Chapter Nineteen

After Christmas was over, things started to return to what Jordan could only assume was normal in the Andrews house. The decorations came down, they stopped eating excessive amounts of sweets, and Noah went back to work. He spent countless hours locked up in his office, building websites and editing photographs and submitting his work to various publications. He hardly ever came downstairs for food or company or anything else. Sometimes, Jordan even forgot he was home.

On this particular day though, he actually was leaving. He had been contracted to shoot some of the captive wolves for a local zoo and Jordan had stayed home to look after Lucy.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call a babysitter?” he asked for about the millionth time as he put on his coat and got ready to leave.

“Yes. I’ve got this,” Jordan assured him. “We’ll be fine. Right Lucy?”

“Right!” Lucy agreed.

Jordan gave Noah a small smile and all but shooed him out the door. Once the older man was gone, he actually felt a huge amount of relief. With his feelings still so raw and new, Jordan was finding that he rather liked Noah’s scarcity as of late. It made it easier to forget how stupidly and hopelessly in love with him he was. Plus, it meant he got to spend a lot more time with Lucy, which was always nice.

“Aright, so whatcha wanna do today, kiddo?” he asked her.

She scrunched her face up in thought and then asked him if he’d play hide-and-go-seek with her. Jordan agreed on the condition that she stayed inside the house and didn’t hide in any places that were off limits, like her dad’s room and office. Lucy agreed and before he knew it, he was standing in the middle of the living room with his hands over his eyes, counting backwards from twenty.

“Five...four...three...two…”

There was a faint rustling sound nearby as Lucy tried to figure out the best hiding spot. The corners of Jordan’s mouth twitched up in a smile. The truth was that he actually ruled at this game. Growing up, every summer he and the other kids in the neighborhood held a massive, block-wide hide and seek tournament, where each day a different person was it and they basically had the entire day to find all seventeen of them. If they were able to do that, then they moved on to the second round, which was timed and covered a larger area. After everyone had had a turn being it, the person with the fastest time won bragging rights and a heaping pile of leftover Easter candy. The winner was usually Jordan. 

“Two and a half,” he continued, giving Lucy one last chance to get settled. “And one. Ready or not, here I come.”

Jordan dropped his hands to his sides and spun around in a circle. He didn’t see Lucy right away, but that didn’t necessarily mean that she wasn’t hiding somewhere in plain sight. He didn’t think she’d gone up stairs. To do so silently would have taken more than twenty seconds. That left the kitchen, living room, and basement. Jordan knew where he would hide if he was playing, but he was strategic and cunning. Lucy was fearless. She’d probably want to hide right under his nose.

Jordan moved in the direction of the kitchen, while keeping the corners of his eyes trained on the living room behind him. He walked over to the fridge where there was a small magnetic mirror, which was reflecting back the entire living room as shown through the archway behind him. Struck by an idea, Jordan used the tip of his foot to slide the magnet all the way to the bottom. This would allow him to check underneath all the large pieces of furniture without having to bend down and put strain on his ribs.

At first glance, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but then a little hand appeared from underneath the couch as Lucy readjusted herself. Smiling, Jordan opened the refrigerator door and peered inside.

“Dang it!” he said, loudly enough for Lucy to hear. “I thought for sure she’d be in there.”

He poured himself a glass of water and then took it with him into the living room. He took measured, even steps in front of the couch and then sat down, careful not to press all his weight into the cushions just in case it was too tight of a fit for her. Sitting down wasn’t enough to coax her out. Lucy remained quiet as a mouse. Time to move on to plan B.

Jordan took a long sip of his water.

“Man, seeking sure is a lot of hard work,” he said loudly. “I sure hope that Lucy isn’t somewhere an old injured man such as myself can’t reach.”

Still nothing.

Jordan rolled up his sleeves and dunked his fingers into his glass of water and then reached down to flick the droplets under the couch, causing Lucy to squeal.

“Found you,” Jordan said.

Lucy poked her head out and Jordan gave her a smug smirk.

“Hey, that’s not fair!” she protested.

“Neither is hiding in a place I can’t easily reach,” Jordan countered.

“Touché,” Lucy said, crawling all the way out and dusting off her hands on her pants. Jordan wondered where she’d learned that word from because it was most likely not from school. “You want me to go find you now?” she asked.

“Maybe in a little bit,” Jordan told her. “My ribs are feeling extra sore today. I didn’t sleep very well.”

Also, the crying he’d done while he was in the shower probably didn’t help, but Lucy didn’t need to know about that.

Lucy nodded sagely and sat down next to him.

“I know what you mean,” she said. “I have trouble sleeping sometimes too.”

