Chapter 9: Papa

Quentin's POV

Sabina looked at me over her son's head, and I understood she was giving me a choice I hadn't earned.

She could say no. She could say I was a friend, and send me out into the cold with his question hanging in the air.

"Yes," she said.

Her voice was thin. She was looking at me, not at him.

"Yes, my love. He is."

Jamie considered this with his whole serious face.

"Far away papa?"

"Not far now," I said, and knelt on her kitchen floor.

My knees found the tiles.

He came across the room dragging his blanket and stopped an arm's length from me.

He had her freckles across his nose and my chin.

He studied me with his whole serious face.

"You're big," he said.

"I am."

"You have a face like me."

"You have a face like me," I said, and my voice failed.

He lifted both arms.

I didn't know what he wanted for a second. Then I did, and I picked him up.

He weighed almost nothing and he was warm all over.

He put his cheek down on my shoulder and sighed.

I turned my face into his hair so that nobody would see.

Three years.

Behind me I heard Sabina cover her mouth.

I carried him back to his bed myself, because he held onto my sweater until I did.

She stood in the door with her arms around her middle while I tucked the blanket under his chin.

"Stay until he's asleep," she said. "Then we talk."

He was asleep in four minutes.

I stood over the bed longer than I needed to.

In the hall she leaned against the wall with her eyes shut.

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