Текст книги "Immaculate"
Автор книги: Katelyn Detweiler
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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
The film kept playing from there, artfully jumping through various scenes from the past few weeks: me taking notes on my faux birthing class DVDs, a trip to Dr. Keller’s office, my birthday night and our shocked reactions to the first news report, which I hadn’t even noticed him recording. But I could barely absorb any of it, not after listening to Jesse talk about me—not after knowing that he’d said those things before our fight, and probably wished he could take them back now, rerecord his statements about an idolized girl who didn’t actually exist.
A clip with Pastor Lewis brought me back, though, and I leaned forward for a better view of the screen. He looked stiff and uncomfortable behind his glossy wooden desk, as out of place in his own office as he had been that day in our living room. He was fidgeting in his seat, the leather squeaking slightly as he spun the chair in tiny half circles, left and right. But his light hazel eyes, solemn and wide, were fixed on the camera as he opened his mouth to speak. He talked about how he’d known me since the day I was born, baptized me in that same church eighteen years ago, and watched me grow up through Sunday School and choir, youth group and catechism classes.
“I won’t say that I believe unequivocally that Mina is carrying a baby conceived through some sort of divine intervention, because I can’t be sure of that. No one can be sure of that. But I will say that in our times, I think we’ve reached a sorry, sad state of cynicism. That we’ve stopped believing that miracles—any miracle, no matter how small or large—are inherently possible. We’ve become so obstinately certain that we can explain every last detail about the world around us, and I think that in doing so, we’ve lost some of the magic and the beauty that God intended for us to have in our lives. We’ve lost that humble, grounding belief that there are things and acts outside of our power to comprehend—that as men and women we still have limits in what we can perceive of God’s plan.
“So is it possible, could Mina actually be the virgin mother of a child who comes to us through some higher being? From God Himself?” He paused, knitting his hands together on top of the desk to steady himself, but his eyes never left the camera. “I think it is. Or at the very least, I think it’s outside of our right and our authority to question and criticize what is or isn’t God’s doing. This is not for us to judge. We cannot condemn. We can only hope and pray and open ourselves to the possibilities that God can still reach down—can touch our everyday lives in ways that we’ve maybe never dreamed possible. We believe in the ideas that we read in the Bible. We believe in Jesus, in his mother, Mary. Why is it so hard to believe that miracles can still happen today, in our modern world? Ask yourself that, if nothing else. Why? Or, more appropriately, why not?”
Pastor Lewis’s lips stilled, but Jesse kept the camera on him for a few more silent seconds, allowing the full effect of his words to linger, dense and electric in their implications.
Just as I was thinking we’d reached the end, the scene changed again. It was me, on Christmas Eve, hands dragging down the mural of the nativity as my sobbing body sagged to the floor. I gasped, pressing against my dad’s arm to steady myself. I hadn’t thought Jesse had been there that long before he’d called out to me—would never have guessed that his camera had been on me that whole time, the bright recording light blinking red as he captured my fall.
My first instinct was to scream, to accuse him of completely violating my privacy. But then I saw the reactions that Hannah and my entire family were having, and I held myself back. Every cheek was shiny wet with tears, all eyes riveted by the scene—the round-bellied girl, the mother-to-be, so symbolically close to another mother. Another mother who mirrored so much of what she was experiencing in her own extraordinary life, two thousand years later.
And I realized that maybe—just maybe—that scene could actually change peoples’ minds. Soften them at the very least. Because how could that girl, that poor aching, breaking girl, be a fake, an impostor? And why would she? Why would she, or anyone, willingly put themselves through this experience? This kind of judgment?
That girl, that girl up on the screen, she was real. She was real, and she was hurting, but she was also determined and resilient and proud. She was the Mina I wanted to be.
She was the Mina I wanted the world to know.
I don’t know how the girl knew where to find me, but she did. She was sitting on the steps outside of Dr. Keller’s office, her small chin propped in her small hands, waiting as my mom and I made our way to the door. I didn’t pay any attention at first, not until she jumped up and latched on to my waist.
“Mina, Mina, Mina!” she screamed, her whole face lighting up in a big smile, adorably crooked from her two missing front teeth.
I stepped back a little, startled. I looked to my mom, and she shook her head at me, just as confused.
