Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 129681 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129681 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Dread tightened his expression. “Trying so hard to give you a life, Salem. A real life. One where none of us have to be afraid.”
A wistful smile pulled to my mouth. “Is it wrong it’s finally starting to feel that way?”
His lips thinned as he contemplated. “No,” he finally said.
Juni grabbed her favorite doll and pressed it to the window, the same as Gage was pressing a teddy bear to his. Darius watched her, his love pouring out. He returned his gaze to me. “I’m going to Carly’s. Just…be careful, okay?”
“I am.”
I’d been careful for years. I’d basically perfected it.
Darius slipped out the door and into the night, and I leaned down and kissed my daughter on the top of the head. “Come on, Juni Bee, you need to finish getting ready for bed.”
“Oh, man, do I have to? Looks it right there. Gage still wants to play, and Molly is finallys getting to say hi to him.” She held her doll out to me like she was a person.
Light laughter tumbled from my mouth, though I kept my voice firm. “Tell her to tell him goodnight.”
She poked out her bottom lip. She turned her sad face to Gage. He pouted right back.
The two of them were wrapped up in their own little language, so sweet, especially when he drew a little heart on the window.
It panged in mine.
Juni giggled and blushed and brought her shoulders up to her cheeks. “I loves him the mostest, Mommy!”
“It looks like he loves you, too.”
I sent a wave to the little boy then shut the curtains. Cutting off her view was the only thing that finally coaxed Juni to her feet.
We moved into the short hall where the second bathroom was across from Mimi’s room. We could hear her snoring from behind her door.
Juni scrunched up her nose and held her laughter, her words a secreted whisper, “Mimi is a snorin’ up a morin’.”
“A morin’, huh?” I quirked a brow.
Juniper nodded with a blink. “The worst kind.”
I touched her chin. Affection pulsed at my chest.
Powerful.
Unending.
A gift that’d made it out of the ash.
My one purpose.
“It’s time for you to get to snorin’,” I told her.
“Oh, fine, okay,” she grumbled.
She went to the sink and brushed her teeth, and then she was running back for the living room. “Story times!”
She dove onto the makeshift bed we’d made on the floor, and I climbed down beside her as she grabbed the book we’d been reading together, the first in The Boxcar Children. Sitting on the mat, I pulled her onto my lap where she sat facing out. Her little heartbeats thumped against my chest as I went to the page we had marked.
I began to read.
Soft and slow.
Changing my voice the way Juni demanded I do.
She rocked her head back to look up at me, those eyes full of their belief. “I’d live in a boxcar with you and goes on every adventure you wants to take, Mommy, but I likes it here the best.”
My spirit squeezed in sorrow.
Each time we’d moved from one place to another, I’d amped it up, told her we were going on a great adventure, and tried to make it seem as if it were exciting rather than a horrible reality of our lives.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to her forehead. Inhaled her sweet scent. The truth that the last four years of our lives had affected her in a way that I doubted I could fully understand. Prohibited her from planting roots. From feeling stable and safe.
I whispered at her skin, “I like it here best, too, Juni Bee, so much.”
“But we’ll be just fine just as long as we’re togethers, right? Wherever we go?”
“Wherever we go,” I promised.
A playful grin stole over her lips. “Even Antarctica?”
I tickled her. “Even Antarctica.”
She squealed and laughed, and I nuzzled my face into her cheek. Loved and made a million silent promises.
Wherever we go.
Wherever we go.
Resolution pulsed through my chest. I was determined it would never again come to that.
I would never let paranoia take me over.
I would never again frantically pack the empty suitcase that now sat against the wall.
We’d never again drive away in the middle of the night from a place that had barely become home.
Twenty minutes later, Juniper was sound asleep, and she had her cheek pressed to her pillow and her black hair was spread around her precious, cherub face. I’d dimmed the lights so she could sleep, and night danced and played across the walls as I brushed my fingers through her hair.
Softly.
Methodically.
Quietly giving her the peace that we’d lacked.
Praying it would stand.
That we no longer had to be afraid.
A frown took hold when my phone vibrated from where I’d left it on the couch. Precisely three people had my number.
Mimi, Darius, and now Eden.