A/N: Hey, guys. I am so sorry for the extreme lateness of this update. It's been a really busy week/end, and I kept thinking I'd find a time to post, but alas, I did not. :/ Hopefully this extra long chapter will make up for my massive scheduling fail. No trigger warnings here, but the hills are alive with the sound of angst and deep psychological trauma. Played around with POV a little near the end; idk, I like how it turned out. Enjoy.
Chapter 38.
Sad Love
. . .
Daphne's hands trembled as she ended the call. Six pairs of eyes—three human and three canine—gazed back at her in anticipation. It would have been seven if Sammie weren't drowsing in her baby swing, and if an infant could understand the concept of her mothers returning home from the hospital. Explaining it to the older kids had been tricky enough. Daphne had to be careful not to contradict what Amanda told them, and to not talk over Tilly's head, while also not talking down to Noah and Jesse. All with a big fake smile plastered on her face, because the truth was too awful for children to understand.
The truth was too awful for anyone to understand, as far as Daphne was concerned. She still couldn't quite imagine what Olivia had gone through, held captive by actual human traffickers for three days. She'd seen the movies and knew the situation must have been dire, especially with the way it affected Amanda, who had barely been hanging on by a thread the day Daphne took the two babies with her to the precinct. The day that sick freak tried to walk off with Matilda.
It would have been on Daphne's head if he'd succeeded. The thought had haunted her for the past two days, every time she looked into the little girl's sweet pixie face, so pure and delicate—and absolutely certain Aunt Daphy was taking the best care possible of her, her brother, and her sisters. If Amanda had stepped out of the precinct just a few moments later, that beautiful child might have been gone forever. She might have suffered the same tortures as Olivia, too monstrous even to name.
The movies didn't tell you that. They showed the explosions and thrills, the macho lead kicking ass and taking names, the damsel in distress being rescued seconds before her virtue was besmirched. But what happened to all the other girls who weren't so lucky? The ones whose fathers weren't former CIA and couldn't map out an entire city while blindfolded in the back of a van? If any real person were actually capable of such feats, Daphne would have bet on it being the untouchable and invincible Captain Benson.
That illusion was shattered now, along with so many others. Daphne had made sure she didn't accidentally glimpse the live feed while it was streaming at the precinct; she did not want to see her friend like that—it was bad enough just seeing what a wreck Amanda was from watching the footage herself. And somehow the NYPD and FBI had kept the news stations from catching wind of the video, although the story of a kidnapped police captain had generated a lot of buzz at first. But no matter how many times Daphne changed the channel or avoided the Internet, she still couldn't keep the images from creeping in through her imagination.
In a way, the imagined was worse than reality. At least that was what Daphne told herself to be able to stomach it and face Olivia's children without breaking down in tears. And now, she used the same naïve self-talk—the injuries probably weren't as bad as they sounded, Amanda was probably just reacting as a frightened wife and mother—to look them in the eye and deliver the update. "Okay, mesdames and monsieur, your mamas are officially in the parking garage. They'll be up in a few minutes."
"Yay!" cried Jesse, forgetting her promise to be quiet for the baby.
Fortunately, Samantha was a sound sleeper and didn't stir, but Daphne quickly shushed Jesse anyway. She'd been impressing upon the children the importance of treating their mothers with care when they returned home, Olivia especially. "Did she have a baby?" Jesse had asked, her most recent experience with the women returning after a stay at the hospital, followed by cautions to be quiet and gentle, involving the birth of her youngest sister. Thank God Daphne had been able to field that question beforehand. Just the thought of it being blurted out in front of Olivia made her cringe.
"Hey, remember what we talked about?" Daphne poked lightly at Jesse's belly. It had lost most of that toddler pudge, flattening into a scant little stretch as the girl continued to grow by leaps and bounds. Amanda always teased that Jesse would be taller than Daphne by second grade. (Would they ever be able to joke like that again? So much of her friendship with both women revolved around laughter and silliness. What if that was over for good?) "About using indoor voices and baby touches with your mommy?"
"Mama too?" Matilda questioned, crinkling her lightly freckled brow. Poor thing was having trouble understanding why Amanda wouldn't want to play and roughhouse if she wasn't hurt. She kept asking if Mama had owies. Just her knuckles and her heart, Daphne thought each time.