“Excuse me. I don’t think I know you?” I put one hand on her shoulder as I gently pushed her back to get a better look. Red braids, freckles, a sparkly pink jacket. She could have been Gracie’s age.
“No, but I know all about you. My whole family does. And I need to ask you a really important favor.” Her grin disappeared, and she looked suddenly much older, more serious.
“My mom is the one who needs you, but she was too sick to come. She’s really sick. And they won’t tell me much because they think I’m too little, but she has cancer. I’m scared she’s not going to be okay. Not ever maybe.”
A sob rose up my throat, but I forced it down. I took my mom’s hand instead, squeezing it as I steadied myself.
“I’m really sorry to hear that . . . ?”
“Katie.”
“I’m so sorry, Katie.”
“I told her that I would find you, though. I thought maybe if you pray for her, she might get better. Or maybe . . . maybe you could give me something to take back to her? Like a bracelet or a glove or something? Just something that you’ve touched. Like a good luck charm to help save her.”
“Katie, I . . .” I stopped, struggling with what to say. It felt morally wrong, deceitful to give her the hope that anything I could do would make any difference for her mom.
But at the same time, was it so awful to give someone hope? Wasn’t hope sometimes all we needed to be stronger? To pass through something hard—to make it to the other side.
Maybe hope isn’t always about the perfect ending. Hope is making the journey easier.
“Sure,” I said, before I could change my mind. I slipped a thin silver band from my thumb, a random find from a Saturday thrifting with the girls at the local flea market.
The look of pure joy on Katie’s face erased any regret I might have felt.
“Thank you, Mina,” she said through happy, glistening tears. We hugged, and she ran off, anxious, it seemed, to get the ring to her mom as soon as possible.
“I don’t even know her last name,” I said, looking up at my mom as Katie disappeared down the sidewalk. “I’ll never know if her mom gets better.”
“You did the right thing, sweetie. You did what you could do.” Mom sighed, tugging me gently toward the door. “It’s out of our hands now.”
• • •
“Everything looked great in the exam room today,” Dr. Keller said, “perfectly normal and on schedule.” I sat up straighter in my chair, trying to focus on what she was saying, but my thoughts were still with Katie. I considered calling my mom in from the waiting room, worried that I probably wouldn’t remember anything about the visit without her listening in.
“One more week and your baby will be full-term, Mina. Strange to think about, isn’t it? It feels like just a few weeks ago that you first came in here, so scared and confused. You hardly even seem like the same girl. Or the same woman, I should say.”
I nodded, still only half listening.
“Mina?” Dr. Keller leaned over her desk to stare at me straight on. “What’s going on? I guess that’s a silly question, though. I’m sure it’s been an interesting month, with everything that’s been happening after that video of yours.”
“Interesting,” I echoed, staring back at her. I smiled. “Interesting is probably the best word for it.”
When Jesse’s video went out to the news circuit, it was like a brilliant, blinding comet had burst from the roof of my house—fanning out its shimmering trail across the country, around the world. News stations played clips during prime-time broadcasts, the whole video could be found everywhere online, and people—well, people certainly watched. People were engrossed. The Virgin Mina website and online network was stronger and more active than ever, and the page was quickly becoming less of a trashy high school tabloid and more of a streamlined public forum for critics of all ages. I had my detractors, yes, the cynics, the disbelievers, and the angry zealots. People were still calling my house, still shoving notes in my locker, in our mailbox. People were still posting cruel accusations and compromising pictures that had been taken of me in private, unsuspecting moments. Even some of the more bored, indifferent kids at school had started getting angry with me now. Not because they cared about why or how I’d gotten pregnant, but because—as I’d heard one stranger put it while ranting to friends at her locker—I’d become a “total media whore who would do anything to stay in the spotlight.”
But . . .
There were other sorts of outspoken people surfacing, too, people who were speaking out not against me, but against those who were pointing their fingers and publicly flagellating me. They saw me as a human being who deserved privacy and the right to live my own life. And there were also people like Katie. People of all different ages, religions, and nationalities who could accept the unexplainable, open their minds to new possibilities. They were people who wanted hope. People who needed hope.
And I, somehow, had become their source.
“You’ve heard,” I said, “that I have ‘followers’ now, I’m sure. I saw one of them on my way in, actually. That’s why I’ve been so . . . distracted.”
