Chapter 28
I carried Leena upstairs while everyone else settled in to watch Christmas Vacation, the portable crib already set up in the corner of Beckett’s old room. She was past tired and straight into that restless, overstimulated phase I knew was about to be bad.
“Almost bedtime,” I murmured, changing her into pajamas. “Just a little longer and then sleep.”
She answered with a long, high whine and held her arms up again the second I zipped up her pajamas.
“I know.” I kissed the top of her head and set her in the crib. “Lie down for me. I’m right here.”
She immediately stood back up, gripping the rail and bouncing on her toes, face crumpling. “Dada. Dada. Dada.”
Each time she said my name, it was more heart-wrenching than the last. I glanced at the closed bedroom door for the tenth time in as many minutes, waiting for Shannon’s silhouette to appear. But still, she didn’t.
“Okay. One more minute.” I lifted Leena out, letting her bury her face in my neck while I walked a slow circle around the room.
Her little body was warm and heavy against me, the way it always got when she was fighting sleep.
I rubbed her back and kept my voice soft even though everything inside me felt wrong.
Shannon’s distance today.
The house that had somehow made things worse instead of better.
The analysts on television treating my name like a bargaining chip.
The reminder that I still wasn’t good enough for anyone.
None of it would settle.
I tried lowering Leena into the crib again, keeping one hand on her stomach. “Shh. Lie down. I’m right here.”
The second I straightened, she pushed herself up and reached for me, lower lip trembling harder now. I dragged both hands through my hair and stood there, watching the door like it might magically produce the one person I needed.
Not good enough for the team.
Not good enough for Shannon to talk to me.
Not even good enough to get my own daughter to sleep without falling apart.
I was so far down this spiral that I didn’t register the soft scramble of fabric behind me until the sickening thud hit the floor.
I spun.
Leena was on the ground, one arm bent funny after she’d climbed out of the crib and fell. Her face was frozen in a silent scream—eyes wide, mouth open, no sound yet.
Time stopped.
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t do anything except look at my daughter on the floor and know, with absolute certainty, that I was right there and still let this happen.
When sound caught up to her, the cry that tore out of her was unlike anything I’d ever heard—high, raw, and terrified—and punched straight through my chest.
The door flew open.
Shannon was there in an instant, dropping to her knees and scooping Leena into her arms before I could even take a step. “What happened?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Beckett and Emmy appeared in the doorway, voices overlapping, hands moving, someone asking if we needed an ice pack, someone else saying we needed to go to the hospital to be safe.
Bodies moved around me like I was a rock in the middle of a river, unmoved by the rapid currents.
I stood in the middle of it all, watching my worst fear play out in real time.
I was right there.
Right fucking there.
Shannon’s voice cut through the fog enough for me to understand we needed to go. I nodded, or maybe I followed when they started moving.
Down the stairs.
Out into the cold.
Snow still falling.
Beckett took the driver’s seat and Shannon climbed into the front. I got in the back beside Leena’s car seat, my hands clumsy as I helped buckle her in while she kept crying that awful, broken sound.
The second the door shut, the world narrowed to the small space between us.
Leena’s face was red, wet, and scared, and the sight of it had every emotion I’d been holding at bay crashed into me at once.
The fierce, bone-deep love.
The terror.
The crushing knowledge that keeping her safe was my number one responsibility, and I’d failed.
I reached over and covered her little hand with mine, my thumb brushing across her knuckles.
“I’m so sorry, kulta,” I whispered, voice wrecked. “I love you so much.”