Jordan frowned.

“Is it because you’re still having nightmares?”

Lucy nodded.

“Sometimes it’s the nightmares. Other times I just can’t fall asleep because I’m thinking too much.”

“About the shooting?” he asked carefully.

Lucy sagged into the cushions like a deflated balloon.

“Yeah.”

Jordan sighed.

“Do you wanna talk about it? Maybe that would help.”

Lucy shook her head.

“I don’t think so. Daddy already made me talk to this therapist lady named Dr. Jefferson and she only made me feel worse.”

“Well,” Jordan began. “Dr. Jefferson doesn’t really know what happened at the shooting. She wasn’t there with you, but I was. Maybe you could try talking about it with me.”

Lucy stared at him for several moments with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Then, eventually, her posture softened, and she gave a small nod of her head.

“I guess that would be okay.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Jordan told her. “You can change the subject at any time.”

Lucy nodded.

“Okay. I don’t really know where to start.”

“Why don’t you tell me about your nightmares; is it the same one every time or are they always different?”

“It’s the same every time.”

“And what happens in that dream? Is it like you’re reliving the day of the shooting?”

“Kind of,” said Lucy. “It starts with me waking up and going to school like a regular day, but then I get called to the office and they say it’s because my dad is there to pick me up, but when I walk into the office the shooter is there, and he’s got his gun pointed at my dad…”

Lucy didn’t elaborate on what happened next and Jordan didn’t need her to. He draped an arm around her shoulder and said, “You know that guy is gone right? He’s somewhere where he can never hurt anyone ever again.”

Lucy nodded.

“Yeah, but there are more bad people. I hear about it on the TV all the time.”

Jordan sighed. He wished there was something he could say to reassure her, but the kid was not wrong. Bad people and guns were kind of this country’s specialty as of late.

“You’ve got a point,” he told her. “But for every one of those bad people, there’s at least thirty good ones who’ll go out of their way to keep everyone safe.”

“You mean people like you?”

Jordan was startled by the question. He hadn’t really thought of it that way.

“Kind of, I guess. But I meant people who are bigger and stronger and more effective.”

Lucy rolled her eyes.

“You don’t have to be big or strong to be a hero. Or a stuntwoman. You’ve just gotta try really hard. At least that’s what my dad always says.”

Jordan gave her a half-smile.

“Well your dad is pretty smart. And hey, I know those dreams are scary, but you shouldn’t worry about him. He’s smart and he’s careful and he surrounds himself with good people. He’ll be okay.”

Lucy looked down at her feet.

“But what if something bad happens, like at the mall? He can’t control that.”

Jordan took a moment to collect his thoughts. He didn’t want to get something wrong and then accidentally scar this kid for life.

“You’re right, something bad could happen, but if you spend your whole life worrying about it instead of enjoying your time with the people you love, you’re gonna miss out on a lot of fun things just because you’re scared. At the end of the day, it’s good to be scared sometimes. It keeps you on your toes, but the trick is not letting that fear completely consume your life. Make sense?”

Lucy nodded and said, “Can I ask you something now?”

“Sure.”

“Does it ever bother you that you don’t have a mommy or a daddy?”

Jordan shrugged.

“Not really. I just wonder about them sometimes. Do you ever miss your mom?”

“Maybe a little,” Lucy admitted. “Is that bad?”

Jordan shook his head.

“Nah. I think it’s normal. Especially since you don’t know where she’s at. That almost makes it worse I think, not knowing what happened to her.”

“Yeah…” Lucy said. “I don’t know. My daddy is more than enough, but sometimes I see my friends’ moms and I feel a little bit jealous. It just seems like it’d be nice to have two parents around instead of one, less lonely. For me and my dad.”

“Well hey,” Jordan said, trying to look on the bright side. “Maybe one day you could have a stepmom. Would you be okay with your dad dating someone?”

Lucy thought about it for a moment.

“Only if they were really nice, like you.”

Jordan’s heart swelled at the idea. He let out a pained laugh.

“I’d like that,” Jordan admitted. “But I don’t think your dad would be interested.”

Lucy shrugged, but luckily didn’t push the issues. God, Jordan couldn’t believe that he’d sunk so low as to be discussing his relationship woes with an eight year old.

“Why don’t we watch a movie or something,” he suggested.

Lucy agreed, and they turned on the latest action movie just in time for Noah to walk through the door and watch it with them.

When it was time for Lucy to go to sleep, she did so without complaint. The next morning, she woke up early and fresh-faced with a whole new outlook on life. The first thing she did was give Jordan a huge hug. He couldn’t help but think that she was finally starting to put the nightmares and the trauma from the shooting behind her.