On The Run: Part Two

Chapter Twenty-Five - "Maternity & Beyond"

Sarah

“Hey, are you feeling better?” I asked, poking my head through the door. She was standing by the bed, taking all the throw pillows off the bed, and onto the ottoman at the foot of her bed.

She nodded, “Yeah, thank you.”

“Are you turning in?” I asked.

“Not really. Sarah, I’m sorry. About earlier. The things I said. I’m really sorry. For everything,” she said, her face scrunched in contrition.

I nodded, “It’s okay. You going to tell me what happened?”

She shook her head slowly, and climbed under the covers. “I had a moment, everything came back and it hurt.”

I walked over and leaned on one of the bedposts, “It wasn’t that you just missed my awesome company?” I joked.

It had the desired effect. Well, partly. She gave me a hint of a smile, “I had a really nice time with your dad. Is he mad?”

I shook my head, “Of course not. Are you hungry?”

“No, I’m good. I had a large lunch.”

I nodded. “Okay. You’re not allowed to cry anymore,” I said firmly, and then headed for the door.

“Sarah?” She stopped me in my tracks.

“Yeah?”

“Can you . . . will you stay?” she asked hesitantly.

I felt my heart swell. I smiled and walked slowly over to the bed, as she shifted, leaning up on the headboard with a pillow.

I climbed in under the covers and stuck a pillow behind me, “Did you win anything at poker?”

She smiled, “A hundred dollars. I’m really bad at the game. Everyone was happy you weren’t there,” she said, and added quickly, “Not in a bad way. They just didn’t want to lose their money to you, they said.”

I laughed, “They’re terrible players honestly. If they were any good, they’d see how bad they were.”

“It’s all luck, really.”

“Luck and control.”

“I have control, but no luck, so it’s really pointless,” she replied.

I raised a brow, “See, you can’t say things like that. It’s depressing, and life’s depressing enough. Everyone’s got luck. Just might not be what you want.”

She gave me a half-smile and shrugged.

“So, tell me what you did, besides listen to the endless orations of a bunch of old guys,” I said.

“They do have a lot of stories.”

“I know. Makes you wonder about theirs, doesn’t it? Okay, tell me.”

“Well, we played poker, and then I went to bed. Roxy kept me company. Then, this morning, your dad gave me breakfast in bed, while he went and played golf with Jerry. I watched TV – there’s a surprising amount of pointless reality television on at the moment, so I just kept flipping through the channels. Then, when your dad got back, we walked Roxy round your backyard, which is unnaturally huge.”

I grinned, “My mom liked the space. She always said, if I ever went missing, at least there’d be lots of places to look before her hope finally disappeared. She was paranoid like that.”

“Did you go missing a lot?”

“Just a few times. Once, when I was five and wandered off and slept off having a tea party beneath an oak tree with my dolls – we didn’t have a lot of security then. Ironically, it wasn’t till we did that I actually went missing for real – I was kidnapped when I was thirteen.”