Текст книги "The Wall"

Автор книги: Lauren Nicolle Taylor

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

I had a lot of work to do that day; it had piled up from my procrastinating yesterday. Chair legs and sled parts taunted me from the corner. A pile of sawdust I should have swept up and taken out was migrating back to where it had started, like a tiny sandstorm moving tiny dunes. It was also my turn to look after Orry.

The day went by uneventfully. I worked hard trying to finish everything so the evening would be free. Orry was fussing. When he was like this, it was a pointless guessing game to work out was wrong. Teething, hungry, tired, sick? So I just tried to distract him. I laid him down on the floor like I used to with Hessa. He stared at me with his weird eyes, my eyes, and I explained what I was doing, holding up tools and describing their various uses. Looking at his chubby pale arms and swash of blond curls, I wondered if he would be smart like Joseph. Tracking his darting eyes and hearing his frustrated grizzle, I knew he would be more like me—crazy and likely to get in trouble.

At about six o’clock, I cleaned up and started getting ready. I swept up the sawdust again and left it in the corner. I changed into clothes they’d given me when we first arrived here. I tried on a skirt and tights but quickly wriggled out of them, selecting black pants and a long-sleeved shirt. I did my hair, remembering that day when Clara had done it and the way Joseph reacted. I blushed. He wasn’t even here and I blushed. I pulled two small sections of my hair back and left the rest down.

It hurt less to think of her but I’m not sure the ache would ever go away. It lingered atop the pile of things I missed—my mother, the woods, Rash, and the boys. My grief wrapped around me like an ever-tightening bandage, holding my insides in but also stopping things from escaping.

I gazed down at the palette of makeup sitting squarely in my palm with great trepidation. I tried to apply it via the directions on the back of the plastic case. When I finished, I had to admit I looked awful. My eyes were over-emphasized and my cheeks too pink. I scrubbed it off. I looked… well, I looked nervous.

I started to get irritated at Joseph, wondering why he had to make a big deal out of this. I could imagine him laughing to himself at the idea of me running around trying to get ready. I wrapped Orry, who had been watching me wide-eyed on my bed while I got ready. He kicked his legs and cooed. I know I should have found these noises cute but to me they sounded like a cat getting sucked down a drain hole. These were the things I always kept to myself.

I fed him, realizing I should have done that before I got dressed as I had to unbutton my shirt. He wasn’t very hungry, nuzzling into my breast and falling asleep quickly. So I dragged the cot into our room one handed, the still-greenish legs screeching and scratching across the floor. It would have left scratch marks, if the floor wasn’t already so scuffed and worn. I liked it that way; it gave the place a sense of history, other families, other lives had been lived here. I put Orry down, closing the door after me. I barely had time to sit on a chair to start stressing about the night when I heard a knock at the door.

I was flustered. Was Joseph early? I opened the door wide with my shirt open just as widely. When I saw who it was, I quickly pulled it closed. “Cal!” I exclaimed with an unexpected mix of relief and anxiety.

He looked happy, relaxed, his eyes looking me up and down like I was a stick of candy. He didn’t lick his lips but he might as well have.

“Can I come in?” he said with confidence, like asking was merely a formality.

I wasn’t sure—a network of interlacing wire grew up in front of my face like a barrier, warning me. “Um, I’m just about to go out,” I lied, as I fumbled with my buttons, doing them up wrong and having to start again.

“This won’t take long. Please.” He pushed his way through the door before I could answer. He was forceful and the door slammed against the wall with a bang.

A slinking, dark shadow followed him.

He walked to the middle of the room and turned towards me with purpose. “I just wanted to say, I understand now.” He seemed so earnest, his face bright and hopeful.

I’m sure my face was a mess of confusion. “Understand what?” I asked, my hands balled in fists, squeezing and relaxing. Instinctively, I walked towards my bedroom door, closing it softly but fully. The latch clicked into place.

“Why you said you couldn’t work for me anymore. It’s your feelings for me. I wanted to say that of course I feel the same way. Now we can be together and you don’t have to worry.”

I laughed hard like I was expelling a wad of cotton wedged in my throat. Realizing my tactlessness, I quickly covered my mouth. But it was too late. He saw it. He heard it. He took a step towards me and I mirrored his movements, taking a step back, standing between him and the bedroom door.

“Are you crazy?” I said, barely able to control my surprise. “You’re delusional. I’m with Joseph.”

