Chapter 12

Live slow, die whenever.

-Tattoo

Dante

Later that afternoon

“What do you mean she’s gone?”

“She was released earlier this afternoon, about an hour ago, actually,” the nurse who’d taken my call replied. “Did she not tell you?”

No, she didn’t tell me. Otherwise, I likely would’ve been there to pick her up, you dumbass!

Instead of saying what I was thinking aloud, I thanked her and hung up.

Then I looked over at Mary. “You want to go for a ride?”

Mary was always up for a ride.

Her smile told me so.

Forty-five minutes later I arrived in front of her house to find her car in her driveway, Drake’s car behind it and him waiting at the front door.

I drove on past her house and circled around the back side of the neighborhood, coming up the back alleyway like I had the last time Drake had been in her driveway.

Mary was sound asleep as I pulled her out of her seat, and she didn’t wake but for a moment as I readjusted her onto my shoulder.

I looked at the old house that belonged to Cobie and studied the rocks outside.

Kicking over the closest ones with my foot, I was disappointed to find there wasn’t a key like there’d been the last time.

I smiled. Good girl.

The next place I checked was under the mat, then the eave above the door.

No key.

I tried the door handle.

Locked.

Shit.

My eyes trailed over to the window directly next to the door, and on a whim, I tried it.

Stuck.

The window opened a millimeter and screeched to a halt. Shit.

Doing this one handed also wasn’t helping. But, with a little determination and strength, I was able to shimmy the window open far enough to reach my hand around for the doorknob.

I’d have to rectify that problem once I got inside. I was sure since the thing was barely moving that she thought it was safe to leave it alone, but it wasn’t.

After popping the lock on the door from the inside, I opened it from the outside and walked in.

The kitchen I walked into was stifling.

It felt hotter inside than it was outside.

I frowned and closed the door behind me, locking it moments after that.

Drake was still knocking on the front door, but I ignored it as I made my way through the kitchen.

That’d been as far as I’d gotten the last time I was here, so I was a little surprised when it spat me out into a formal dining room, followed next by what I assumed was the living room.

The wood on the floor creaked underneath my feet, groaning every now and then when I stepped on a particularly weak piece.

Passing by a couch that looked to be one of the most comfortable I’d ever seen, I kicked the footrest up and laid the chair back, depositing Mary. Once she was safely on the couch, I snatched the old quilt off the back of the couch and covered her up with it. But only partially. With it being as hot in here as it was, she’d kick it off if it was covering her too much.

She was like me in that way. I always hated to be hot when I was sleeping. It was the best way to ensure that the sleep would be the worst I’d ever had.

Then again, I’d found something that caused me to sleep even less than being hot did…but I couldn’t find a way to fix a broken heart.

I hadn’t slept much since the accident. Maybe, if I was lucky, a couple hours a night here and there.

Now I lived off of maybe two or three hours, and I was lucky if I got that.

The knock at the front door started up again, and I wanted nothing more than to yank the door open and tell the stupid man to fuck off.

If she hadn’t answered it by now, she wasn’t going to.

The knocking had me walking toward the front door instead of upstairs as I’d intended, and I froze when the door came into touching distance.

Why, you ask?

Because Cobie was on her back on the most uncomfortable looking bench I’d ever seen in my life, crying silent tears.

“Cobie.” I dropped down to my knee beside her. “Fuck, are you okay?”

She managed a pitiful moan that would’ve brought me to my knees if I hadn’t already been there.

“It hurts so bad,” she whispered. “I hate the pain. It sucks.”

Her ragged breathing had me feeling like the most unfeeling person in the world.

“Did they give you some pain meds?”

She licked her lips. “They’re in my pocket.”

Her pocket?

I reached forward, patting her pockets.

She was wearing scrubs, likely ones she’d received from the hospital, and the pill bottle was tucked into the first pocket I came to.

I took the bottle in hand, walked away from her even though it was hard as hell to do, and to the kitchen where I got her a glass of water.

Once I had that, I shook out one pill, put the rest on the counter for later, and went back to her.

She was still there, silently crying.

“Can you sit up?”

She shook her head, and the movement shook the ponytail loose of the half-assed up-do that she had it in. It fell down around her face, making my stomach clench.

I ignored the urge to touch it, to wind it up in my fist, and worked my arm underneath her.

Once she was sitting up, fresh tears streaming down her face, I placed the pill against her mouth.

