Page 13 of Caution to the Wind

“You’ll help her too, right?” she asked, clutchin’ at my wrists, beggin’ me with those big green-grey eyes she’d shared with her mum. “Just like you helped Mum and me.”

“I promise,” I said, and I would have written that promise in blood let from my own vein if Cleo had handed me a knife. There was nothin’ in the world I wouldn’t do for this slip of a girl that Kate had trusted me to love and care for. I could still remember the day I’d married Kate at the courthouse, the awe and trust shinin’ from the eyes of both mother and daughter. The memory was bittersweet now, but I kept it at the forefront of my mind just the same. “You won’t be losin’ any more family on my watch, okay?”

“Okay, Dad,” she murmured, and relief suffused her expression as if her prayers to God had been answered.

Her belief in me made it hard to breathe for one long, hard moment. Only two other people had ever believed in me like that. Kate and my stepmum, Lin, who taught me everythin’ I needed to know about family bein’ thicker than blood.

“You ready?” I asked my whole world.

Cleo searched my face one last time, then nodded before turnin’ to push open the door.

Mei looked tiny in that white hospital bed in that white room, her black hair the only spot of colour like an ink spill over the pillow. Metal plates obscured part of her face to fix her shattered nose so you couldn’t see the faint freckles she had from the summer sun or the dimple that popped out when she smiled. She was a pretty kid, but she looked next to death in that bed, one step away from a much too early grave.

Cleo burst into silent tears, wet racin’ down her cheeks into the tee she’d worn for well over a full day now. She let go of me to rush to Mei’s side, her face a pastiche of agony and guilt. Her hand shook as she extended it to push a lock of hair back from her friend’s ashen face, and she looked to me as if for permission.

“You can touch her, Glory,” I whispered as I dragged two chairs to her bedside and sat in one.

“When will she wake up?” Cleo whispered back as she stroked Mei’s hair, then leaned over to kiss her forehead. One of her tears fell to Mei’s cheek and rolled off her jaw.

“When she’s ready.”

“Can we wait?”

Anythin’ for you, I thought, studyin’ how fragile she was. “Of course, ’til her parents come.”

So we did.

When Cleo got too tired to do anythin’ but sleep, she carefully crawled into bed with Mei, a curved shield at her side. A lump the size of Alberta lodged in my throat when she gently twined their fingers together and then immediately fell asleep.

I studied the two vulnerable young girls in that bed and finally let myself have a moment of pure anguish. Clutchin’ my weddin’ ring between my palms, I bent over it and started prayin’. I had no fuckin’ idea how to pray, seein’ how I didn’t much believe in God, but I sent my wishes for goodness in those two young lives out and up as far as I could.

I dragged my chair to the other side of the bed closest to the door to protect them from whoever might enter.

I prayed they’d have a future filled with only love, joy, and success.

I prayed I’d be strong enough to give that to them, the way I had failed to give that to Kate. Not just Cleo but this poor girl so forgotten by her busy parents that she’d become a second daughter to Kate.

I prayed the worst had come and gone for them, and honestly, a weary part of my soul prayed the same for me.

And when I finished prayin’, I lay my head on the bed for a second, one hand on each of those thin shins, and let the agony of grief drag me into a restless sleep.

MEI

The first thingI felt when I woke up was pain. It was a dull drumbeat under the muffled coating of drugs in my system, but it was still uncomfortable enough to set my teeth on edge.

The second thing was Cleo.

Her Vera Wang Princess perfume in my nose, her soft hair tickling my cheek, and the sweet tangle of her fingers in mine.

I opened my eyes to see a white ceiling, white walls, and two Axelsens.

Cleo was curled at my side, salt tracks crusted on her cheeks but otherwise blissfully peaceful in sleep.

Henning lay across my feet, his hand on my shin, the other curled around Cleo’s. He had to be uncomfortable with his big body bent in half like that, but I was grateful he was close.

I wondered if I’d ever feel safe without him again.

It was hard for my twelve-year-old mind not to tangle him up in the role of hero. I’d heard the story of how he’d saved Kate from her troubled past and Cleo from a childhood of dangers, and now, he’d saved me, even if he hadn’t been able to save Kate.