He shook his head violently, his expression tightening. Putting his head to the side, he crooned, “I know you don’t want to hurt him but I heard you last night. You’re trying to back away from him. I know you feel obligated because of Orlando. But you love me. I’m sure he will understand.”

The word Orlando crept up and bit into me. No one called him that. That name was left back in the mounds, under dirt, rocks, and kisses that never should have happened. He was crazy.

The air in the room suddenly felt oppressive, like an electric storm was brewing above my head. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My stomach turned in on itself as I realized he’d been watching us last night and who knows how many other nights. Why had no one warned us he was unstable?

I looked back and forth, my eyes running along the length of the lounge-room wall. I couldn’t move any further away from him. I was pinned against the door. I couldn’t run, not without Orry. I would have to talk my way out of this. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Look I don’t know why you think these things. I don’t love you. I love Joseph. And I think you should leave.” Honesty was all I had.

Cal’s eyes darkened. He tucked his hair behind his ears, a normal behavior, once comforting, now filled me with dread. Sweat was clear on his brow, despite the cold. The sheen reminded me of slime and my disgust at him deepened. I hoped it didn’t show on my face. I don’t know what my face looked like to him. It felt contorted, pressed in at the wrong places. And his face was flicking back and forth between wild and calm. I didn’t need to worry. He wasn’t reading my face. He didn’t seem to be aware of himself, let alone my expressions. Be careful, I told myself.

“I’m not leaving until you admit the truth,” he said determinedly, thumping his fist into his thigh, edging closer. Each movement dragging with it a clawing, dark shadow.

“That is the truth. You’ve invented the rest in your head,” I said softly. Trying to ease my way out of this like I would lever a nail out of timber I didn’t want to damage. Gently.

He stopped and hit his forehead hard with the heel of his hand. An angry red mark appeared between his eyes. “Oh yeah, I’m the crazy one!” My eyes widened, the tempo of my heartbeats quickening as I felt the danger, the menace of him, swelling in front of me.

I considered how long it would take for him to reach me. It was only a couple of meters. How quickly I could grab Orry and run? How fast was he?  I didn’t know. I knew he would be stronger than me. He wasn’t much taller but he was broad, and wiry, his arms bulging at his shirtsleeves. But I had to try.

I put one hand over the doorknob, the metal comfortingly cold against my burning skin. I turned it slowly, millimeter by millimeter, while watching him. His head was down as he talked to himself. “If he’s the one in the way, maybe we should do something about that.” My ears pricked and a boost of adrenaline surged at the mention of harm to Joseph.

I turned away from him while he was distracted, inching myself forward. I would do it swiftly. Open, grab, run. I counted… on one, two, three as sweat dripped down my neck and under my shirt.

Crack! His arm chopped down on my wrist, the bone splitting pain shooting up my arm. Broken. I screamed long and loud.

He clamped his hand over my mouth; it was sweaty and mixed disgustingly with the smell of handmade soap.

“Sh!” he spat “I don’t want to hurt you. Just admit the truth and we can work this out.”

He put his spare arm over my chest, his forearm tight, the veins popping over the skin like it could barely contain his energy, and dragged me away from the door. My legs kicked frantically, trying to push off something. Orry started crying. Cal’s mouth was close to my ear, his breathing fast and uneven, and his lips wet. I strained away from it, saliva touching my earlobe. What could I say? If I lied and said I loved him, he wouldn’t leave. I had tried the truth. He didn’t believe me.

I struggled but his grip was too tight. He slammed me down on the floor on my back, knocking the wind out of my lungs, and straddled me. His knees pushed into my elbow joints, the bone-on-bone contact made me cry out in pain. Blood was not moving, oxygen had stopped. “Please. Let me go. You’re hurting me.” Begging. Begging could work.

He laughed hysterically, his voice strained, his eyes like hard, amber rocks, gleaming. “Look what you made me do,” he said, his teeth clattering, gesturing at the mess around us. The blood. Then he wrapped his hands around some of my hair, leaned down, and held it against his cheek. I tried not to cringe; I tried not to look at where this might be leading. My fear encompassed so much.

Begging wasn’t going to work.

In all of this, my thoughts were heading off in a strange direction. As I looked at his eyes, which started to swirl in front of me like pinwheels, I thought of my mother. I thought, This is what it must be like for her. Every day. Paulo would never lay a hand on her but the threat was always hovering. And in some ways that was worse. This was what it was like to feel powerless… to be less than a person. It angered me. It threatened me. In that moment, I knew exactly how she felt and it was horrifying.