"Yeah, your mama's going to need lots of calm and quiet too, gingeroo." Daphne ruffled the little girl's wild red curls—the one unruly trait she possessed—and brought her head forward for a peck. "She's very tired, and she'll need you guys to be on your best behavior and help her out as much as you can. If she seems kind of cranky, don't feel bad. She's not upset with you, she's just really worried about Oliv— your mommy."
"What happened to my mom?" That was Noah, the one with the hard-hitting questions that Daphne dreaded. At least Jesse's inquiries were humorous, Tilly's innocent, and Sammie's were confined to coos and bleating cries that could usually be answered with a bottle or a pacifier. But the eldest Rollins-Benson child and the only son was also the worrier of the group and the most serious eight-year-old Daphne had ever met. He seemed even more solemn now than he had days earlier.
The boy was testing her. She'd held the phone for the kids' video chat with Amanda and heard the detective struggling to tell them that Olivia was badly hurt. He knew that bad men were responsible, but must not have found it a satisfactory explanation. It was as if he sensed that Daphne knew more than she was letting on. Maybe her face had given her away, or her teary eyes when Amanda said Olivia couldn't join the chat, even though the kids begged to see her.
"Bad guys got her," Jesse supplied, knowingly. She put her arm around Matilda's tiny shoulders when the younger girl leaned into her, looking somewhat apprehensive at the mention of being gotten by strangers with ill-intent. "They were mean to her 'cause bad guys don't like cops, huh, Aunt Daph?"
Jesse had embellished that last observation herself, but the scary part was how close she'd come to the truth. Daphne didn't get the full story from Amanda yet as to why Olivia had been targeted by human traffickers, who Daphne knew through her experience in the judicial field didn't normally choose such high-profile victims; but she had picked up on some key phrases while talking to her detective friend. Olivia's kidnapping went "all the way to the top," and there were "lots of scumbags sitting in prison, dreaming up ways to get back at" the captain and Amanda for putting them there.
Then there was the attempt made on Tilly, the daughter of two cops. Definitely not attacks on random civilians. Daphne hadn't tried taking the kids out of the apartment since that day at the precinct. She'd been anxious enough just sending the older two off to school each morning.
"Yeah, nugget, that's probably some of it," she said, smiling sadly at Amanda's tiny carbon copy. She and Jesse loved to tease one another, and honestly, the six-year-old gave as good as she got, but when it came right down to it, Daphne was especially fond of the child who reminded her so much of her best friend. Baby Sammie was already showing signs of being the next Olivia Benson, and Daphne had so looked forward to having a hand in raising her little goddaughter. Now it all just seemed so uncertain. "The important thing is, the bad guys got caught. They can't hurt your mommy or anybody else anymore."
"Are they dead?" Jesse queried. Is it Thursday? she might have been asking, for all that ease of delivery.
At the same time, Noah spoke up in a soft voice that was eerily like Olivia's when she asked the hard questions. Or when she cried. "Did they rape her?"
Daphne sucked in a breath and held it, hoping for time to freeze, for Jesse to interrupt again, for the dogs to start barking, or for the other kids to simply ignore their brother's curiosity. He didn't seem fully aware of what he was asking as he sat astride the pouf ottoman, idly scratching a spot between his nose and upper lip. The picture of boyish innocence in his space-themed T-shirt and cargo shorts, that mop of brown curls swirling his head like an artful golden nest. He had pined so openly for the galaxy print Vans on his feet, Daphne couldn't resist buying them for him.
She had spent way too much money on all the kids her first couple of days as temporary guardian, and she didn't regret a penny of it. Their little hearts would be broken soon enough, their lives forever changed.
"Do you know what that word means?" Daphne asked the boy carefully, piecing at his curls with her thumb and index finger, like a small bird beak. Prior to spending much time with the Rollins-Benson brood, she'd had no idea how to show affection to children. She had nieces and nephews, but most were growing up in Connecticut and she only saw them at family get-togethers on the holidays. There was still some awkwardness in her mannerisms, but she had watched the kids' mothers enough to mimic their gentle touches.
And these kids were easy to love.
"Something bad." Noah shrugged his shoulders lightly, gazing down at his feet with a troubled expression. He wanted to look like a skateboarder, he'd said—that's why he was so taken with the colorful shoes. He planned to stick with dancing, though, that was his one true passion. "My moms say it when they think we can't hear them. It's usually when they're on the phone for work. I used to think it was a bad word, but I've seen it on signs at the precinct. Spelled like grape without the G. I think it's part of their job, and it's a bad thing people do to hurt other people."
