27. Hannah
Hannah
Idrove up the front drive of the Drakkar estate with both hands tight on the wheel, reminding myself that I was here for the painting Megan made me, not because I missed Brakkus.
I’d repeated it so many times on the drive over that the words had started to lose shape. Painting. Megan. Guest room. One quick errand. It was a practical thing. People went back for their belongings all the time. It didn’t have to mean anything.
The gate opened before I reached it, smooth and silent. My stomach dropped, wondering if it was Brakkus who opened it.
I had a script ready to say to him when he answered the door. “Hi, I’m sorry to bother you. I left something important in the guest room. I’ll only be a minute.”
Simple. Polite. Normal.
The pale limestone house glistened in the sun.
The agave and yucca stood sharp and still along the drive.
I parked beside the black G-Wagon. Brakkus was definitely home.
I turned off the car before I could talk myself into leaving, got out, and walked to the front door.
I rang the doorbell, my heart pounding so hard my fingers were numb.
Lola answered, and her face lit up when she saw me. “Oh, Hannah. I missed you,” she said, leaning in to hug me. I hugged her back, her warmth and care worse than if she had been cold.
“Hi,” I said as I pulled back. “I’m sorry to just show up like this. I left my sister’s painting in the guest room. I only need to grab it.”
“I found it on Monday when we were deep cleaning. I was secretly hoping you’d come back for it.” Lola stepped back at once. “Come in. It’s still in there.”
“Thank you. I’ll be quick.”
I stepped inside, and Lola shut the door behind me. “You want something to drink?”
“No, thank you.” I adjusted my purse on my shoulder. “I really just need the painting.”
“Okay, mija. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
I headed down the hall toward the guest room past the photos of Brakkus I’d seen my first day at the estate. I looked away.
The guest room looked like it had the day I moved in.
It should have helped that the bed was made, the nightstand was empty, and the chair in the corner no longer had my cardigan thrown over the back.
There was nothing left of me in the room except the painting sitting on top of the dresser. I walked over to it.
Megan had painted me as a little girl, standing at the stove in Dad’s kitchen.
The memory itself was not tender. I had been a kid making dinner because Dad didn’t seem to know how.
Megan had taken that fact and somehow made it look like love instead of survival.
I picked up the painting, wiping a stray tear from my eye.
When I left this property, I was sure I was doing the right thing.
I believed that removing myself would make everything simpler for everyone.
In the foyer I turned through the arch into the living room on my way to say thank you to Lola for keeping my painting safe.
I was halfway through the room when I noticed Otto in the playpen by the window.
For half a second, my brain didn’t understand what my eyes were seeing. He was sitting on the padded mat with his knees bent and his little hands loose in his lap. His stuffed dragon lay near one foot. A foam tusk rested by the mesh.
He wasn’t touching either one. He wasn’t moving. He was barely blinking.
“Otto?” I said softly.
He didn’t look at me. His eyes were open, but they were distant and unfocused, fixed on nothing. His mouth was slack. One cheek was flushed from sleep or crying or tusk pain. I didn’t know and I hated that.
I’d seen him stare like that in the first weeks I was here, before I got him eating, before we visited Hesta for the teething ointment.
My chest went hollow as recognition settled over me.
This wasn’t a tired toddler staring at nothing.
Otto had regressed again, and I found myself walking toward him before I consciously decided to.
I set the painting on the side table without looking away from him. The frame knocked softly against the wood, but Otto didn’t blink at the sound. I slowed my pace as I approached the playpen. My heart was knocking against my ribs when I crouched beside the mesh.
“Hi, sweet boy.”
Otto didn’t respond. My mouth trembled, and I covered it before a sob could get out.
I wanted to reach in so badly my fingers hurt, but I couldn’t justify even letting him see me.
I’d left him. I’d packed my suitcase and walked out of this house believing I was doing the right thing.
Now he was sitting in his playpen with that faraway look on his face.
I didn’t think I had the right to step back into his life.
Then Otto blinked. His gaze shifted, barely at first, as though he were coming back from somewhere very far away. Then his eyes found mine.
“Hatta,” he said.
The word was small and rusty, almost swallowed. It was his word for Hannah. The sound went straight through my chest. Otto lifted both arms, reaching toward me. I made a broken little noise as I reached for him.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered, picking him up.
Otto came into my arms without hesitation. He folded himself into my chest like he had been waiting for me the whole time I was gone. His little fists caught in my shirt. His face pressed into the side of my neck, warm and damp, and I had to swallow hard enough that it hurt.
“Hi,” I whispered into his hair. “Hi, baby.”
His fingers flexed in my shirt as his body softened and then seemed to wake up all at once. His feet shifted against my hip, his breath caught and eased, and one little hand patted my collarbone with clumsy urgency.
“Ah betta, Hatta.”
A gasp came from the kitchen doorway. “Oh, mijo.”
I looked up to find Lola standing just inside the living room with one hand pressed over her mouth and tears shining in her eyes.
“He hasn’t said a word since you left,” she said.
My arms tightened around Otto.
Lola took one step closer, then stopped like she was afraid to disturb him. “He hasn’t been eating. Barely sleeping. Brakkus has tried everything. Nothing’s worked.”
Otto tucked his face deeper into my neck, and my eyes burned. He had needed me, and no one had called. I pressed my cheek to the top of his head and rocked him gently in my arms, overcome by emotion I was too afraid to name.
Otto had both fists tangled in my shirt and his face tucked under my chin.
He was solid and alive in my arms in the way toddlers were when they trusted you with every ounce of themselves.
I could feel his breathing against my throat and the tiny shifts of his hands when I rocked him.
Every time I moved, he made a soft sound and pressed closer.
Moments passed as I just held him. There was nothing else in the world. No custody claim, no agency, no Vossics, no terrible drive back to my dad’s house. There was only Otto in my arms, breathing against my throat. Then Lola’s breath caught, and her hand lowered from her mouth.
I looked up and found Brakkus standing in the entry to the living room. He was in his true form, broad enough to fill the doorway, his dark hair rumpled and his shirt pulled tight across his shoulders. His eyes were fixed on me and Otto, and his face was raw in a way I’d never seen.
He didn’t look angry or guarded. He looked wrecked. Otto turned his head toward his father, and I braced myself for Brakkus to cross the room and take him from me. I had walked away once. I would not make him ask me to let go.
Otto’s little fists tightened in my shirt, and he tucked his face back under my chin. My arms closed around him automatically. Brakkus stayed in the doorway, watching his son cling to me like I was the place he’d been trying to get back to.