Cal relaxed for a second, the fury slumping out of him, his eyes hungry. He leaned into my face like he was going to kiss me and the force he was applying to my elbows lapsed. It was all I needed. I brought my knees up and pushed backwards. I could hardly breathe, my chest constricted, forcing air in and out like bellows. Panic was setting in. But I kept telling myself, Don’t let him do it; don’t let him do it.

He lurched backwards and I flipped onto my stomach, scrambling to get away, heading to the corner where all my tools lay, my fingers pressing into the sawdust, sending clouds of it into my eyes.

He jumped to his feet agilely and was walking towards me slowly, his footsteps sounding heavy, pulsing through my chest and supplementing my heartbeat. My own body felt light, like I might blow through the crack under the door.

What was left of me?

“Don’t run, darling.” His voice was a menace, a dark-tinted scratch in the air.

I couldn’t tell where he was, the floor stretched out for miles in front of me, a looming threat behind. This was not the time for things to move in slow motion. I urged time to speed up. I was nearly there, a foot of space between me and a possible weapon. I felt rough hands clamp around my ankle and yank me backwards sharply. My chin grazed the rough floorboards as he brought my head level with his boot. In a final violent action, he brought his boot down on me like he was squashing a cockroach. It made a crunching sound like a cockroach would too. Could my head burst like a berry? No, it was more like an acorn.

My vision darkened, shadowy spots appearing and dancing before my eyes like puffs of smoke. Orry. Oh God. I had to protect him. I had to hold on long enough to protect him. Tears were stinging like acid. I sniffed, and the familiar taste of blood ran down the back of my throat. The blow had brought it gushing from my nose and somewhere else I couldn’t pinpoint. Was I broken apart? Bits of me were not responding. Some parts moving fast, some slow, some not at all.

Cal walked away from me again but he left the shadow, it lay across me like a lead weight and I couldn’t move. Tearing at his hair, he yelled, “I’d rather you disappear than see you with him. I could be a good father, a better father than that guy.”

Help me.

My cheek pressed to the ground; I tapped my fingers on the warm, wooden floor lightly, each finger taking an immense amount of energy to lift, the drumming giving me something to focus on. I couldn’t feel any pain, or maybe my whole body was pain, there was no distinction.

White canvas shoes spattered with blood were coming at me from a weird angle, tilted like the world had sunk sideways. I blinked.

Imaginary arms linked with mine.

Help yourself.

I can ’t.

HELP YOURSELF.

I’m not disappearing.

I ignored my fear, quickly folding it up for later. My eyes focused on the glinting metal a few feet away from me. Don’t count. Just go. I dug in my heels and darted at the only weapon close to hand, my body soaring at it like a low-flying paper plane. I was as thin as paper, sharp as its edges. Could this really be happening? A hammer.

I hugged it to my chest violently, the metal reassuring my heart with a thump. Every footstep he made pounded in my brain like it was attached to an amplifier. Orry’s crying broke through.

I stood. I don’t know how I stood but I did, legs wobbling, one arm hanging like a dead weight.

“Get out!” I screamed, waving the hammer wildly in front of me. I couldn’t see anything but blur and red. I felt the end connect with something and snag. I pulled hard and heard him cry out.

“GET OUT!” I sounded like a shrieking bird, my wings flapping, beating the air and creating a powerful wind. My voice was not my own. It was Clara’s, Apella’s, Mother’s. Their strength in me. Like gravity, the words were solid, thrown at him with force. He took steps backwards, staring at his hands like they were not his own. Then I heard the door slam.

My broken body collapsed to the floor. I heaved myself towards the bedroom door, using my very last bit of strength. I got there and relaxed. I was cold. Curling myself around the hammer, I embraced it, convulsing once, wrapping around it like an old guard dog.

My body was slipping away, slipping into the floor.

My home. Not in my home.

I’d make myself small. Turn my body into a knot in the floorboards. Hard. Impenetrable. Strong.

The clock swirled before my eyes, the ticking unnaturally loud.

7:55.

In my dream, Joseph came home at 7:45 PM.

I run to the door and he tells me to cover myself up with a wink. It’s violating our agreement.

In my dream, I’m not trying, unsuccessfully, to lift my head off the floorboards or even open my eyes.

In my dream, my eyes are bright and my hair is pulled back the way he likes it. It’s not matted and soaked with blood, my head feeling like a hardboiled egg that’s been stepped on.