Whether to be relieved that he had a very generalized understanding of the crime or anxious about how much knowledge to add to it, Daphne couldn't decide. It wasn't her place to explain something that Amanda and Olivia hadn't deemed appropriate to teach their kids about yet. Hell, Daphne tried not to discuss the topic herself, and she was in her mid-thirties.
"It is something like that, yeah," she said, proceeding with the utmost caution. Now was not the time to be the fun-loving auntie or the friend with no filter. "An act of violence that really hurts people, and it's illegal. But I don't think your moms would be very happy with me if I told you much more than that, okay, big guy? They probably want to wait until you're a little older to explain it to you themselves."
Noah thought it over for a minute, the gears turning in that curly head of his, and finally acquiesced with a small nod. "Yeah, you're probably right. I bet they don't want to scare Jesse and Tilly by talking about it. Maybe I'll ask them about it when I'm in fourth grade. I should be old enough for big kid stuff by the time I learn to add and subtract fractions."
You couldn't argue with that logic, and Daphne was eager to change the subject before Jesse, the STEM whiz, decided to master the addition and subtraction of fractions to get some big kid treatment as well. Using the excuse that they needed to do a bit of last minute tidying, though the apartment was virtually spotless already, she rounded the kids up to plump pillows, brush off dog fur, nudge furniture into place, and pull themselves together. Hair fluffed, clothes smoothed, smiles on.
Everything short of pinching their cheeks to add a natural rouge, and she contemplated doing that too, when minutes went by with no sign of Amanda or Olivia. Something must be wrong if it was taking them this long to get from the garage, to the elevator, to the sixth floor and down a few doors till they reached E. She had the sinking feeling they were taking their time because of Olivia's injuries, and if she was hurt badly enough to be moving this slowly, she was worse off than Daphne had hoped.
Just as the kids and dogs were starting to get restless, and Daphne was getting vertigo boring holes into the front door with her eyes, willing it to open, the knob jiggled.
"Hamilton, stay," she said sharply, sending the doodle back to his bed in the living room, head hung in disappointment. He would get his turn greeting the women, but he was too excitable for a group reunion. She had her doubts about Frannie too, hence the reason she'd put the pittie's collar on, just in case the dog had to be dragged away from her owners. Gigi would be no problem, her manners impeccable and her instincts almost preternatural. If anyone knew what to do for Olivia—or not do, it would be the ever-faithful golden retriever.
Expecting pandemonium as her friends made their entrance, Daphne was thrown by what really happened: no one moved or said a word, both groups separated by an invisible line even Hamilton didn't try to cross. For a moment, they all simply stared at each other like a bunch of schoolchildren that had never met on the playground and didn't know who was friend or foe.
Olivia looked terrible, her face—normally the closest to perfection in tone and natural beauty that Daphne had ever seen, with or without makeup—a mottled mess of purple and yellow bruising, her hair in desperate need of a brush and shampoo. Daphne almost gasped aloud when she realized part of the reason it looked so ratty was because several inches had been cut off, the ends as frayed as sailing line sawed off with a dull blade. Once enviable and luxurious, the tattered locks hung dead at Olivia's shoulders, like the pelts of animals hunted for their plush fur. Somehow, when Amanda had mentioned the shorn locks, Daphne hadn't grasped the severity of that simple word "cut."
Swallowing her shock and the sour taste that rose with it, she gave an audible gulp that felt much louder than it probably was. No one else seemed to notice, not even the dogs, who were poised like English pointers with their snouts toward the new arrivals. Gigi lowered her head and whined, waiting for permission to approach her owners, waiting for the awful silence to be broken by human voices filled with the warmth and good humor to which she was no doubt accustomed.
She knew better than the rest of them that everything was different now. Dogs, they say, can sense a seismic shift before it occurs.
The first to break ranks was Jesse. She stepped forward, hesitating only a moment at the invisible barrier separating her from her mothers, then marched straight through it to stand in front of them. Ponytail swishing out behind her, hands on her hips, she resembled the Fearless Girl statue from Broad Street so closely that it might have been created in her likeness. She stamped her foot on the floor as if killing a skittering insect. "I'm mad, Mama," she announced with all the animus a six-year-old could muster. "I'm so damn mad right now."
