“Evan is that you?” Margo called from the living room.
“Yes, Mom. I’m back.” Evan tossed the keys to his motorcycle on the kitchen island and headed right to the fridge.
“I hope you progressed at the lab today.”
“Well, I’m getting closer.” Evan poured himself a tall glass of milk and chugged half, leaving a white mustache in the peach fuzz on his upper lip.
“Do you let Sloan help you?”
“No, I do my thing in the research lab and she studies in the pathology lab.”
“I’m so thankful to Greg for getting you two the proper credentials so the hospital would accept you. What a blessing he has been to our family that he could help from afar.”
“We’re fortunate to have the University Hospital right in Giza. They’re used to students coming and going on that hospital’s campus, so Sloan and I blend right in.”
“When are you going to tell me what you’re working on, son? You spend so much time up there.”
“Mom, we’ve been through this. I’ve been given keys to the lab so I can come and go as I please. I do some work for the hospital and work on my own thing between projects,” Evan offered cryptically.
He walked into the living room to find his mom holding Danny in her lap. The little guy was sound asleep, drooling on her pink sweater.
“Do you want me to lay him in his bed, Mom?”
Margo smiled down at the top of the little boy’s head and wrapped her arms around him even more tightly. “Not yet, he just dozed off, and I love feeling him relaxed and peaceful.” She tried to study Evan’s face inconspicuously. He looked exhausted, as though he hadn’t slept properly in weeks—not since the family escaped the country without Meg.
“Yeah, but Mom,” he was saying. “The additional weight on your hips and back could cause damage.”
“I feel better when I hold him, Ev.” Margo looked into her son’s hazel eyes and tried not to wince at the pain she saw twisting behind them. Her son wasn’t just overworked, though he’d been keeping very long and unpredictable hours at the University Hospital’s Research Lab. He was haunted by the night in Tucumcari nearly four months before. He didn’t talk about that night, but Margo knew he beat himself up over Meg’s disappearance. He and Alik hadn’t spoken more than cursory words since that night. Margo prayed for peace, for her daughter and for their survival, but she was starting to wonder if her prayers were falling on deaf ears.
“Honestly, the more I hold him, the better I feel.” She smiled at Evan’s perplexed frown. “I loved holding you when you were a baby. You know you had a ‘lovey’ too.” She motioned to the blue pillow Danny held tightly in his pudgy arm.
“I did?” he asked in an uncharacteristic appreciation of nostalgia.
“Yep. A little blue bunny. Do you remember it?” Evan just frowned trying to recall. “Alik would remember,” she blurted, then quickly wished she could take back the words, seeing the pained expression on Evan’s face at the mention of his estranged brother.
Trying desperately to maintain the small connection Evan was allowing just then, Margo kept talking. “You used to chew on his ear and tail. I had to wash the poor thing plenty of times in a pillow case on delicate, with as much attention as you gave it. I suppose you were about two years old when you first got attached to it. He was just a stuffed animal in your Easter basket that year, but once you dragged him around by his floppy hand and showed him all your other toys, I knew you’d found a special friend.” Margo smiled at the memory before continuing. “I still have the bunny. Well, he’s back in Texas, in a box tucked away in the attic, but he’s there. Someday if we ever get to go home, I’ll show him to you.”
“On a sappiness scale from one to ten, that’s got to be a twelve,” Evan teased gently. So seldom did her son smile these days, even the small smirk he offered startled Margo.
“Oh, you’re right. Poor you, you have a sappy mom.” Margo offered a cautious smile. She had been doing that a lot lately. They all had.
Evan turned away and started to leave the room. “Was Theo coming home, too?”