She nodded, and I kept going, suddenly needing to talk.
“Some days I don’t know who I’m more scared of, Dr. Keller: the people who hate me or the people who claim to worship me. I got a letter the other day from a Muslim woman in Indonesia. Written in Arabic, so we had to take it to the police to translate. A woman in Indonesia knows about me. And she hates me, too, according to the letter. Told me all about how this is not ‘the Day of Resurrection,’ and I’ll pay the price for all my lies in the afterlife. It was nothing I hadn’t heard before, but still . . . she lives across the world. It’s absurd to even think about her knowing about my life, let alone caring about it.”
“That’s so scary and so upsetting, Mina,” Dr. Keller said, reaching over the desk to hold my hands in hers. “I can’t begin to imagine how you feel when you read something like that.”
“It sounds crazy, but I’m almost unfazed by people like her now. But these others, the ones who seem to worship me . . . Sometimes I’m terrified, Dr. Keller. I’ve been getting all these strange letters and e-mails—begging for locks of my hair, my clothing, anything I’ve touched. They all seem so desperate—so obsessed. Obsessed. With me. It’s entirely surreal. I worry that some of them will do whatever it takes to feel close to me. To feel saved by me, blessed somehow. Which is ridiculous. I’m still only me, Dr. Keller. Only Mina. How can I save anyone? I’m just fighting to save myself.”
We sat in silence, the ticking of the clock above her desk the only sound in the room. She still held my hands tightly, which left the tears dripping down her cheeks unstopped.
“Dr. Keller,” I said, eager to make the moment feel lighter, easier again. “Dr. Keller . . . I’m sure this probably isn’t orthodox, and if you’re not comfortable with it or you’re busy, I completely understand, no pressure at all. But my mom’s having a little baby shower for me this Saturday, and I’d love it if you came. It’s nothing big, just a few friends and family, and of course you don’t have to bring me anything. Any gifts, I mean. It would just be nice to have you there. But like I said . . .”
“Mina,” she said, laughing as she let go of my hands. “You’re right. It’s not traditional for me to go to patients’ baby showers. But I want to be there. And I think for you, Mina Dietrich, I can make an exception.” She lowered her head and lifted her brows, shifting her eyes left to right. “Just don’t tell on me, okay?”
“Secret’s safe.” I grinned at her as I grabbed at the edge of the desk to haul myself up from the chair. “Wow. It’ll be amazing to actually have any kind of balance again. I feel like a fat, clumsy penguin, waddling instead of walking. I could accidentally tip and roll over at any second.”
“Patience, Mina. Soon enough you’ll be carrying that round bump in your arms instead.”
I closed my eyes for a second and let myself really picture it—my newborn, wrapped in blankets and nestled in my arms. I could almost feel him or her, the warm weight pressing against my chest, the sweet, milky smell of baby filling my nose. “Soon enough.” I sighed, turning to wave as I reached for the door handle. “Noon on Saturday, then?”
“Noon on Saturday.”
• • •
I hadn’t wanted a shower and had adamantly insisted against one, in fact. But my mom was determined, and she made a valid point, tacky as it may have sounded: I needed whatever donations I could get. And so it was settled. I would be having a baby shower. It was a small crowd, anyway, just my aunt Vera and Lucy, Hannah and her mom, Dr. Keller, Pastor Lewis’s wife, and a few of my mom’s closest friends and coworkers who had supported her throughout the whole ordeal—regardless of what they actually believed or didn’t believe about my explanation. They were all at least polite to me, and that was enough.
I was nervous, though, despite the small guest list, and I posed and squinted in front of the mirror for a solid half hour, changing back and forth between three different maternity dresses my mom had bought for the occasion. I wanted to look casual but capable, mature but pretty in that glowing soon-to-be-mom kind of way. I finally settled on a dark green sweater dress with an empire waist that seemed to be just the right balance of subtle and showy—classy but still proud of the gigantic bump I couldn’t have hidden even if I’d wanted to.
I was still contemplating myself in the mirror when I heard a knock at the front door. I figured it was Aunt Vera, coming over early to help my mom set out the food and finish with any last-minute decorations. I didn’t pay much attention to the quiet voices down below, at least not until I heard footsteps on the stairs.