Daphne held her breath, afraid to find out where this was going. Her friends encouraged their children to express themselves and their emotions freely, but this probably wasn't what they had in mind when they said, "Use your words." More than likely Jesse had heard that word and witnessed a similar declaration of outrage from Amanda, whose spitting image she was right then, head to toe. But the anger was a new development, as far as Daphne had seen, and she worried at whom it would be directed.
When she made to usher Jesse aside and distract her with whatever was handy—her purse! The little girl loved rooting through the bag, stealing any loose change, eating all the mints, and smearing entire tubes of lipstick around her mouth in lurid clown smiles—Amanda lightly waved off the intervention, bending down on one knee in front of her daughter. She kept hold of Olivia's hand, resting it against her shoulder. The nails were chipped, some down to the nub, and the cuticles were cracked and painful-looking.
That almost bothered Daphne more than Olivia's hair; the captain's nails were always neatly manicured, her hands so expressive and lovely. Now the knuckles were torn, deep bruising around the wrists in a distinctive straplike shape. She didn't need to be a cop or a crime scene analyst to guess what left those marks. There was an identical one encircling Olivia's neck, hazy at the edges, but no less recognizable. God, what had those monsters done to her?
"What's got you so fired up, little bit?" Amanda reached around and patted Jesse's back, the way mothers touched their children just for the contact. When she moved higher to stroke the girl's ponytail, her hand faltered and went still, flat. "You aren't mad at me or— us, are ya?" She looked back at Olivia, but caught herself just in time to avoid insinuating her wife was at fault for anything. The kids might not have caught it, but Daphne did. And if she did, so did Olivia.
"Huh-uh. I'm mad at the bad people who hurt Mommy and made her look like that. Nobody should ever hurt my mommy, 'cause she's the nicest, goodest mommy in the whole world and we gotta protect her, right, Mama?" Jesse let her arms go lax at her sides when Amanda urged them from their combative stance. She sounded as if she'd heard something similar from Amanda in the past, but her feelings were no less genuine. Her hands stayed balled into tiny fists, ready to fight. "If I was big like Wonder Woman, I wouldn't let anyone be mean to her or you."
At first Amanda didn't seem able to answer, but after a few false starts she put on a wan smile and said, "I know you wouldn't, honey. It upsets me too. Mommy shouldn't have had to go through that, not ever—" Her voice broke off there, a breathy conclusion replacing the rest, although Daphne heard that too: again. Olivia shouldn't have had to go through that ever again.
Cupping her hand to the back of Jesse's head, Amanda pulled the girl in for a kiss on the forehead. She stood quickly then, and urged Jesse toward Olivia, patting her back encouragingly. "Hug your mommy. And apologize for cussing. You got good reason, but we still don't talk like that in this house, y'hear? You kids get over here and give Mommy some hugs too. She needs lots of them. Gentle ones."
As the other children wandered over, Amanda sniffed and pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbing viciously at the corners of her eyes. She was holding it together, but just barely. "C'mere, son," she said, tugging Noah into a tight embrace when the boy stood facing her, hands tucked awkwardly into his oversized pockets.
"Will it hurt?" Jesse gazed up at Olivia, arms outstretched but not wrapping around her mother until permission was granted. She looked extra small, waiting there with her arms open. She was used to adults coming down to her level or lifting her up to theirs, and right now it was doubtful Olivia could do either. Even standing appeared difficult for the captain, who was huddled around herself, similar to the kids Daphne saw in the courthouse during DV trials and foster cases. "We can do air hugs, like in the panda-demic, if you want."
"Pandemic," came Noah's muffled correction, from the inner harbor of Amanda's embrace.
"Your mommy doesn't want air hugs, Jesse Eileen," Amanda said, popping a kiss to the top of Noah's head. She gave him a light swat on the rear, sending him forth like a baseball coach psyching a player up for the field. Next she scooped up Matilda, holding the little girl so tightly Daphne feared she might break. Matilda was dainty as a little bird—a hummingbird or a goldfinch—and Amanda seemed to have forgotten her own call for gentleness. "Give her real ones, and don't go asking a bunch of questions. She's tired."