In my dream, I am safe. Until I wake, I can pretend I am safe.

Because the truth is, I’m never safe.

I never was.

~Joseph~

As I approached the house, I could hear Orry screaming. But I didn’t think much of it. He was probably fussing. I imagined Rosa running around the house, worrying about what we were going to do tonight. I knew she hated surprises but I wanted to show her I knew her. I wanted to show her I listened to her and understood what she needed.

Deshi walked next to me. It was cool and he rubbed his hands together to warm them. He’d left Hessa in town with Apella and had agreed to babysit for me. I think things were easier for him now. He had his own place, a family. But I always felt bad for him. I understood more than most how it felt to love someone and not be able to do anything about it. I hoped he would find someone here, but if he didn’t, there was Hessa. Now it felt more like it did in the beginning, when we were great friends, the best.

“So what’s the big plan?” he asked. Although, I was pretty sure he didn’t really want to know. He didn’t hate Rosa, in fact, I think he respected her, maybe even liked her, but he didn’t understand the two of us together. In my mind, there was nothing to get. Whatever we had—it just was. It worked and would always work. There actually couldn’t be anyone else.

I shrugged at his question, downplaying it. I didn’t want to flaunt our romantic escapades in his face. “Just dinner and a campfire.”

Deshi rolled his eyes. “Sounds boring.”

I shoved him gently. “It won’t be to her.”

I kind of wished I could talk to him about it but I couldn’t, not yet anyway. I wanted to explain how she made me feel. She was this force of nature. At any one time, she was a storm, a sun-filled day, a tornado, and I was willingly caught up in her weather. When she laughed, the air around her moved and changed. When she was angry, lightning threatened the sky. She was unpredictable but I liked to think my presence was calming to her. I felt like I provided her with balance.

We walked up the steps. The door was unlocked and creaked open eerily. I had warned her to keep it locked.

Pushing it open, Orry’s screaming hit me like a warning.

I didn’t see her at first—the pulled-over furniture and streaks of blood drawing my focus. But following the tracks of blood to the origin of my son screams, there she was.

I froze.

“Oh my God,” Deshi gasped, as he ran towards the tiny, curled-up mass of dark hair and blood. He approached her slowly, kneeling down, blood soaking into his khaki pants.

I threatened myself to move, but when I saw her lying there, curled around that hammer, she wasn’t moving. I thought she was dead. She looked impossibly small, her hair fanned out around her like someone had creepily arranged it that way. The floor beneath me seemed to rock and shift and my body started to shake. I told myself to move. My head moved from side to side in slow motion. Where was Orry—was he hurt too?

Thank God for Deshi. Deshi… the guy who got squeamish at the sight of blood, and stood back when I was attacked by that lynx. He saved us both.

He ran to me and shook my shoulders. My body was rigid and didn’t react to his light attempts. “Joe. Snap out of it. She’s alive. Come here.”

She was alive. I waited for the feeling of relief but it didn’t come. Deshi went in to Orry, returning with a tightly wrapped, upset but unharmed, baby. “Is he…?” I asked.

“He’s fine,” Deshi answered but his eyes were dark as tragedy as he looked at my girl. My son was safe. Thank God for that. I knelt down next to her, cupping her shoulder as gently as I could. She looked broken and folded, like the tiniest disruption would make her body collapse. But I knew this wasn’t possible. I had to get on the other side of my panic. “Rosa?” I whispered, my voice sounding breathless. The air in the room felt thin, like we were on top of a mountain.

She managed a moan but she didn’t open her eyes. I turned her over and tried to stretch her out, which was no mean feat. She was clinging to that hammer like it was part of her and I couldn’t pry it out of her hands. I gently shook her tiny wing of a shoulder. “Rosa, it’s Joseph, can you hear me?”

She mumbled something. It sounded like, “Not in my home.”

My heart sank like a lead weight. Whatever happened here, it could have been stopped. I should have been here to stop it. Anger rattled me but I pushed it down. Right now, I needed to help her.

I scooped her up as gently as I could, noticing that one arm was hanging limply at a strange angle. It was definitely broken. She was also bleeding from her scalp and had several cuts and bruises starting to form over her face.

Rosa, what happened to you?

We walked as quickly as we could towards a slowing spinner and jumped on. The bump made her moan again. She was so small, so minute in my arms. I was trying so hard not to let my anger take over but it was pressing into my back like hard hands shoving me forward. I kept thinking, Whoever did this, I don’t care what the reason, I will kill them. I will kill them.

