So I’d broken into her house.
I’d used my lock-picking kit and forced my way into her home, ready to do battle with her.
I’d thought that she would fly at me with fists swinging.
I hadn’t thought that I’d walk into the house to hear Vlad screaming. Nor had I expected to walk toward that screaming to see Mavis on the floor in a pile of devastated tears.
I didn’t stop the urge that overtook me.
Instead, I went with it, going down onto the ground in front of her on my knees, then wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in tight to my body.
She hiccupped, her body ready to do some damage upon feeling me, but then she relaxed, as if every last bit of fight leeched out of her.
She collapsed into me, her face going into the crook of my neck, as bone-racking sobs tore through her.
She cried so hard, and for so long, that I started to get worried.
Her son behind the door finally eased his tears right along with his mother, and soon both of them quieted until there wasn’t anything left but the occasional hiccup.
I don’t know how long I was down there with her in my arms.
But I did know that when I finally got up and carried her into her bedroom, my knees fucking hurt each step of the way.
But it was worth it.
Even the breathlessness that hit me only a few steps in.
Her hand went over my broken heart, and she felt the racing as I moved toward her bed.
When we got there, I tried to put her down on her own, but she held onto me like if she let go, I would disappear.
And I damn well might.
Breathlessness wasn’t the only thing rocketing through me in that moment.
Terror and worry were close on its heels.
“Don’t go,” she pleaded. “Not yet.”
Not ever went unspoken, but I knew that she meant those, too.
But I couldn’t make that promise.
“I’m dirty,” I told her, trying to make her see reason.
“I don’t care,” she admitted. “I need to wash my sheets anyway.”
I wasn’t that dirty.
I’d changed about halfway through the day due to a car leaking on me, and the only ‘dirty’ thing about me right now were my boots.
Boots that I easily slipped off as I got into bed with her.
Vlad started crying again just as I was about to position myself around Mavis’s body.
“Should I go check on him?” I asked her.
She sniffled and loosened her arms, letting go of me reluctantly. “Sure.”
I didn’t like the way that ‘sure’ came out.
As if every ounce of what made Mavis Mavis was gone.
But I got up anyway, because having Vlad quiet would make the next few minutes that I allowed myself to spend with Mavis better.
After crawling out of bed, I headed for Vlad’s door, finding him on his back in his bed, screaming just to scream.
“What’s all that noise about?” I asked him quietly.
The moment he heard my voice, the tears stopped.
He smiled a gummy smile at me, and I reached down into the bed for him.
After getting a good cuddle from him, I changed his barely wet diaper and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
Even the small exertion of holding him in my arms was making me breathless.
“I need you to be a good boy,” I said to Mavis’s son. “I have to go help your mother.”
As if he understood my words, he didn’t cry or complain once as I laid him into bed and then tapped his nose with my finger.
He smiled, then closed his eyes.
I left him there after only another second of watching him to head back to Mavis’s room.
When I arrived, it was to find her silently crying in a devastating ball in the middle of her bed.
“Mavis,” I murmured as I moved to the bed once again.
This time, I didn’t hesitate in crawling into it.
I just got into that bed and wrapped myself around her tightly before saying, “Why are you crying again, baby?”
Her breath caught. “My own kid hates me.”
I opened my mouth to deny that, but she sniffled hard again. And through a blinding whirlwind of tears and broken sentences, she told me what it’d been like to live with her son since he’d been born.
“He cries, constantly,” she whispered. “But only for me. You, the mailman, Fran? Y’all can look at him and he’s a different kid.”
I thought about that. “He’s never crying when you bring him somewhere.”
She shrugged. “No. But I think it’s because he knows he won’t only see me.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “Your son isn’t that smart yet. He loves you.”
“He hates me,” she disagreed. “I couldn’t breastfeed because he literally hated my breast milk. Yet he’d drink what I pumped no problem. And when I try to feed him, he doesn’t let me hold the bottle. However, when Fran or you feed him? He allows you to hold the bottle.”