His Baby Boy novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Thirty Hours

Perrin did not say he was sorry.

He knew better.

He reached across the corner table and took Malcolm's free hand in both of his, and he waited.

"The Coast Guard called at six," Malcolm said. "I was still at my desk, with my face on the contract. They had found the boat. He was a mile off Cape Elizabeth."

Perrin held on.

"There was a squall at midnight. Nobody was out. He wasn't a bad sailor, he was nineteen, he thought he could beat it back to the harbor." Malcolm's thumb moved against Perrin's knuckles. "He'd left the logbook open on the dock. The last line said, Back by morning. Don't wake Mal, he's wrecked."

A small broken sound came out of Perrin's chest.

"I raised him from ten," Malcolm said. "Our parents died in a car on Route One. I was sixteen. I fed him, I signed his report cards, I sat through the tantrums and the tooth fairy and the first heartbreak. I was the one who locked the doors every night and checked the stove."

"And that night you didn't," Perrin said.

"I fell asleep," Malcolm said.

"You'd been awake for thirty hours."

"I know how long I'd been awake." The words came out sharper than he meant, and he stopped and breathed. "Everyone says it. The lawyer, the Coast Guard, the minister. It wasn't my fault. And every night I lie down in a bed, my body knows better. It stays awake. It listens for the door."

Perrin stared at him.

"Nine years," he said.

"Nine years. I sleep a few hours when I'm worn out enough to pass out at my desk. Otherwise I lie there until it gets light." Malcolm's mouth twisted. "Except here."

"Except here."

"At this table. Twenty minutes, from nine to close. I never understood it. I thought it was the coffee, or the noise."

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