Jesse frowned back at Amanda, whom she clearly did not accept as an authority on the matter. "Mommy says I can ask all the questions I want about anything. That's why I'm the smartest in class." She reached for Olivia's hand, still clasped in Amanda's, the arm seesawing back and forth with every movement imposed upon it, and untwined their fingers. Now the keeper of her mother's hand, Jesse cupped it to her chest like a sacred thing, and guided Olivia to the nearest dining room chair. "You should sit down if you're tired, Mommy. Come on, Noah, help me."
It was unsettling to watch Olivia, the strongest, bravest woman Daphne had ever met, being led around by her children. She wore an oversized beige sweat suit that must have come from the hospital, because Amanda had on one identical to it. They looked like prisoners without the shackles, although Olivia's shuffling step and stilted movements suggested her chains just weren't visible to the naked eye. She let the kids pull out the chair for her, and gradually settled onto the cushion, Noah holding her elbow, Jesse with an arm around her waist and a steadying hand on her hip, as if she were genuinely lowering Olivia onto the seat.
"Thank you, loves," Olivia said by rote, and Daphne could hear why the captain hadn't spoken up sooner. Whenever Daphne's ex-girlfriend Bobbie, the former-child star turned struggling New York actor, had done voice work, she came home sounding just like that. The worst had been a play where she portrayed a murder victim—lots of screaming.
Similar to belting songs without a proper warm-up, the strain of such intense vocals caused temporary, if not permanent, damage to the throat, resulting in hoarseness, soreness, and that telltale scraping sound. Part nails on a chalkboard, part broken glass, part asthmatic wheeze. Daphne cringed inwardly, thinking of all the times she'd gushed to Amanda about the sexy rasp in her wife's voice.
Not anymore. Maybe not ever again.
"Do you need a blanket?" Jesse petted Olivia's arm from the elbow to the cuff of her sweatshirt. She stopped short at the ligature mark on the wrist, but skipped over it without remarking, thank God. Instead, she patted Olivia's hand like she was patting her baby sister's back after a feeding. "You feel cold. I always feel better with a blanket when I'm sick."
"She's not sick, she's hurt," said Noah. He stood at his mother's side, a hand resting on her shoulder. When the shorn ends of her hair grazed his fingers, he slowly withdrew and slid them into his pocket. He couldn't look away from the short, jagged strands, and Daphne wondered if he had ever even seen Olivia with anything but long, lovely hair. If he had, it was before Daphne had met her, and probably not a clear memory for someone so young. For any of the kids.
A muscle twitched in Olivia's face, almost a wince, as she registered what her son had said. For better or for worse, it seemed to bring her out of the fog she was drifting through. She glanced around the room as if she were seeing everyone there for the first time, and there was a moment of warmth, of seeing friends and family all together in one place. A brief glimpse of the loving captain, wife, mother, friend they all knew.
The switch flicked again, and she averted her eyes, shrinking into herself. She was like a captive emerging from a dark cell, overwhelmed by the light and the freedom so longed for in the shadows. "I'm okay," she said to Noah, gazing past his shoulder rather than into his concerned face. She compensated by ruffling his curls, giving him a side hug, but she wasn't fooling anyone. Nothing about this was okay. "Just kind of banged up. I won't look so bad in a few days."
"You look okay to me. I like your clothes, they're like jammies." Jesse played with the hem of Olivia's sweatshirt, weaving it around her small fingers. "You and Mama are twinning. I'm gonna hug you now, but not too tight." True to her word, the little girl wrapped both arms around Olivia and leaned into her chest, no squeezing, only love. She might be a scrappy one who practically kept up with Daphne when they sparred, but that kid was all heart.
As for Daphne's heart, it skipped a beat when, at first, Olivia didn't react to the hug at all. Arms open at her sides, head hung low, it looked like she had just been doused in ice water, her body stiff with shock and the unpleasantness of sopping wet clothes. She was Carrie at the prom with the pig's blood, desperate to crawl out of her own soiled skin. Daphne glanced anxiously at Amanda, wondering if they should step in, but Olivia finally cocooned herself around Jesse, as if shielding her from a bomb blast. She hooked an arm around Noah's waist, tugging him into the little huddle, and the boy responded without hesitation, sheltering his mother and sister under his small but sturdy frame.