They stopped just beyond my door, and whoever it was stayed there, still and silent, hesitating. I could hear myself breathing, could almost believe that I heard them breathing, too, from across the closed door. My heart started racing, which was ridiculous, admittedly, because it was probably just my aunt, maybe Hannah, even, just coming up to say hello.
I stepped back from the mirror and yanked at the knob, freezing when I saw the face, the eyes, staring back at me. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t use my lungs, my lips.
“Mina,” Izzy said. My name sounded so familiar on her lips—so normal and natural and wonderful.
“What are you doing here?” I was surprised that I did still have lips after all, and a mouth and a throat and vocal cords that functioned. One by one, piece by piece, my body started coming back to me, and I could actually feel what was happening—feel all the confused and angry and bizarrely happy sensations humming through me.
“Can we talk?” Her voice was quiet, almost shy. I studied her face, trying to relearn all the intricate details I’d missed for so long, and was surprised to see the dark circles under her red, sleepy-looking eyes.
“You want to talk now?” I took a deep breath and pressed my hands to my belly to center myself. “Today’s my baby shower, Izzy. Not now. I can’t argue with you now.”
“I’m not here to argue, Mina. I’m really not, I promise.”
“Then why are you here?” I was proud of how strong I sounded. A few months ago I would have already been fighting back tears, but Dr. Keller had been right—I had changed. I’d learned to be tough, to stand up for myself and what I believed in. I’d learned that the people who couldn’t accept us didn’t deserve my tears.
Izzy stepped farther into the room and closed the door before I could move to stop her.
“I’m here to say that I’m sorry, Meen.”
I was Meen again, not even Mina. As if nothing had changed, and we hadn’t spent nearly the last six months without each other.
“I’m sorry for so many things, I don’t even know where to begin. I’m sorry that I didn’t stick by you from day one like Hannah did. You wouldn’t lie, not to us, unless you had a really good reason to, and I should have respected that. I should have just been there for you and figured the rest out as we went along. The fact that I abandoned you when you were going through something like this makes me feel like the absolute shittiest friend ever. You deserved so much more than that. And I realize I can never make up for it. I can never go back and support you through the last six months. But I can help you now. I can help you every day after, because I want to be in your life again, Meen. I need to be in your life.” Her shoulders started shaking, and she buried her head in her hands.
I felt stuck to the floor, like I couldn’t run to her side even if I wanted to. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. Not yet. Not that easily.
She put up her hand, wiping at her dripping eyes with the other. “I’m not done yet. That’s just part one.” She laughed, but the sound turned into more of a twisting, broken sob that knocked away at my already weakening defenses.
“I know you saw me on New Year’s Eve with Nate, and I haven’t been able to forgive myself since. I have no excuse for what I did—it was disgusting and unacceptable of me, and my only explanation is that he was really all I had at the beginning, after I first lost you and Han. Or after I first walked away from you and Han, I see now. But he was the only person I could talk to at the beginning, before everyone else knew. And once everyone did know, he was still the only one that I wanted to talk to about all of it. Do you think it was easy for me to watch Kyle Baker and all his pathetic followers treat you like that? I couldn’t stand to hear what people were saying about you, and for the record, neither could Nate. When he first found out that Arielle had started the website—”
“Arielle?” I interrupted, not knowing if I wanted to laugh or cry at the revelation. “Arielle Fowler? She’s the evil mastermind behind the Virgin Mina website?”
Izzy bit down on her lip, her eyes flickering away from me. “I’m sorry. I thought you would have heard about that by now. Or guessed, at least. Nate was furious at her, which is ironic since we all knew she probably did it just to make you look even worse in his eyes, like that would somehow make him more likely to pick her. But that certainly backfired. Maybe being a malicious bitch attracts someone like Kyle Baker, but Nate’s too good for that shit.” She sighed. “He did love you, Mina. And he’s not a bad guy, despite everything.” She paused, those last words hanging in the air between us. “Anyway, so Arielle started the website, but a lot of their crowd had a hand in it after a while. It wasn’t just her. I heard that Sara Fritz helped her with a lot of the tech work, too. I guess she and her mom aren’t so different after all. Or maybe Sara just didn’t know how to say no to a popular girl who was giving her any kind of attention.”