She opened it, tried to swallow it dry, and then moaned when it got stuck at the back of her throat.

I placed the cup to her mouth and tilted it for her to drink, and she drank it greedily.

She was about halfway done when she lifted her chin, pushing the cup away without words.

“Do you want to sit here for a little bit? Want me to carry you to the couch? I’ll do whatever you want.”

She inhaled deeply.

“I think if you move me, it’ll hurt too much.”

She panted some more, and I felt so fuckin’ helpless. I wanted to punch the damn wall behind her head.

I hated seeing people in pain.

I hated feeling helpless like this, like I was an inadequate loser who could do nothing right.

“I think that you’re already in pain,” I said softly. “Let me move you to the couch. This has to be uncomfortable.”

She looked at me, tears still leaking out of her eyes, and then nodded once.

I didn’t hesitate.

I picked her up, gently, and moved her to the couch.

A woman hadn’t been in my arms like this since my wife died, and I had to say that the feeling wasn’t altogether unwelcome.

Sure, I’d slept with one other woman—Marianne. But that had been nothing but me being drunk, and touching her as minimally as possible to get the job—a release—done. I knew before it was even over that it was a mistake, yet I’d continued with what I’d started because Marianne seemed to be enjoying it. She had no way of knowing that it hadn’t been the same for me.

That I’d been blaming and berating myself nearly the entire time.

Even in my drunken state, I’d worn a condom, and that had been something I hadn’t had to do for a very long, long time. Lily had been my college sweetheart, and I’d had one other person in my life before her. That had been the one and only time I’d used a condom in as long as I could remember. I was surprised I even remembered how to put one on seeing as it’d been so long and how incredibly drunk I was.

A squeak came from Cobie, and I froze in my attempt to put her down.

“Can you just… wait.”

She was suspended in the air, half down, half up—her breathing ragged as she pinched her eyes closed. The tears still leaked out, though. Each one breaking my heart more and more.

I picked her back up, and she dropped her head to my chest.

“Can you do this for just another minute?”

Hold her in my arms?

I could probably do it all day long if she asked me to.

“What about if I sit?” I asked.

Then I’d be able to hold her a lot longer.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Try it, and I’ll let you know.”

I slowly sat down on the couch, holding her in my arms, cradled like a small child to my chest.

My eyes went over to where Mary was still sleeping, having kicked the blanket off even more, and something in my heart settled.

There, on the couch, with Mary sleeping next to my thigh, her tiny feet touching my hip and Cobie in my arms, her tears slowing… I found peace for the first time in years.

***

Cobie

Awareness of something other than pain came to me in slow, aching increments.

The first thing I saw was Dante’s throat, which was dripping sweat.

I pulled my head away from said throat, and looked at his face, only to see his eyes closed.

His breathing was even and deep, letting me know that he was asleep.

I smiled, turned my head, and gasped.

His little girl was sitting up on the couch, her eyes on me.

I smiled, and she smiled back instantly.

It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“Hi,” I croaked.

She leaned forward and started to crawl toward me, but stopped when she reached her father’s side—my side.

Her hand went to my foot, and she touched my French manicured toes.

I’d gotten a pedicure before I’d gone in for surgery, and it was apparent that Dante’s girl approved.

“Pretty?” I asked her.

I tried to move, but the pain made itself known again as a sudden stab of pain flashed through my chest.

Okay. No movements whatsoever. Got it.

“Her name is Mary.”

I looked slowly back over to Dante and smiled when I saw his eyes on me.

“She’s gorgeous,” I whispered.

But I could tell with just one look that this little girl wouldn’t be like all the other girls.

Mary had Down Syndrome.

Her eyes were canted up and slightly close together.

Dante seemed to know what I was thinking and opened his mouth.

“I didn’t know she had Down Syndrome until I took her to the pediatrician for a well-check a few days after Marianne brought her to me,” Dante said, holding out his hand for his daughter.

She took his hand, wrapping both fists around one finger, and brought it up to her mouth.

She pressed a slobbery kiss on it, and my heart melted right then and there.

“Does she have heart problems?”

Normally one of the downsides of having Down Syndrome was heart problems—CHD. Congenital heart disease, to be specific. I’d spent quite a bit of time during nursing school working on a floor where one of the patients seemed to have rented a room there. He was always there, and over time, I got to learn a lot about him and the problems he faced.

