“I lovvve you,” she whispers in a soft, willowy voice.
“Love you too.”
Her eyes move past me, flickering over the cave walls. “Outtt of alll of the plaaaces we’vvve been, this is myyy favoriiite.”
Lifting her hand, I rub my lips along the back of it. “Mine too.”
Her eyes meet mine again, and there’s a glint in them. “Tell meee a ssstory.”
I grin and situate my head close to hers. “How about you tell me a story?”
She grins crookedly at me. “I will next time.”
“Okay. Hmm….” I tap my chin, wondering which one of the many private thoughts I’ve had of Molly I should tell her. “There once was a boy and a girl who lived down the road from each other,” I start, making Molly laugh. “The boy had the biggest crush on the girl before he even knew what a crush was. One day, the boy was in the shower and was thinking about the girl when they went swimming earlier that day. He was probably around ten years old. He remembered seeing the girl in her bathing suit and thought of how pretty she was. Having a weird feeling in his stomach, he looked down and saw that his penis was hard.”
Molly’s sputtered laugh has me pausing. “Thaaat did nott happen,” she insists, her eyes bugging out.
I give her a deadpan look. “It absolutely did.” Using the hand that’s still interlocked with hers, I press my finger against her lips when she goes to speak again. “I’m not done with my story.”
“I’mm not suuure I want to hearrr the ressst,” she mutters against my fingers.
I laugh and tsk her. “There the boy was, in the shower with his penis hard. He didn’t realize at first what it was that got him excited, but he soon realized it was thoughts of the girl. He had been hard before, and had even touched himself, but it was never to thoughts of the girl, or any girl for that matter. Intrigued, the boy thought more of the girl and what she looked like in her pretty blue, flowery bathing suit. Of course, the typical boy that he was, he wanked off in the shower while he thought of her. That was the first time he ejaculated to thoughts of her. It scared him at first and he didn’t do it again for months. But he did eventually.” I grin big at her. “A lot.”
Her expression is a mixture of shock, intrigue, and a hint of disgust. The combination twisting her face makes me laugh.
“Yooou’ve got to beee lyinggg.” She curls her lip up. “Boysss don’t dooo that kind of thinnng that yoooung. They caan’t evenn ejacuuulate that young.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, baby, but yeah, we do, and some boys can that young. I noticed touching myself felt good when I was seven.” Her eyes widen. “I didn’t know what the feeling was, and it’s not like I walked around playing with myself, but I did twiddle it from time to time.”
She frowns, a small crease forming between her eyes. “Dooo you thinkkk Gray….” She jerks her head from side to side. “No. Never minnnd, I dooon’t want tooo know.”
I lean up on an elbow and rest my head in my palm, leaning toward her and lowering my voice. “I’ve already had the talk with him. Believe me, he knows way too much for my liking, but he’s fourteen. It’s to be expected.”
“I don’t eeeven want to connntemplatte the idea offf him being ooold enough for stuuuff like that. He’llll alwaysss be my littllle boy in myyy mind.”
“They are growing way too fast.”
With effort she rolls to her back and she grips my shirt. “Doon’t lettt them grooow up too fast,” she pleads. “Makkke them stayyy younggg for as long as posssible. Love them harrrd for me, Lincoln, and alwaaays be there fooor them. Theey arrre going too need you sooo much.”
My chest hollows and a dull ache forms. She’s asking me because she won’t be around to ensure it herself. I have no fucking clue how I’m going to be in any shape to do what she’s asking. I’ll be the walking dead once she’s gone. Barely living, and only because the kids will need me. But the look in her eyes, the way her lips tremble, the desperate tone in her voice, and the tears slowly sliding down her cheeks, there’s only one answer I can give her. Only one answer that I know will help her through this.
“I swear, Molly,” I tell her vehemently, brushing her tears away. “I’ll love our babies for the both of us. I’ll always be there for them. No matter what, no matter how much I’ll be hurting, our kids will always have me to take care of them.” My eyes tear up, and I have to work hard at keeping them from falling. “I’m going to need them as much as they’re going to need me.”
She nods and sniffs, her cheeks pink under the smattering of freckles. I’m going to miss seeing those damn freckles.
I lie down and take Molly with me, situating her until she’s lying halfway on my chest. She moves her head until her ear is resting directly over my heart. I’ve noticed her doing that a lot lately. Like she’s become obsessed with listening to the beat.
But it’s not my heart that’s in danger of stopping.
It’s hers, and I’m terrified of when that day will come.
Though mine won’t stop, it will certainly break.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
MOLLY
Since my hands no longer work properly, I’ve taken to rereading my own personal journals instead of writing in them. There’s been a few times I’ve dictated to Lincoln while he’s written down my words, but it doesn’t feel the same. It’s not that I don’t want him to know my private thoughts—there’s nothing I don’t want him to know. I take that back. There is one thing. I don’t want him to know the deep-seated pain I feel of leaving him and our kids behind, or the fear of what will happen to them once I’m gone. Of the pain I know they’ll go through. I’ve accepted my fate, but the kids are so young, their minds too immature to fully understand. And Lincoln…. He hides it so I don’t see it, but I know he’s suffering in silence.
I run my finger over the intricately painted design of one of my journals. It’s of the dock at the lake house, with the sunset in front of it, casting a pretty colorful streak of light across the water. At the end of the dock, there’s a silhouette of a man and a woman sitting, their feet hanging over the edge. The woman has her head resting on the man’s shoulder. Lincoln never said so, but I know the couple is us. When we were teenagers and I’d come to the lake with him and his family, we’d spend hours sitting on the end of the dock. Some evenings we’d spend our time talking about the future, and sometimes we’d just sit in silence, letting the water lapping at the wood and the sounds of nature talk for us. The dock was one of our happy places.
The first few years Lincoln made me journals, they were notebooks with the covers painted over. Then all of a sudden, he started making them himself. With help from his dad, he learned how to bind pages together and glue the cover on. As the years passed, the covers he designed became more elaborate. Although it’s one of the ones he bound himself, and one of his more simpler designs, it’s one of my favorites.
Weakly, I flip to the middle of the journal, ready to go back to a time that wasn’t surrounded by impending grief, pain, and worry.