I nodded, feeling strangely indifferent about finally knowing who was responsible. It wasn’t as if I was surprised, and it wasn’t as if it mattered. Not really. This was never just about one person turning on me. It was much, much bigger than that. Arielle was one tiny piece of the problem. And Sara—I just felt bad for Sara. I remembered the panicked look in her eyes that day she had bumped into me. Growing up with a mom like Tana, she probably didn’t know how to be anything but obedient.
“Nate was really struggling, Mina, and once he started seeing you and Jesse together, and everyone kept beating him down saying that he was a pushover for not stepping up and doing anything about it . . . well, it pushed him over the edge. It pushed us over the edge, I guess. I went over to his house that day after the fight with Jesse to talk him through some things, and . . . and it just happened. It never meant anything, not to either of us, I don’t think. It just made us feel less sad somehow about not having you anymore. I know this sounds odd, but it filled at least a tiny piece of the hole that you’d left in our lives. It’s over now, though, whatever it was. I ended it right after New Year’s. Right after I saw you.”
She looked back up at me, her dark eyes pleading.
“So why now, Iz?” I asked. “What’s changed?”
Izzy shook her head, tears still running down her cheeks. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen Izzy cry—a broken leg in the middle of a soccer field, and a stick to the head in a fierce game of field hockey. This fragile and exhausted-looking Izzy breaking down on my bed was completely new to me.
“I watch the video every night, you know. Every night, Meen. And every time I watch it, I end up sobbing, for you, for your family. For me, because I ran away from all of it and I’ve been afraid that you’d never let me back in, especially not after New Year’s. I knew all along how hard it must be for you, but I was convinced that it was just as hard for me, too, to go through senior year without you and Han. But then I saw Jesse’s video, and I felt like such a selfish, stupid child. I hadn’t ever really thought about how hard it was for you, how different life was not just for you but for Gracie and your parents . . . I’ve wanted to apologize every day, Mina. I just didn’t know how. I was hurt, too, you know, after everything you accused me of that day on my porch. That was some pretty cold stuff you said, and it took me time to move past it all. To realize you said it because you were angry and not because you really meant it. Or at least I hope you didn’t.” She took a shaky breath and exhaled, struggling to compose herself.
I looked down, my stomach tight with shame as I replayed through everything I’d said on that terrible morning. “I should never have said those things, Iz. They were ugly and mean and untrue. It just . . . it made me feel better to take you down with me. And I feel completely awful admitting that to you. I feel awful admitting that to me, too.”
“It’s behind us,” she said, reaching out to lift my chin up, forcing our eyes to meet. I saw the truth there, saw that it was behind us, just like that. “When Hannah e-mailed me about the baby shower this week, I was shocked to see a message from her, and even more shocked when I read it. But I guess she still had hope for me. Hope for all of us. So . . . here I am. Thank God your mom actually let me in the door. Not that I would expect anything less from Mrs. D. She’s been pretty amazing through all this, huh? They all have, except maybe your dad at the beginning. But it seems like he came to his senses, long before I did, anyway.”
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling at that. “They have been pretty amazing. And so has Hannah. And Jesse. But that’s a long story for another time.”
“I was dying to know more about him,” she said, grinning back at me. “He seems like a really great guy, Meen. Not that Nate wasn’t great for you, at least in his great Nate way, but Jesse . . . Jesse seems pretty special, at least from what I’ve seen. And trust me, that’s more than a month of watching his eloquent speech every night, so I know what I’m talking about.”
“Yeah, Jesse is definitely special,” I said, a happy glow at just the thought of him beaming down on me, warming me from the inside out—until I remembered all the ways I’d hurt him, all the words I could never undo. But Izzy being right here, right now, gave me faith that even the most brutal, bone-deep wounds could be healed, that the scars they left could strengthen us rather than tear us apart. “It’s funny, you know, how, before all this happened, I would have bet everything that Nate and I would be together forever. Forever.” I laughed, the absurd permanence of the word sounding so silly and useless to me now.
“But when it came down to it, when I really needed him to trust me, he couldn’t do it. My promises weren’t enough for him. But Jesse—Jesse barely knew me at all, and he still had faith in me. Jesse took a chance. He was willing to believe in the impossible. And Nate will never be able to do that. It’s not his fault, really, that he couldn’t trust me. He’s wired to only see the things that he can explain, the proven, the rational, the expected. And maybe that’s how I used to be, too. But that’s not my world anymore. My world is a whole lot more gray than that. And I’m okay with it. I kind of like the gray better.”
