Chapter Four
FOR ONE HIDEOUS SECOND, the tableau held. Then, appalled, Laurel rushed to her son. As she swept him to her, terrified sobs broke from him. Tearing her to pieces. Remorse and horror ripped through her. Dan was shaking uncontrollably, sobbing, gasping.
“You were…sh..shouting,” he said stammeringly, “shouting and shouting…” terror clear in his trembling voice, clinging to her desperately.
Knives stabbed into Laurel. “Oh, darling, it’s all right! It’s all right!” she said urgently, kneeling to his level so that she could hug him completely, arms snaking around him as his little body racked.
Oh God! What have I done?
Guilt crucified her. To have let rip like that as she had, allowing her fury to boil over, her rage and anger exploding, thinking of nothing but herself, her own fury, shouting as she had, hatred and rage naked, vicious in her voice.
“It’s all right, darling!” she said again, in an agony of remorse, hugging him closer and closer still as his anguished, terrified sobs went on.
“I was scared!” He could hardly get the words out. “You were angry and I was scared!” he said, his voice choking.
“Oh, darling!” she said again, helpless and guilt-stricken, arms tightening around him.
Then, suddenly, there was someone else there. Someone else hunkering down. Another voice added to hers. “It’s okay, Dan. I promise you, it’s okay.”
Xander put his hand on Dan’s back, his fingers spreading out, reassuring and comforting him. “It’s okay,” he said again. “We were shouting, yes, but it’s okay. We won’t do it again. It’s all right now. I’m sorry we scared you.”
His eyes met Laurel’s. For a moment both were silent.
Then she realised Dan’s anguished sobs were subsiding, slowly turning into hiccuping gasps.
His trembling was easing too, and Laurel slackened her arms around him but kept them there all the same.
With one hand she reached to smooth his hair.
As she did her fingers brushed the back of Xander’s hand, which was still resting on Dan’s back, but she didn’t care.
She didn’t care about anything except that she’d reduced her own son to terrified shaking and sobbing…
“It’s okay,” Xander was saying again, his hand rubbing Dan’s back now, calming him more, his words, his voice soothing him, reassuring him.
It took a while longer, but at last Dan had seen it through. Slowly, Laurel got to her feet but took hold of Dan’s hand. Xander took the other one.
“Are you okay now?” he asked. His voice was low, concerned.
Dan gulped, not speaking, but half nodding, lifting his eyes, tear-stained and reddened, to Xander, and then to Laurel.
“Mum…” he said faintly.
She squeezed his hand, realising he couldn’t say more.
Shock and fear were still only just below the fragile surface.
She led him back into the sitting room, drew him down beside her on the sofa, absently clicking off the TV.
She put her arms around him, snuggling him up against her.
She could still feel slight tremors going through him.
Guilt still consumed her. Excoriated her.
She realised Xander was standing in the doorway.
“What can I do?” he asked. His voice was low. She heard guilt in it too.
Both of us—we both did this. We did it to our son—our own son.
She took a breath. “If you look in the top cupboard by the cooker you’ll see a carton with strawberry-flavoured powder in it.
Make it up with milk from the fridge, and warm it in the microwave.
You’ll find a sippy beaker in the cupboard for the mugs.
I use it when he’s not feeling well because it’s easier to drink from. ”
She’d brought both with her, never dreaming she’d need them because she’d reduced her son to sobbing terror. Knives stabbed her, guilt and remorse…
She saw Xander give a brief nod and disappear. She went on nestling Dan against her, holding him close.
“Dad’s making you your strawberry milk, pet,” she said.
She dropped a kiss on his head, arm tightening around her.
He wasn’t capable of speech yet, and she could still feel his little body trembling.
She didn’t try and say any more, just smoothed his hair again, holding him against her.
She just wanted him calmer and restored, and not terrified any longer.
Terrified of me, of Xander and I yelling at each other. Filling the air with our rage. Our vile, destructive rage—
Through the open doorway she heard the microwave ping, and a few moments later Xander was there, coming up to the sofa holding Dan’s old sippy mug that had been his since infancy. A safe, familiar friend.
The sofa dipped as Xander lowered himself down on it, holding out the mug. “Here you go, Dan,” he said. “Just what the doctor ordered.”
Dan took it, and started to drink from it, the familiarity soothing him. He didn’t say anything, but Xander did. He lifted his hand to close it gently around Dan’s shoulder, his other arm stretched out along the back of the sofa.