Deshi touched my shoulder and I flinched, every muscle tensed. It jerked me back to reality. He leaned back like he was afraid of me.

“Joe, breathe. If you keep holding your breath like that, you’re going to pass out. I can’t carry the three of you on my own.” He smiled weakly but his eyes had no humor in them.

I lifted her unbroken arm. Her fingers were bleeding; tiny splinters were jammed under her nails like she’d been gripping into the wood for dear life. Her chin was grazed with splinters too. She squeaked and I realized I was holding her too tightly.

How did this happen? The thoughts running through my head made me feel sick. I relaxed my grip and she slumped back in my arms. I watched her chest rise and fall, too fast, noticing that her shirt buttons were done up all wrong.

“It’s all right,” Deshi said, trying to calm me down. “I think she’s going to be ok… most of this looks superficial.”

I stared at him, scared to utter the words I was thinking, “But what if they…” I stared at her torn clothes, grief drying up my words. I couldn’t even say it. Even if she was going to be fine physically, how would she be emotionally?

“Don’t say it, Joe, don’t even go there. We don’t know what happened. We won’t know until she wakes up and tells us. And she will wake up. She will be ok.”

We rode the rest of the way in silence. I just watched her breathe. I watched the air pass quietly through her beautiful, parted lips and tried to ignore the red splotches of skin that were fast turning purple all over her tiny body.

Deshi rocked Orry and reached out to stroke Rosa’s hair every now and then. I was wrong about him, his feelings for her ran deeper than I realized.

Is this what it felt like for you? When you watched me collapse in front of you , did it feel like everything was being stripped away, dreams turning to dust, nothing but grey ash covering the earth? Were you angry? Did you blame me?

You ’re so much stronger than you know.

She’d been under sedation for a day now. Matthew showed me her scans. Her arm was indeed broken near the wrist but it was a clean break. They set it easily. She had a pretty bad concussion and a hairline fracture in her skull that would heal on its own. The scan also showed a previous break in her jaw that had been repaired with a great deal of skill. Matthew told me it was at least a year old and asked how it happened. When I told him I didn’t know, he looked perplexed and I felt inadequate.

When they rolled her onto her side, her gown slipped away, revealing one big bruise spreading over her perfect skin like someone had spilled ink on her. It was like someone had picked her up and dropped her from a height. The insides of her elbows were a blackish purple too. He couldn’t tell me if she had been assaulted in any other way. He was not going to do an exam without her permission, and for that she had to wake up.

Whoever did this was a monster.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with it when she did wake. I wanted to hold her, cover her in kisses but Matthew warned me that if she had been assaulted, she might not want to be close to anyone for a while. That terrified me. And then I felt guilty that I was worried about something so stupid.

What I felt was powerless. I had all this anger, all this pain, and I didn’t really know where to put it.

Watching her now, people would say she is so small. Frail even. Not to me. To me, she was a storm brewing and I knew as soon as she opened her beautiful eyes, she would be a thunderous force.

I just worried and wondered where the lightning strike would be aimed.

My head felt crackly, sounds were sharp and then descended into buzzing. I kept my eyes closed and tried to focus on one thing at a time. Lifting my arm. It felt heavy and clumsy, not my own. Turning my head. That proved more difficult. I could do it but the pain was intense, like there was something jammed in my skull and when I moved it, the object wiggled and grazed my brain.

Then the reason why I felt this way came back to me in a giant and solid assault on my memory. Cal. That bastard. Anger filled me from my toes to the top of my aching head, like hot oil boiling in my blood; it sizzled and popped its way up my body until I could no longer keep my eyes shut.

They pinged open, harsh, white light trying to force them ajar, and the first thing I said was, “I’m going back to get my mother.”

Joseph’s head was dipped and he had his hands folded across his knees like he had been or was about to be sick. And when I spoke, his eyes lifted. They took my face in, and then my words, so his expression went from relief to surprise and then confusion, all in one shutter speeding display. As his face returned to a more calm façade, I could see myself reflected in his eyes. They said more than he could. I looked awful.

I blinked uncomfortably and ran my hands over my lips. Everything felt dry and alive.

Joseph took my good arm carefully, the one that wasn’t encased in plaster, and held it between his own. “It is all right. You were attacked. You’re in the hospital now. You’re safe. Orry’s safe.”

