I slid in behind Keira, holding her close, having no where to put it, I rested my head on his shoulder and did my best to wrap both my girls in my arms.
Cal’s one arm was around Kate’s waist, his other arm slid around my shoulders. I couldn’t help but hope that he was holding Kate as tight as he held me. It felt steady, strong, safe when life had just knocked us right back down to our knees.
“Should I call Doc?” I heard Feb ask.
“Her foot that bad?” Cal asked back.
“It’s deep. I wrapped it up but I can see it’s still bleeding,” Feb answered.
“Call him.”
“Okay.”
Feb closed the door but I heard, in the living room, Myrtle turning my vacuum on.
I bent and kissed Keira’s head then reached to kiss Kate’s.
“We’ll see this through, babies, we will. Promise,” I whispered.
Keira’s body bucked with the next wave of tears that my words caused and Kate’s breath hitched so hard, it made me wince.
“Hang on tight, babies, we’ll see this through,” I kept whispering then my tears came back and I forced my face into Cal’s neck and his arm curled me closer.
“We’ll see this through,” I mumbled and then my breath snagged as I felt Cal’s lips on my forehead.
I should have pushed him away, forced him out of my bed, kept my girls to myself. He had no business being there.
But I couldn’t. He was warm and strong and solid and big enough to surround us with all of that and we all needed it, we needed something to hold onto.
He could go away later.
And anyway, he would.
*
Keira fell asleep first, Kate next, Vi last.
All their weight was heavy on him, Keira’s head still at his gut, her arm tight around his hip; Kate’s head at his chest, her legs still tangled with his, her body dead weight against his side; Vi’s face in his neck her arm around Keira.
Cal’s back was still to the headboard, his head tipped back and resting against it, his eyes on the ceiling. He was fucking uncomfortable but he didn’t move a muscle.
He heard the door open and he righted his head.
Colt was leaning, shoulder against the doorjamb.
“Doc’s here,” Colt whispered.
“Tell him to come back,” Cal whispered back.
Colt nodded, his eyes did a sweep of Cal under a pile of exhausted, grief-stricken, sleeping females in Vi’s bed.
Then he looked at Cal, shook his head, grinned and walked away.
Crazy fuck.
Keira made a noise in her sleep and pushed closer.
Cal closed his eyes, trying to blot out the feeling.
But he couldn’t blot it out, it was insistent, not to be ignored.
It hit him the minute he saw Vi standing, shoeless, carrying a dust rag, wearing shorts and a tank, the first time he’d seen her in two and a half months and she was shrieking, fuck, the sound of her shrieking the word “no”. He’d never forget it, not in his life. That word, the way she said it, seared a path straight through him.
And it kept coming when he ran to her house after the crashing sounds came from it, the Dad pounding on the door.
And more of it came when he forced his way in and he saw her, that loss claiming her expression, fresh this time, so difficult to witness he felt it settling on his fucking soul.
And more of it came when she pressed into him, giving him her grief.
And more, when Kate beat at him, and more when she collapsed into him under the weight of her sorrow.
And more when they all curled into him, one by one.
And now, that feeling in the left side of his chest wasn’t nagging
It was constant, but it wasn’t pain.
He felt full.
Christ, the way it felt, he was full to bursting.
Chapter Fourteen
Vinnie’s Pizzeria
“Mom!” Keira yelled and I sighed.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” I yelled back and looked in the full-length mirror on the back of my bathroom door.
I was tired, so fucking tired, and I looked it. I hadn’t slept deeply since Cal disengaged himself from us so Doc could take a look at my foot, give me a couple of stitches and then proclaim in a heavy way that held more than one meaning, “You’ll be just fine.”
I’d looked into the old man’s eyes and I couldn’t help but believe him. I’d never met him but he seemed a man who knew what he was talking about.
This didn’t last very long, believing Doc that everything would be fine, but at least it helped for awhile.
By the time Doc left, Cal had disappeared. Colt had already called some guy who was fixing the door and Mike had come over and he’d stayed over. He spent the night sleeping on the couch in deference to the girls. He didn’t give me a choice about this, he just did it and I was glad he did, it was good knowing he was there.