Over the six months of that particular semester, Dobbie (his real name was Corrone, but the kid loved him some Harry Potter) had been one of my patients. Each time I’d have a clinical, that little boy would be there. I watched him struggle. I watched him succeed. I watched him get released. Then I watched him come back and go through it all over again. Finally, after about four months of being in and out of the hospital, he got to go home for good.

And now, years later, I was still in touch with their family. I went to Dobbie’s birthday parties, he turned six this year, and I also got to go to his pre-school and kindergarten graduations.

“No,” Dante murmured. “Doctor said, as of right now, that she has a clean bill of health. He did say that she might run into problems later on down the road, but we’ll jump those hurdles when we get to them.”

I took a deep breath, and my eyes closed as the pinch of pain struck me.

“I have to use the bathroom,” I murmured. “And I know you have to be tired of holding me.”

He grunted something but stood up as if I weighed nothing and started up the stairs. “There’s a bathroom down here.”

“Is your room down here?” He paused with his foot on the first step.

I shook my head. “No.”

“Then we’ll go to this one so you can change your clothes.”

I wanted to change my clothes. I also wanted to change my underwear, but I wouldn’t be telling him that. In fact, he wouldn’t be helping me change my clothes, either.

Before I could inform him of that, though, he walked me straight into my room—which was the first door we got to—and headed to the bathroom that was in between my room and the next room.

“How did you know this was mine?”

“Only door open,” he answered, flipping the light switch on. “Do you need help doing this?”

I was about to say no when he gently placed me on my feet.

My knees were wobbly, and I made a noise in my throat that he took as a sign that he was going to stay and help me.

“Dante…”

“Hush,” he growled. “I’ve helped my share of girls and women use the bathroom in my time.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

With one hand around my hips, he plucked the string on my pants and then started to shove them down my legs.

“Please,” I said. “I barely know you, and I want to try to do it myself.”

He paused, looking up at me from his hunched over position. “Do you have anyone else to help you?”

I opened my mouth to reply but quickly shut it.

“That’s what I thought.”

Then he shoved my pants down my legs.

I was then, officially and thoroughly, overwhelmed.

Before I could so much as moan in embarrassment, though, he helped me sit, and then walked out moments later.

I sat there for a few seconds, completely pitiful, before I did my business.

My panties were the only thing I could manage to get up, and even those were a struggle.

He came back moments after I got them in place, and then helped me walk to the sink.

“Do you want to wash your face or anything?”

“What’s wrong with my face?”

My startled question had him grinning. “Nothing. Just know you are a girl, and you’ve been in the hospital for the last eight days. Wasn’t sure how much cleaning you got done.”

I had nothing to say to that.

“A sponge bath courtesy of the aide,” I mumbled. “I’d love to wipe it down, though. Amongst other things.”

He nodded and looked around, spotting the washcloths that were on the shelf above the toilet. Grabbing three, he turned on the sink and started to run hot water. Once he had it where he wanted it, he pulled the stopper up and blocked off the drain, allowing it to fill.

About the time that he would’ve turned it off, we both heard a very loud, “Da!”

Dante grinned. “Be right back.”

He was gone seconds later, and I heard him plodding down the stairs, then his happy voice saying, “Hey, girl.”

I turned off the water and stared at myself in the mirror.

I’d never have that. I’d never have a kid to call my own. One who I would talk to like I’d missed her for however long she’d been asleep. I wouldn’t be able to have kids. Not with this cancer crap I had. I couldn’t trust that I’d live long enough to make it through the majority of my kid’s life.

With shaky hands, I dunked the cloths into the sink and then reached for the pump soap.

Just as I’d gotten two squirts into the water, Dante reappeared, with Mary in his arms.

My heart completely melted, and I straightened…then immediately regretted it.

Tears burned my eyes as I took a deep breath, which also fuckin’ hurt.

I remained still as I closed my eyes and waited for the wave of pain to recede.

“You have two more hours until you can take any more meds,” he said apologetically. “But I can help you get cleaned up.”

I nodded, swallowed thickly, and then opened my eyes.

Dante sat Mary on the floor, then turned around and closed the door.

Mary immediately went to the toilet, and Dante closed it. “No, ma’am.”

Mary gave him a look that said she was clearly not pleased with his refusal to allow her to play in the toilet.

“Here.”

Then Dante handed her his phone, and I watched in amazement as she opened it, pulled up her favorite app, and then started to play.

“Wow,” I breathed. “She’s better than me.”

Dante chuckled as he walked up to me. “The girl is pretty damn amazing.”