“I’m sorry we scared you, Dan,” he said.
“We didn’t mean to, your mother and I. We were just…
arguing.” His voice was low and quiet. Dan’s eyes were half shut, the soothing repetition of drinking his warm strawberry-flavoured milk calming him, his little body warm against her side.
She could feel him relaxing now, coming down the other side of the tumult in him.
“Mums and dads argue sometimes,” Xander said in that low, quiet voice. “We didn’t mean to upset you.” He paused a moment. “We won’t argue again like that.” His eyes had been on Dan’s face, but now they lifted to hers. “Will we?” he said.
There was a wealth of meaning in his words. Of intent. She could feel the will emanating from him like a force field. Telling her. Warning her.
But she did not need warning. She knew what they had done. What harm, what damage. What they must never, ever do again.
She swallowed. It felt like there was a rock in her throat, in her lungs. “No,” she said. “We won’t. I promise you, darling, we won’t.”
Xander stood by the patio doors. Night had fallen, but he did not draw the curtains. He stared out into the unseen garden, his thoughts heavy. At the slight sound behind him he turned. Laurel had come back into the room.
“He’s asleep,” she said. “No bath, just straight to bed.” He could hear the careful neutrality in her voice.
He nodded, making his way back towards the sofa, sitting down, leaning forward slightly. “We need to talk,” he said.
He waited as she crossed to the sofa facing him.
While she’d been upstairs, getting a suddenly exhausted and out-of-it Dan to bed, he’d lit the wood burner, and a cheerful flame burned behind the glass door, throwing warmth into the room.
He’d set the central heating on as well, keeping it relatively low.
There’d been heat enough expended, destructive and dangerous.
To Dan—
Laurel sat herself down, that same contained pose of knees and legs neatly parallel, hands in her lap. Tension was visible in her, her face still pale, but she was calm at least. The calm after the storm.
The storm that must never happen again.
For Dan’s sake.
She had begun to speak, her voice low, expression sombre. Her words echoed what was in his own head. “What happened this evening must never, never happen again.” Her words fell into a heavy silence.
Then he said, “No.” His gaze rested on her. It was hard to do so, but he must. “Somehow—” he paused, then went on, picking his words through the impossibility of what he was now saying “—we have to find a…a different way…forward.”
He studied her expression. It was still sombre, still netted with tension, but had that tension diminished, even if only very slightly, by what he’d just said?
He spoke again. “I don’t know—” he paused again, then made himself go on “—just how we’re going to do that, but we must.” His gaze rested on her. “For Dan’s sake.”
She dropped her eyes, but nodded. “Yes,” she said.
He waited a moment to see if she would say anything else, but her expression was closed in on itself. He tried to think back to how that vicious row in the kitchen had escalated so hideously. Which of them was to blame?
He let the question go. It didn’t matter how it started—only that it must never, never happen again. He let his gaze rest on her again, her eyes still downcast, staring at her hands folded in her lap. As if, he thought suddenly, she were guarding herself.
Against him—
Emotion flickered in him, but he didn’t know what it was.
Instead, looking at her, he spoke again.
His voice as sombre as hers, and for the same reason.
Making himself speak, saying what had to be said now.
“Whatever way we find, perhaps—” he took a breath, realising it was ragged at the edges, knowing why “—this evening served a purpose. Not just showing us we cannot ever let that happen again, for Dan’s sake, but maybe—” He broke off.
Her eyes had lifted to rest on him impassively. But they were veiled as well. Still guarding herself—
Yet there was something new about the way she was looking at him. Since discovering Dan’s existence she had never looked at him like that.
As if, for the very first time, she isn’t resisting me in some way. Resisting everything about me. Resisting my presence in her life—the reason for it.
“Maybe it did some good too. Got the worst out,” he said.
“Lanced a festering wound?” There was no sarcasm in her voice, but there was something, definitely. Yet it was not directed at him.
At herself—
He nodded slowly. “Maybe,” he said again.
He took another breath, kept his eyes on her face. Said what he needed to say now, what she needed to hear. What he did too.
His gaze on her was steady as he spoke. She met it full on, yet not defiantly, not hostilely. Nor guarded either. Just…hearing him out. He made himself continue, hard though it was. Made his eyes stay on her. His voice was sombre.