“I want to live in that gray world with you,” Izzy said quietly, her face so solemn and serious, she suddenly looked like a much older, wiser Isabelle.
With that I could feel every last block Izzy and I had built between us falling away. I felt lighter than I had in months, as if there was nothing, no one pressing me down. Before I could analyze that feeling, second-guess whether I was letting go too fast, forgiving too hastily, I floated over to my bed and wrapped my arms around her. She squealed as she pressed up against my belly, cupping her hands around my baby for the first time.
“Really, I just couldn’t stand the idea that Hannah would be the godmother over me. I’ve always expected the co-godmother role, like an avant-garde lesbian godmother couple.”
We both lost it over that, collapsing on my bed in hysterical giggles.
“So can I join in on the party, ladies?”
I jumped to see Hannah leaning against the doorframe, a massive smile nearly splitting her face across the middle.
“Thanks, Hannah, for inviting this wench to my party,” I said, lazily hitting Izzy over the head with my pillow. “You can escort her out now, please.”
“Even I’m impressed by how well I worked my magic,” Hannah said, hopping up onto the bed and wriggling in between us. “This feels right, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t feel too awful, I suppose,” Izzy said, propping herself on her elbow as she smiled over at us.
“As long as you brought a ridiculously nice present, I guess I’m okay with you being here.” I reached across Hannah and grabbed Izzy by the shoulder, pulling the three of us together in a tight huddle. “Promise me that this won’t ever happen again. Promise me that whatever absolutely crazy and absurd things happen in our lives, we don’t run away from one another. And we don’t let any of us run away, either. Each of us could have tried harder.”
We all reached our pinkies out and squeezed them in a knot, our sacred, unspoken oath.
“Well, then, now that we have that cleared up, I do believe there’s a baby shower happening downstairs for you, Mina,” Hannah said, hopping up from the bed. “Dr. Keller and Mrs. Lewis are here already. They’re waiting for the guest of honor to make her appearance.”
“Ugh. My hair looks like shit.” I pushed myself up and tried frantically to smooth down the frizz.
“You’re pregnant. Your hair’s allowed to look like shit,” Izzy said.
“Man, how I’ve missed your brilliant humor.”
“Get used to it, Mama. You’re going to be hearing it for the rest of your life.”
• • •
I could feel my dad hovering throughout the shower, a static buzz in the background that I couldn’t ignore. I was surprised that he was there at all, really, and not tinkering out in the garage or huddled up in his room with the door closed tight and some sort of sports news on the TV. He looked painfully anxious, as if he was just waiting for the shower to end and the ladies to leave. I couldn’t shut him out of my peripheral—couldn’t stop wondering what it was that had him so worked up. But I was in the middle of a circle of women, oohing and ahing over fuzzy onesies and miniature stuffed animals, and any sort of momentary escape was impossible.
As soon as the last present was opened, I excused myself for the bathroom and ducked into the hallway, hoping that my dad would still be poking around in the kitchen where I’d last seen him. He was there, luckily, standing by the large bay window with his back to me as I walked into the room.
“Dad?” I asked quietly, to avoid startling him. “What’s wrong? You seem so tense.”
He turned to me, his face gray against the dark blue of his sweater. My stomach swelled with dread. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“I’ve been following things online, Mina, and there’s been a sort of leak today about some plans that people have. Angry people. People who can’t accept that you’re sticking by your story. I think they’re making plans to all come together, to meet in Green Hill maybe, some kind of crazy protest mob. The details are a little hazy online, but I think it’s happening soon. More than a few people are referencing the plan. I don’t like it, Mina. I don’t want these people anywhere near you. Anywhere near our family.”
“Can you . . .” I choked, the words constricting in my throat. “Can you call the police?”
“Of course I can call the police,” he grunted. “And I will, but they’ve been pretty damn useless so far. Driving a few rounds during the night to make sure everything’s looking normal, but other than that, what have they done?”
Police weren’t the only ones patrolling at night, keeping watch over our house—I’d heard my dad shuffling and creaking around downstairs off and on for the past few weeks, and I’d seen the dark circles under his eyes, the new flecks of silver in his hair. The fear was taking its toll on all of us, but it was hitting him the hardest. He wanted to be our protector. He needed to be.