“I know where I am,” I snapped, although the effect was muted, my voice felt like it hadn’t been used in months. “Water, please,” I said more kindly. This couldn’t be easy for him. And I tried hard to remember that but things kept slipping as the knock-knocking in my head started to drown out my thoughts.

I took a sip, slowly, the water sliding down my throat like paint. Trying not to turn my head, I noted the bag attached to my arm, the circle of empty chairs. I took in the normal, easy-to-process things in an attempt to calm my nerves but it didn’t help. I dragged my elbows up to sit but I was dizzy, weak. Anger was all I could feel because to me, it was like I had been on the floor one minute and was now awake and looking for the culprit.

I started ranting. Not really making sense to start with.

“Damn boy, thought he was harmless. I was wrong, Joseph, and then I was waiting for you and I saw him peeking in the window, no that happened before, anyway, I caught him and he got mad. I’m sorry. I tried to talk my way out of it but he was so angry. He was too strong and all I thought about was Orry. I had to protect him. I tried to run but he was too fast…”

Joseph nodded his head along, grabbing at the words and trying to follow, but he was confused. So was I. I slumped further into my pillow, panting. He smoothed my hair back from my face, careful to avoid the gash in my left temple. “Sh. It’s all right. Who? Who did this to you?” He was trying to sound calm, but I could hear the wound-up fury behind it.

“Cal,” I said as an admission. Like it was my fault and somehow I should have been able to stop it from happening.

Everything in him tensed at once. And for a moment, I feared him. Joseph stood suddenly, pushing his chair back and sending it screeching across the linoleum floor. The metal back clanged as it fell to the floor, echoing in the emptiness of the room. He stomped out without looking back, both hands pushing the double doors open with a massive thud.

I wanted to get up but I couldn’t. I tugged helplessly at my drips and wires but my energy was entirely sapped. I screamed but my voice wouldn’t carry. Where was he going? Did he blame me?

I could hear yelling. Just Joseph, because whoever he was shouting at was responding quietly.

“Did you know? Where is he? WHERE IS HE?”

Oh no.

Feet shuffled across the floor and I saw my family. They were carrying steaming cups in their hands, looking at me, and then lifting their eyes to the noise behind the doors. They all had different shades of relief and death on their faces.

“Deshi, stop him. He’s gone after Cal,” I said hoarsely, coughing on the back of my hand.

Deshi understood but he seemed reluctant to interfere, his dark eyes running over me. I found myself curling up. “If he’s the one that did this to you, then maybe I should let Joseph tear him apart.”

I searched their eyes. They were all similarly resolved. What did I look like to them? A tiny girl, beaten, unable to fight for herself. That was not me.

“Addy, Addy. Please. You know this won’t help anything.” She nodded but she didn’t move either.

I tried to pull myself up again, pulling at my IV. If no one would listen, I would go after him myself. But everything felt wrong. My body wouldn’t respond the way I needed it to. Deshi put his hand over the needle I was trying to scratch out of my elbow joint, looking away when blood welled at the entry point.

“All right, I’ll go. You’re so stubborn,” he said. But he said it with love. He jogged through the doors and stopped to talk to a nurse, who pointed him down the hall. I prayed he would catch up with Joseph before he found Cal.

Addy toddled over and pulled a hand-knitted blanket over my legs. I would have kicked it off but I felt so unreasonably cold. She did it lovingly, patting my calf. “You need to rest, dear. Stop getting so worked up.”

“I’m fine,” I said, lying. I held out my good arm. “Can I have my son please?”

Apella, who looked like she was a second away from bursting into tears, handed him to me. He cried and threw his head around, looking for food. One handedly, I tried to loosen my gown so I could feed him. Apella put her hand up to stop me.

“You can’t, Rosa. I’m sorry. The drugs they gave you for the pain means you can’t feed him.”

My hand fell from my gown like a dead branch, brittle and useless. Something burst inside me. “What?” I whispered. This was unexpected. I thought I would be happy to stop feeding him, but this felt like it was too soon, like I’d been robbed of a bond with him. Or at least robbed of the choice of whether I wanted to stop or not. Apella held up a bottle and it nearly broke my heart. Things had been battle for us from the start. Feeding him had been the first thing that brought us together. Now that was gone. I shook my head sadly. “I can’t,” I whispered. Addy scooped Orry out from beneath my weak arm and Apella passed her the bottle. My heart took a sudden punch as I watched him eagerly take the teat and drink.