I smiled softly and reached for the wet cloth that was submerged in the sink.

“I’ll do it.” He stilled my hand. “Let’s get the shirt off first, though.”

Before I could protest—again—he had the buttons halfway undone.

Loss so great it was debilitating had me speaking up this time, though.

“I don’t…” I started to shiver. “I don’t want to look!”

He paused.

I could see the gauze that was wrapped around my chest, and I really, really didn’t want to see anymore.

“Close your eyes,” he ordered as he moved me to sit on the counter.

I did, unable to help the fear that poured through me, and gave myself that out.

He could look if it meant that I didn’t have to.

I knew that eventually I’d have to, but the time for me to do that wasn’t right now.

Maybe tomorrow or the next day, but I just didn’t have it in me today.

The shirt came off the rest of the way, and he gingerly removed it from my arms, keeping my movements as shallow and slow as he could make them.

He did the rest of the work, gently pulling it off my body and tossing it somewhere on the floor.

I could hear the beeps and blips from Mary’s phone, and I opened my eyes to look at her, being sure not to look down.

“I don’t see Marianne in her at all,” I whispered.

Dante grunted. “Looks just like my kiddos used to.”

A pang of sadness washed over me at the knowledge that this man in front of me had lost his children. I wished I knew more, but to know more, I’d have to ask him. I wasn’t sure asking him was the right thing to do. It was obvious that it was still raw, so I chose not to say anything about his other children. Instead, I focused on Mary and Marianne.

“Marianne’s son, the one who died, looked nothing like Marianne, either. It was funny because I always used to joke with her that the hospital had switched the baby at birth with hers. He had dark blonde hair, steel blue eyes, and shared absolutely none of her features. Though, he also didn’t look much like Drake, either.”

Dante grunted, but did nothing more than that, leaving me to wonder if I should continue with my observations.

“What was Marianne like?” Dante surprised me by asking.

I smiled. “Kind. Loving. Devoted to her son. Which always surprised me with the postpartum depression thing. I never saw her being distant with him. Never saw her do a single thing that would’ve set off alarms inside my head. She was utterly devoted to him.”

Which made me feel a little guilty.

“I should’ve questioned the depression. I just never thought to. She was the one who told me that she had it. Who was I to argue with that?”

“You couldn’t,” he said. “My wife had it with our kids for two or three months. It was so weird. She just wouldn’t have anything to do with them. She let me do all the heavy lifting, so to speak. Diaper changes. Getting up with them in the middle of the night. Baths. Then, one day, it was like she was back. Boom. She was the devoted mother again. Though, that was due in part to her doctor prescribing her meds to help battle it. Once she took them, she was better. But, you would’ve never known, on the outside, that she had it. My wife—she hid it and played the part for everyone but me. Why would you know? If someone says that they have something, who am I or you to tell them that they don’t have that?”

I was glad that she had that with him. Wasn’t I?

I wanted so badly to ask him about his wife. Where was she? Would she care that this man—her man—was currently taking a washcloth to a practically naked woman? I would, even if all he was doing was helping.

“Well,” I hesitated. “I didn’t notice it. That’s just my opinion.”

“Do these drains need to be emptied?”

The drains in question were there to help release the fluid from inside my chest. In a week or so they’d be removed, but for now, they were my new friends.

“Yeah,” I cleared my throat. “Please.”

“How?”

So, there I sat, half naked, telling this man how to empty the drains that were pulling fluid out of my chest cavity.

If this man wasn’t already married, I just might have to hug him.

“That kid of yours,” I murmured as he emptied the second drain into the sink. “She’s good. I’ve watched her beat three levels at that game she’s playing.”

He looked over and down at her, grinning slightly. “My other daughters used to love that game. Really all you do is touch the shape. Pretty simple, but it helps them learn the name of the shapes as they do it since it calls it out. Though, there’s one shape—circle—that sounds more like ‘jerkyll’ to me.”

I would’ve laughed, but the inhalation I took in order to expel the laughter wound up stealing the breath from my chest.

“Don’t laugh,” Dante said as he saw my face.

I didn’t have anything to say to that, mostly because I couldn’t.

I just nodded, closed my eyes tightly and started to count to a hundred in my head. I got to thirty before the pain began to ebb. Forty-nine when it became manageable enough to open my eyes again. It was at eighty when I felt that I could speak without crying.

“That wasn’t good,” I wheezed.

