Chapter 12 - The Alcove Where We Could Breathe Again
Dad didn't take us far. Just around the side of the big hall, past the double doors where the air was cooler, into one of those little alcoves with a marble bench and a sconce that buzzed real quiet. My legs still felt shaky when I sat down. The stone was cold right through my pants.
He crouched in front of us so his eyes were level with mine. His breathing was still fast from running and shouting. I could see sweat at his hairline.
"Hold on," he said. "Stay right here a second."
He left us for maybe twenty seconds. I watched him go to one of the catering guys by the back table and say something low. The guy nodded and handed him two little plastic bottles of water and then Dad shrugged out of something — no, someone gave him two dark suit jackets from the coat rack. He came back fast and knelt again.
He twisted the cap off the first bottle and handed it to Maya. "Small sips, honey."
Maya's hands were shaking so bad water sloshed onto her yellow dress. The sheer sleeves were damp already from tears. She tried to drink and coughed. Dad steadied the bottle with his hand without taking it from her. Then he opened mine.
"Drink, Leo."
I drank. The water was room temperature and tasted like plastic, but my throat felt like sandpaper and I hadn't realized it until then. I took three big gulps and Dad put his hand lightly on the bottle. "Easy. There's more."
He draped one jacket around Maya's shoulders. It swallowed her. The sleeves hung past her hands and the collar stood up around her cheeks. Then he put the other one around me. It smelled like cologne and cigarettes, not like Dad, but it was warm from being inside and I pulled it tight.
For a minute nobody talked. The music from the main hall sounded far away and muffled, like it was coming through a wall of water. I could hear Maya's breathing slow down. She wasn't doing that hiccup-cry anymore. Just sniffling.
Dad rubbed his thumb back and forth across the back of her hand. "You're doing good," he said quietly. "You're safe right here."
Maya looked down at the jacket sleeves covering her hands. She wiped her nose on the inside of one. Then she stopped crying.
It wasn't all at once. Her shoulders just dropped, and she took a long breath through her mouth and let it out. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her cheeks were blotchy, but the tears stopped coming.
"I flinched," she whispered.
Dad leaned a little closer. "What, baby?"
"When she — " Maya swallowed. Her voice was hoarse. "When she swung it down, I did like this."
She showed us. She jerked her head to the side and threw her arms up over her face, elbows tight together. The big jacket slipped off one shoulder and Dad fixed it without thinking.
"I thought it was going to hit," she said. "I closed my eyes."
My stomach twisted because I remembered exactly that second. The sound the bat made cutting the air. Maya's yellow sleeve next to my arm. I could still see her arms going up.
Dad's jaw tightened. He nodded slowly, like he wanted her to keep going but didn't want to push.
"I kept my eyes open," I said. My voice sounded rough. "I saw it come down."
Maya looked at me. Dad looked at me.
"I should've pulled you away," I said. "You were right next to me and I just — I froze. I didn't move. I just held on to you."
I hadn't meant to say it out loud. It had been sitting in my chest since we huddled on the floor. I was the older one. I was supposed to do something. Instead I'd just squeezed her arm and waited for it to hit.
My eyes burned. I stared at the marble floor so I wouldn't cry again.
Dad put his hand on the side of my neck, warm and steady. "Hey. Leo. Look at me."
I did.
"You didn't do anything wrong," he said. "Neither one of you did."
"But I didn't — " I started.
He shook his head. "Freezing doesn't mean you failed her. You stayed with her. You didn't run and leave her alone. That's brave."
He looked at Maya. "And flinching doesn't mean you did something to make her swing. You hear me? That was never about you being bad."
Maya picked at the jacket's button with her covered fingers. "She said we embarrassed her," she said in a small voice.
"I know," Dad said. "She was wrong."
He pulled us both in a little, careful, not tight like before in the middle of the hall when everyone was staring. Just close enough that our shoulders touched his. The jackets rustled.
"We're going to leave here soon," he said. "Not yet, but soon. And when we do, you stay with me. Okay?"
May you like
Maya nodded against his shoulder. I nodded too. My hands had finally stopped shaking, and hers had too. I could feel her breathing next to me, slower now, even.
From the main hall I could still hear voices rising and falling, but in that little alcove it was just the three of us and the buzzing light and the cold bench under us. For the first time that night I felt like I could think again.
