" But Sam smiled.
Garrison stepped into the doorway. "Sam makes the best caramel brownies you've ever had. But her pasta?" He shook his head, and Sam rolled her eyes.
"Apparently, Garrison is too good for jarred sauce."
Kelsey tried to laugh, but she couldn't force the sound out. "Y'all didn't have to skip work to babysit me."
"It's Sunday," Garrison said.
"Oh," Kelsey said. "Right."
"We usually go to church," Sam said, "but we didn't mind missing today."
"Thank you." She sipped her coffee, thought about church. "Do you go to the same church as Eric?"
"We do. He's there now."
Of course he was. Probably praying she'd disappear.
"He'll be over when it's done."
He would?
Sam smiled. "He came by on his way, brought your backpack and reiterated the importance of you remaining here."
Garrison said, "Not sure what he thinks I should do if you decide to leave. I never perfected my hog-tying skills."
"I'm surprised he doesn't want me gone."
Sam reached across the table and laid her hand over Kelsey's. She'd called herself touchy-feely, and the label fit. "He cares for you. Very much."
Kelsey pulled her hand away. She couldn't talk about this anymore. Not with these two.
She needed to talk to Eric.
Or maybe, she just needed to leave.