Chapter 14
Supper was a somber affair. Michaela was not yetwell enough to come down for the meal and after the embrace she had given him in the bedroom Sully wasn't sure he wanted to leave her side. He hoped that if he stayed with her he could somehow silently convince her that she was all he needed in life to be happy and that she and the children were still as special to him as they had always been and would continue to be. And yet he forced himself to come down for the meal, eating in silence with Katie and Brian after Colleen and Andrew had returned to their home. He had come downstairs to eat partly for the children and partly because he was still too confused about things with his wife to stay with her without wanting to shout in anger or burst into tears, neither of which he though she could handle. In the back of his mind he wondered why she had not given him the letter he had found all those months ago, especially after what he had said to her. He was confused by the fact that she had never once mentioned it and acted as though she had never intended for him to know it existed. He was also mystified as to why she had never said that she didn't love him. She had had ample opportunities but had said nothing and had acted as if she was genuinely shocked at his false revelation. Of course the reality was she didn't know it was a false revelation and had taken it to heart, a reaction that had made Sully wonder if he had missed something in his relationship with his wife before he left, and whether his leaving for longer than a trip had any reason behind it at all. He quickly pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind, reminding himself once again of the words in her letter and the meaning of them. His heart-song no longer loved him and her tears must only signal her compassionate nature. "She doesn't want to hurt me…that's all. If the tears meant anything else she wouldn't have asked me to leave the house."
Finally satisfied that he had read the situation with as much consideration as possible. He turned his attention to his sleeping son and daughter who lie across the room from him in the bassinet that Colleen had brought in from the barn after Michaela and the twins had came home. Sully had decided to take the babies downstairs with him for a little while, watching them as he ate his meal and again now as he sat before the fire. He realized sadly that because of the situation between him and Michaela, he would not get to spend much time alone with Charlotte and Josef. He didn't know how to communicate his love for his children without being there everyday as Michaela nursed them and rocked them to sleep. Those were things she and he did together when Katie was little and he always had felt as if Katie had appreciated her father's presence during these activities and that these moments were why his little girl loved him so much now.
As if to prevent the distance he felt was possibly growing between his youngest children and himself, he quickly went to the bassinets and lifted Charlotte against his chest. She curled against him and squeaked with pleasure at being held and kept warm. Her trust in him lifted Sully's spirits and he communicated his thanks by slowly rubbing her back in circles the way Michaela and Katie liked to be comforted and held. Like her sister and mother, little Charlotte relished the gesture and fell asleep quickly in her father's arms. Sully felt her tiny body grow heavy and her breathing become even and deep and he swayed with her gently, determined to spend this moment making his daughter's sleep as peaceful as Michaela's refused to be.
After several moments of swaying, Sully walked with his youngest daughter over to a wingbacked chair and sat down. He hoped that sitting down would prompt his body to give in to the exhaustion he'd been fighting for the last thirty-six hous and he felt comfortable to know that when he awoke his daughter would be safely in his arms and his other daughter and sons would sleeping as well, although he doubted that Brian and Katie's sleep would be as peaceful as Charlottes and Josef's were.
As Sully began to close his eyes, his ears had tuned to the things around him, the soft sighs of the twins, the peaceful breathing of wolf, the crackling of the fire and the gentle winter wind that blew outside of the homestead. As was as it should be and he began to think that it was okay for him to close his eyes just for a moment without any guilt. He would leave the homestead for tonight, but for now he needed sleep if was to be any use to his family in the days to come.
Katie had come down the stairs and was now staring at her sleeping fathe rand the baby that he held in his arms. Because of the commotion surrounding her father's arrival, she hadn't even learned whether she had sisters or brothers or one of each and she wondered what kind of baby her papa was holding. She also wondered whether Papa would mind if she woke him up. She couldn't sleep because whenever she did she dreamt of mama and Papa both leaving her and of never seeing them again. The dream frightened her so much that she refused to close her eyes, and yet she felt so sleepy that she knew one of her parents would have to have woken up because they could make the bad dreams go away and she could sleep, Carefully Katie approached her fathe rand put her hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him, but being careful not to knock him out fo the chair or hurt the baby he was holding. Her papa's eyes opened instantly and she smiled at him, hoping she hadn't bothered him too much. "Papa."
"Kates, what is sweet girl?" Sully asked, wipe the sleep from his eyes with one hand while carefully holding onto Charlotte with another. At that moment he wished he had a third hand to pull Katie into his embrace, but his lack of it made him try to smile all that more gently at the little girl as she stood frightened before him.
"I had a bad dream," Katie stuttered, her small voice quivering.
"'Bout what?" Sully asked gently, careful not to push too hard. He knew that Katie would tell him in her own time and that pushing her would make the little girl's temper flaire up in much the same way as her mother's did.
"You and Mama were fightin' again and you left…both of you. You hated each other and said that you wanted to get as far away from each and from me because I was a part of both of you and one of you hated one part of me and one of you hated the other. Papa, you said I came from you and Mama's love, so now that you don't love each other no more, does that mean that I shouldn't exist? That seems to be what my dreams were tryin to tell me and Cloud Dancing said that dreams are always telling people something and so if you and Mama said that in the dream that must be what you meant, right? For real, right?"
