[This section is from Marin’s point of view.]
There was a quiet rap at the door. For a second, I contemplated not answering, pretending that I was still asleep and hadn’t heard. It wouldn’t do any good, though, and truth be known, I wasn’t sure that I was really up to being alone any more than I was up to having company.
I got up and silently crossed the room, holding a blanket around my shoulders. Neve peeked through the crack when I opened the door and I just barely managed to smile.
“I probably shouldn’t ask if you’re okay,” she said. “I know I wouldn’t be if I was in your shoes. Do you mind if I come in, though? I thought maybe you could use some company.”
I nodded silently and turned away, walking back toward my bed and sinking back down into the nest of covers. Neve followed, tugging the door closed behind herself. She sat down next to me with a quiet sigh, running her hand up and down across her belly.
“Are you okay?” I asked her softly. Somehow, worrying about her was easier than thinking about the discomfort I was in.
“I think I’m better off than you,” she said, working her shoes off and letting them drop to the floor. She’d taken to mostly wearing flats that were almost too big because boots were just too hard to put on and take off again. She inched backwards once she’d dealt with her shoes and leaned against the wall, her expression more than a little concerned as she looked at me. “All I’m dealing with is Phelan and Aoife sniping at each other and my unborn children thinking my bladder is a punching bag.”
I choked on a laugh, eyes tearing up. Neve slid her arms around me as my tears turned to sobs I couldn’t stop, sobs that made my throat close up and my body shake uncontrollably.
“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. “I promise, Marin. I promise and swear to you that it’s going to be okay.”
“How can you be so sure?” I gasped between wracking sobs. “Neve, I’m not even sure. I don’t know that he’s going to be okay, that it’s going to be okay, that I haven’t lost him…that he’s not gone forever. I don’t know. How can you be so sure?”
“Because I know all of you and I know your brother.” She drew back to meet my gaze and I stared back at her through my tears. Her expression was grim, but determined—more determined than I could ever remember seeing it before.
“I know your brother,” she repeated softly, “and I know there’s not a goddamned thing that would keep him from coming home. Just wait and see. He’ll be back before you know it—one way or another.”
I knew it wasn’t what she meant, but to me, ‘one way or another’ meant either alive or dead.
She must have seen that in my face because she drew me into another tight hug.
“He’ll be fine,” she whispered into my ear. “Just wait and see, Marin. He’s going to be fine and he’s going to come home to you and Thom and all of the rest of us. There is no universe where that doesn’t happen. I swear it.”
She can’t know that for sure.
Or could she?
I shuddered and she held on tighter.
“I promise you,” she whispered. “On my honor. Everything’s going to be okay. It will. Just wait and see.”
I wanted to believe her the same way I’d wanted to believe Thom. It just wasn’t easy to do.
I wouldn’t—couldn’t—actually believe any of them until I heard it from my brother himself and somehow I doubted that would be happening anytime soon.
But I stayed quiet, let her think I’d believed the words that might have been a lie. I let her comfort me in the only way she knew how, the only way that made sense, and I sat there in her arms until my tears were spent, my throat was raw, and I had nothing left except an aching, empty void inside that only my brother’s voice had a prayer of filling.
I knew I would have to live with that pain until the day he came home.
One way or another.
