"I think you just made her night giving her that necklace," Henry remarked happily, closing the door behind us for the night. I disappeared into the bathroom to brush my teeth and felt the familiar tug of just how exhausted I was by the feeling of walking in slow motion.
"I'm pretty sure the small diamond sitting over the 'I' sweetened the deal." I cracked a grin in between brushing and spit out the toothpaste into the sink before rinsing. Like most years, I went back and forth on what to get her. At one point, I considered just doing the gold writing but decided to have the jeweler put the diamond. I figured she only turned sixteen once, and she had proved over and over she was responsible.
"Yeah, maybe." Henry maneuvered around me, now dressed in a grey t-shirt and boxer shorts as he reached around me for his own toothbrush. I was slightly envious he could change that quickly. I would have killed to change in a flash instead of feeling like a slow moving turtle. " I know she loved the new cell phone we got her, but did you see she only picked it up one time? I think Jason was more interested in it than she was."
"I noticed that too." Strolling back into the bedroom, I rounded the bed to my side and pulled the covers over my body as I tried to settle into a comfortable position. "Do you ever wonder if it was a little too much for her knowing where I go?"
"It's clear she's in shock about the whole thing." Flipping the lamp switch on his side, the room brightened and then dimmed as he turned off the bedroom light. "From experience, I know it's not exactly the easiest to wrap your head around knowing where you're going. Maybe she just needs to know you're going to be okay when you do."
"Maybe." I agreed mostly with what he was saying. It couldn't be easy knowing wherever I was could easily make the news in an instant. But when you were a teenager, everything seemed a lot worse than it was especially when your friends were on every aspect of social media. "I'll try talking to her tomorrow. Right now I just want to see if I can get a little more shuteye before I had to wake up and greet the day."
"Okay." He nodded, picking the book off the nightstand and pulling the covers around his body. " I think I'm going to read a little before I call it a night." Leaning over, he pressed a long kiss to my lips. It had been tradition ever since we were married to always kiss before going to sleep at night. There were the exceptions when we were both irritated with the other we failed to share the love. That and when one of us was out of town.
The room fell silent as Henry cracked his book open and I stared at the ceiling while letting my thoughts wander. I tried to convince myself Alli was dealing with getting over the shock of the places I went instead of something else, like dealing with mean kids or human emotions. Deep inside, I got an unsettling thought that wasn't it at all.
Did Stevie know what was going on with her? Even though I've heard sisters could be a real pain in your side, sometimes you told them things you didn't tell your parents. So when I found out I was having two girls in a row, I always wished them to be best friends, and to tell each other things when they couldn't tell us.
I wasn't sure when I had fallen asleep, but I soon woke up to the soft snores of Henry sleeping beside me. It took me a minute to realize why I was awake just after midnight. I had been having awful dreams about Munsey taunting me with what he did in Iran.
Grabbing my phone off the nightstand, the screen illuminated up the room a little. I realized I hadn't checked it much since returning home. I had texts from Nadine and Blake checking up on me, and also reminders for funerals for Fred and a couple of other details who had recently lost their lives.
I felt another headache coming along as I read another text about their bodies being brought back to the states this morning. A funeral had been planned for Fred tonight; the other two were planned for the next day after. I gave one long sigh as I settled back into the darkness.
I was expected to come to these things and sometimes I wondered if it did the situation any good being there. Sure, they knew the risks and came anyway. However, I was alive and they weren't. How could I not be blamed for that?
Trying to settle back into a comfortable position, it was obvious I wasn't going back to sleep any time soon. After realizing Henry was dead asleep after several minutes of struggling to get up, I shuffled down the hall.
I considered peeking in on the kids—especially after our conversation earlier about Alli. We had always made it abundantly clear the kids could always come to us if there was something wrong. Not that it happened super often, but we always tried to make ourselves available no matter what job we were at. I just wished they would come directly to us when something was up. I would have killed to tell my mom what was on my mind just one more time.
Flipping on the kitchen light, I grabbed a mug from the back of the cabinet and went about making myself some hot cocoa and grabbed some crackers from the side cabinet by the fridge. The fact I hadn't eaten much lately was catching up to me and now I was starving even though I still didn't feel like I had a huge appetite. Funny how almost nothing seemed appealing when you were hurting.
Scooting our a chair from the table, I sat down and embraced the silence. It was rare I had any time to myself, let alone in the middle of the night. It was odd but welcomed as I twisted a cracker between my fingers and took a bite. I munched on it for several seconds before throwing it back on the table. There was a reason you only ate them with soup or when sick, otherwise, they just tasted like cardboard.
Brushing off the crumbs, I went for a piece of toast instead. The sound of the toaster popping up echoed throughout the house as I placed it on a paper towel and walked back over to the table. Thankfully no one woke up the entire time I was downstairs. If they were getting better sleep than I was, I would take it.