At his daughter's words Sully realized that he would have to put Charlotte back in the bassinet and hold Katie in his lap for this talk. The little girl thought that they both hated her and that because of the current situation, coming from the love of her parents was an impossibility and therefore that she shouldbn't exist because she view the concept of coming form their love as a constant thing. Though he and Michaela had told her of her both and the reason for her existence during happier times, they had never thought that she still view herself as part of their connection, their union. The purity of that thought struck Sully dumb for a moment as he walked to place Charlotte in the bassinet next to Josef, He contemplated how he would phrase his response to his daughter.
When he had again taken his previous seat and had lifted his six year old into his lap, he turned her so that she faced him and began trying to explain what he knew the little girl already understood within her heart. "Katie, Mama and I will always love and yes you did come from our love and contiue to be proof of it everyday but just because Mama and Papy aren't showin their love for eachother right now, doesn't mean that you don't deserve to exist. Even if we don't say I love you any more and Papa lives in a different place, you'll always come from our love, the love we had when we made you, when Mama was carrying you, when we had you and when we see you now. That's the kind of love you come form and that can never change, just because Mama and Papa are hurtin right now, understand?"
Katie nodded slowly and then buried her face in her father's chest as she had the day he had left all those months ago, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding tight. Please don't leave Papa. Stay with Mama. I know she love you and I heard you say you loved her. You though you were being quiet but I heard you. Why doesn't Mama believe you? Why is she being to mean Papa? I hate her. I swear I do."
"Katherine Elizabeth Sully, don't you ever swear, you hear? That language ain't good for a girl your age to be usin. And don't you tell me or anybody else you hate your Mama. You don't hate her. I know you don't. And lyin is not part of being a grownup girl," he stated sternly. Sully's tone softened, though, as he said the next words, "I do love your Mama and I think she loves me, though I ain't sure right now." Sully watched as Katie's face began to get angry at her mother again and quickly added, "But that ain't her fault, it's mine. Papa was the one who really hurt Mama. We got some things to iron out, but I shouldn't have left. So I'm the one who done wrong Kates. Your Mama misses you and she missed enough people lately. I know you want to protect me, but I don't need protectin, and I know you love me and I love you too and she needs you to love her just as much as I need you to love me, perhaps more because she's hurtin. She needs her little girl back Katie. Right now you can make her feel better than I can. And you wanna make Mama feel better, don't you?" Sully knew that his daughter had a compssionate heart and that she would never want her mama to really hurt, even if she was angry and Sully could tell be Katie's trembling lip that she realized how mean she had been to her mother. He was, however, surprised at the intensity which filled his daughter's next sentences.
"I love Mama too" she sobbed, "I miss her. I wante dher to comfort me when I was scared and missin you but I just didn't know how to tell Mama I was wrong. I didn't know whether that would make her cry more than when I said that I hated her and I didn't want to make her cry more Papa. I just wanted her to bring you home. I though if I kept yellin, she'd go and find ya, and I guess she did, but I didn't want her to have the babies all by herself.'
'She wasn't all by herself, Katie. I was there, just like I was for you."
"And did you kiss the babies' heads and Mama when they was born, just like you did for me?" The little girl asked, drying her tears and suddenly excited at hearing how the new babies were born.
"Uhh…sort of, Kates" he said, quietly, not sure what to tell his daughter about how painful the moments right after the twins' births were.
"Did you give them their names? Did you and Mama agree just like you did on mine? Did you name them after Grandma like you did me?"
"Nope. We wanted them to have their own special names, " Sully said standing with Katie in his arms and walking over to the bassinet. He leaned over the bassinet so that Katie could see inside of it and get her first good glimpse at her brother and sister. Lightly touching Charlotte's cheek, he turned to Katie and smiled, "Say hello to you sister, Charlotte Ingrid Sully," he said with a big smile.
"Charlotte, like Matthew, Colleen and Brian's other mama?" Katie asked. "What a pretty name. I have a baby sister!" She exclaimed, not quite sure how to deal with all the revelations swirling around in her mind.
" Yep, you do." Sully stated, his grin widening even farther. "And this here's you brother Josef," he said, reaching over to strokes Josef cheek and to touch the hair that so closely mirrored his own.
"Papa, what's the rest of his name?" Katie said, barely able to contain her excitement as she reached down to touch both of her new siblings.
"He don't have a middle name yet, Kates," Sully said quietly.
"But why not, Papa?"
"Cause Papa wasn't so nice to Mama and I didn't give him one and your mama didn't do it because she said she wanted me to do something special for you brother and now I feel real sorry I didn't do it when she asked me to."
"Well do it now then. Go up and tell Mama his name. Maybe she'll be happy again."
"Kates, it doesn't work like that, sweet girl. But you're right, we do need to bring the babies up to Mama. They should be getting hungry right about now and as soon as we done that, you're goin' back to bed and getting some sleep, you hear?" Sully said, trying to lighten the painful mood that had been ever present ever since the conversation had started.
"Okay, Papa." She said. "Put me down and pick up the babies and we'll go see Mama."
Sully did as she asked and both of them went up the stair to the master bedroom to see Michaela.
