Long Way Down (Calloway Sisters 4)

Who will one day run fast and wild.

She coos in contentment.

“Hey there,” I say, “Sullivan Minnie Meadows.” She stretches her left arm as though to say, that’s me.

I lift my eyes to Ryke once more, and he nods at me, unable to contain tears, rolling down his cheeks. I stare deep into him, and he stares right back at me.

I’m lightheaded, but I hang onto him while the world recedes. I see us racing through golden stalks, my arms whipping along. Then I reach into the air. The orange horizon warms my body, and I scream madly and happily.

Nothing can stop our souls from singing. Nothing can stop our spirits from shrieking.

So whatever anyone says, whatever anyone thinks—I’ve lived so very long. I’ve been in love. I’ve been free.

I’d like to think, no matter where I go, I can still be found. Just look up.

I’ll be there. That’s where I’ll be.

Every time the sun shines down, maybe you’ll think of me.

RYKE MEADOWS

Daisy has been in surgery for two hours.

I can’t fucking talk about it to anyone. After all the overcrowding, I’ve asked her sisters, my brother, and everyone else to just give me some fucking time alone. The nurses have me in a hospital room for the baby and “in case Daisy returns,” they said.

I didn’t want to be apart from either of them, but I couldn’t go into surgery. They tried steering me into a waiting room, but I refused to leave Sullivan. So I watched the doctors check her, clean her, and they said she was healthy.

After I washed off, they let me have her back.

When I returned to the private room, I pulled the chair over to the window. I’ve been sitting here for an hour. The rain never letting up. Sullivan sleeps in my arms, swaddled in blankets. She stirs a couple of times, lips parting wider, but then rests again.

I finally talk, my voice low and raw. “I’ll never love you any fucking less…whatever happens—she wouldn’t want that.” My throat tightens. “Even if…” I can’t fucking say it. Even if it’s just you and me.

The whole notion is fucking crippling—yet, I fucking sit here knowing it’s a real possibility. She hemorrhaged. She lost an extreme amount of blood. I’ve blocked out everything after her eyes shut. I won’t ever fucking recall it. I won’t let it fucking plague me, eat at me, come back. It’s gone.

I’ll only remember how happy she looked. How happy we were. How happy we are.

I can’t start crying because if I start fucking crying, I’ll never fucking stop. Our child doesn’t need a father who can’t walk, can’t breathe, can’t eat. If Daisy can’t be here, I’m not letting anyone else raise Sullivan but me.

The door creaks, and I look over my shoulder and see Price, of all people. I don’t really acknowledge him. I just turn back and watch my daughter sleep.

I hear him come forward and then stop.

“I want you to know, Ryke,” Price says, “that I’m going to be here for you and your child, no matter what…”

I’m rigid, in a fucking fog that I have trouble escaping.

“…and I asked her dad what his intentions were in hiring me. Since Daisy and you had been concerned about my age.” He pauses. “I know why he chose me.”

I listen but I can’t respond.

“He wanted someone that would be here for the long haul. He knew you’d both build a family at some point, and he wanted you to have someone you could trust by then. I won’t retire in ten years. I won’t quit on you. I’ll be here for as long as you and Sullivan need me. I just wanted to give you that.”

Greg Calloway. Thinking ahead. Actually believing in us from the fucking start. I could laugh—how I’d been fucking paranoid for nothing. I can’t laugh though. I can’t do anything or say anything.

I can’t move.

Then I hear the door shut. He left.

I stroke my little girl’s cheek. “She named you Sullivan…”

Adam Sully would’ve loved it, which is why it fucking gets to me. I put my hand to my mouth. I wonder if the name was a spur of the moment idea or if she’s thought about it for a while.

I’m not sure I’ll ever have the chance to ask.

The door creaks again. Heavier soles strut closer, but I lack the energy to turn and see a face this time.

“…I won’t pretend like I can understand what you’re feeling.” I would know that coarse voice, like sharp gravel, fucking anywhere. My dad. “We’ve had plenty of differences, but my love for you, son, has never changed. I’ve always wanted to be a father to you.”

I can’t get into this. I can’t repeat the fucking past and scream at him until I’m blue in the fucking face. I can’t tell him that he gave up on me. That he shunned me. That he made me an outcast by name, by place, by birthright. I can’t fucking do this.

He nears my chair, but I’m not turning around to greet him.

And then he says, “I’m sorry, Ryke.”

My nose flares, restraining fucking emotion. This is the first time he’s apologized to me.

“…I’ve hurt you the most over time. And I’m sorry for what I did. You didn’t deserve to take the fall for my actions and my reputation. I failed you, and I’m sorry.”

My jaw locks but something wet slides down my cheek. I wipe it before anything else crashes through.

He’s so fucking stubborn. Set in his ways. I never really thought he’d admit to doing anything wrong. He can reroute history so it seems like he was saving someone—my brother, himself—but in the end, I’m the one who fucking paid.

He never cared. Never really fucking understood.

To hear that he does—I can’t…I can’t compute it right. I can’t do anything with the apologies at the moment. So I may not be able to tell him now, but this is the past. I can let go.

I can forgive again.

When I hang my head, too spent to tear at my floodgates today, his footsteps withdraw. The door clicks closed. I shut my swollen eyes tightly, pressure bearing on me.

Nothing I do releases it, so I open my eyes, my daughter close to my chest. I kiss her forehead, just as she wakes. My thumb brushes her soft cheek.

She’s so fucking small and fragile. I search her features, trying to spot Daisy in them. Maybe her delicate nose. Her wide, curious eyes.

Something like a rock lodges in my throat again.

She stirs more and lets out a weak cry about the same time the door swings open. “Ryke.”

I sit straighter, my gaze darting to the nurse in white scrubs. She gently shuts t

he door, being quiet for Sullivan. When she approaches, I notice a bottle in her hand. I shake my head on instinct. Daisy was looking forward to breastfeeding, and I’m still thinking, I don’t want to take that from her.

What’s fucking wrong with me?

“Do you want to feed her or do you want me to?” the nurse asks. “She has to be fed now.”

“I can,” I barely get out. She hands me the bottle, and I tuck my daughter a little closer. I put the bottle to her lips, and she starts sucking, her wide eyes filling with contentment. I watch her for a while before focusing on the nurse again. “Do you know anything new…?”

“No.” Her eyes flit to the floor. “But I promise if I hear any updates, I’ll let you know.”

I feel hollowed out and cold. I return my attention to Sullivan.

“I’ll be back to check on her, and if you need anything, you have the buzzer over there.” She points at the empty hospital bed.

It must be thirty minutes later—the bottle set aside and Sullivan asleep again—when the door cracks open one more time.

I hear footsteps. And then the feet of another chair scraping across the floor. The wooden seat pulls up right next to mine. When the person sits down, I rotate to find my brother.

He slouches and stares out at the rain, and I keep fucking looking at him. Until he meets my gaze and says, “What? You think you’re alone or something?”

I inhale a ragged fucking breath, the weight of this killing me. I can’t contain it any fucking longer. I break down, and he stretches his arm over my shoulder.

I fucking sob because I’m terrified to live a life without her. Where the world is nothing but dark and lonely again. I don’t know how to be that light for our daughter, but I know I have to fucking try.

I know I can’t give up.

I know I have to be the man that Daisy fell in love with.

RYKE MEADOWS

4:17 a.m.

My week-old daughter cries while I change her diaper in the bathroom. “I can do this in under a fucking minute, sweetie.” I unsnap the bottom of her heather-gray onesie that resembles long johns, a cotton yellow hat keeping her head warm.