Dante didn’t say anything as he finished up his work and then left the room.

I waited, knowing he had a purpose and wouldn’t forget me, and wasn’t disappointed.

He came back with a button-up flannel shirt.

One that I knew wasn’t mine because it was about eighteen sizes too big.

“Where’d you get that?” I questioned, looking at the fabric with a curious eye.

“My truck.”

My brows rose.

I hadn’t heard the front door open and told him as much.

“I parked in the back,” he said. “Your friend Drake was at the front.”

My lip lifted in a silent snarl. “He called me. I didn’t answer.”

“Why?” Dante asked as he laid the shirt on the counter, and then lifted another washcloth out of the sink.

This one he ran against the exposed skin of my neck and belly. The last one that was in there he used to wipe down my face.

“I’ve never felt something so wonderful in all my life,” I told him.

He grunted. “Showers make everything seem a lot more bearable.”

I agreed with that wholeheartedly. I could be having a really shitty day, and all I would need to do was go take a shower, and it didn’t seem as bad by the time I got out.

Then again, the one-hundred-and fifteen-degree water that I used to shower with likely fried away some of my working brain cells.

“All done,” he said, causing me to look up at him.

I watched as he moved me where he wanted me, drying me off and placing his shirt on my body.

I observed him, taking in everything about him that I could. He had blond hair that was short on the sides and spiky on the top. But I doubted that he put gel in his hair to keep it spiky like some men did.

His eyes were blue and so freakin’ clear that they reminded me of something out of a storybook. Or maybe a Disney movie. His eyes were impossibly hard not to stare at.

Then there was his chest.

Dante wasn’t lacking in the muscles department. He had a lot of them. I could see them through his white T-shirt—and did I mention that a white t-shirt and jeans were my absolute favorite thing ever on a man? Because they were. And on Dante they were perfection.

I could see his nipples.

I could see his nipples!

Dear, sweet baby Jesus!

“You want to go to your bed or back downstairs?”

I blinked, coming out of my contemplations of his various assets, and pursed my lips in thought. “I think I’d like to sit on the couch. When I was in the hospital, it hurt way worse to be lying flat on my back rather than propped up in the bed.”

Dante nodded, his eyes contemplative as he looked down at Mary.

“Let me take her down first so she doesn’t try to follow us, and then I’ll come back for you.”

I stayed where he put me while he did just that, and wondered if I should ask him to leave.

He’d done a lot for me. Surely, he was ready to go.

I was positive that he had stayed way longer than he’d intended, and when I told him so moments later as he arrived back in the bathroom for me, he looked at me incredulously.

“I’m not leaving you here alone the day you get home from the hospital where you had a surgery that left you in tremendous pain, weak and barely able to walk.”

I snapped my mouth shut.

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay if you don’t want to,” I started again.

“For now, I’m exactly where I want to be,” he informed me. “Now, let’s go. We have about two hours or so before we have to head home.”

I did as he asked. Then again, I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter seeing as he’d picked me up and carried me downstairs.

***

Dante

Two and a half hours later, I bundled up both Mary and Cobie—who was good and drugged up on her pain medication once again—and got them settled in my truck.

Cobie had given me a half-hearted reply of ‘yes’ when I’d asked her if she wanted to come to my house, and I drove us all home.

Both Cobie and Mary slept the entire way there, leaving me to my thoughts.

And they definitely weren’t good.

At first, all I could think about was that Cobie was sitting in Lily’s spot. Then, it was how Cobie was going to be staying in Lily’s and my house and how I wouldn’t be able to just get rid of her if a freak out started.

Minutes after pulling into my driveway—the one that was just down the road from my brothers’ houses—I moved before I had time to think.

I got Mary first, and instead of putting her on the floor, I laid her on the couch.

She’d been a love/snuggle bug for hours today with Cobie, and she was sleeping just as much as Cobie was, which was abnormal for her.

Then again, there wasn’t really a ‘norm’ when it came to toddlers. They did what they wanted and always would.

After making sure Mary was comfortable on the couch, I went back outside for Cobie and carried her into my home as well. The guilt immediately hit me as soon as we crossed the threshold.

I didn’t see Mary as a betrayal to my wife’s memory. She was a baby, my baby. Lily would have expected me to care for her, to bring her home.

But carrying another woman into our home and sitting her in my wife’s favorite spot? Yeah, that felt very much like a betrayal to Lily’s memory. It burned as I swallowed the bile down.