They clung together for several moments like wartime refugees about to be torn away from each other, no idea when or if they would ever be reunited. Even Jesse, the chatterbox and wiggle worm of the group, said nothing. At six years old, she understood there were no words for what had happened. Only the deepest sorrow, only the spellbound silence that accompanied profound loss, when the earth stood still and time had no meaning.
Discovering Meredith Ashton's mutilated body on the kitchen floor of that lodge in the Catskills had felt a bit like this. Now Olivia was the mutilated body, and in a way, she had been killed too.
The hug might have gone on indefinitely if Olivia hadn't suddenly gasped, sat bolt upright, and looked frantically around the room. "Oh my God, where's the baby? Where is Samantha? Why don't I hear her?"
It didn't occur to Daphne until then that she hadn't said a word to either of her friends since they walked through the front door. She was still frozen there beside the table, a death grip on Frannie's collar, though the pit had mostly given up tugging and sat whining at her feet. Gigi lay with her head on her front paws, also whining; and little by little, Hamilton was doing an army crawl toward the humans, his tail thwapping the floor. It sounded like a rapid heartbeat in the open-concept apartment.
"She's asleep in her swing, Liv," Daphne said, gesturing to the living room and the Fisher-Price swing that ticked steadily with each pass. A mobile of spotted puppy dogs spun automatically overhead, but Sammie was conked out, drooling on her shoulder, and didn't see it. Awake, the baby was usually more interested in the activities of her brother and sisters and the real pups, anyway. "See, she's right there? Snug as a bug. I fed her not too long ago, so she's good to go for a while."
Olivia struggled to turn and look at her youngest child, grimacing with every movement, but she held the awkward posture for quite a few seconds, eyes locked on the baby. They all gazed at Sammie then, as if expecting her to break the awful silence with a coo, a gurgle, a deep theological insight—anything but the unease that saturated the room, so even the dogs felt it. Hamilton had spotted Daphne's warning gesture to stay back and retreated to his blanket.
"She looks so much smaller than I remember." Olivia sounded far away, drifting somewhere out in the atmosphere. She barely had form anymore herself, what had once been her solid, vital presence now dispersed like a fine mist. Daphne longed to catch the scattering pieces and put her back together, restoring their beloved captain, saving her from total disintegration. If she kept on like this, soon there would be nothing left. "I thought she'd be bigger by now . . . "
"It's only been a few days, darlin'," Amanda said gently, though she gazed at their daughter with the same sadness and uncertainty. Since Samantha's birth, Daphne hadn't seen one or the other of her friends without the baby in their arms. Neither of them made a move toward the swing now, though, despite the long separation. Whether their expressions were of reverence or fear, it was impossible to tell. "I doubt she did much growing in that short a time. This little lug, on the other hand."
Amanda jounced Matilda lightly in her arms, pretending she was a hefty weight instead of teacup sized. "Regular Thumbelina, ain't ya, punkin?" She curled her lips around her teeth and chomped them at Matilda's neck, a playful trick that usually got them both giggling. It worked on all the kids—and Olivia, too—making them scrunch their shoulders and try to dodge Amanda's tickly love nibbles, but this time the tiny redhead pushed on her mother's chest, putting her at arm's length, well out of biting distance.
"Huh-uh, Mama. No more." Tilly shook her head gravely, and it was the closest thing to defiance Daphne had ever witnessed from the three-year-old. Not even defiance, but an adultlike declination of fun and laughter. Coming from a little girl who seldom wore anything but the brightest of smiles, it was disheartening.
Indeed, Amanda's spirits visibly sank, the glimmer of silliness gone in an instant. She looked paler, her hair lanker, than just a moment before, as if it had taken all her energy just to put on the happy front for a couple of seconds. The baggy beige sweats made her appear diminished in size as well. She was fading out right before Daphne's eyes.
"Sorry, Tills," Amanda said, failing to mask her dejected tone. She kissed the girl's freckled cheek in tender apology, nuzzling her curls when she didn't shrink away again. Tilly had clung to her mother after the kidnapping attempt, and it had taken quite a bit of coaxing to get her to return home with Daphne and the baby. Now her timidness had returned, and she chewed on her thumb while staring at Amanda, dark blue eyes wide as saucers.
Nodding in Olivia's direction, Amanda put on a falsely upbeat voice that belied her desperation, and said, "Bet I know who you been waiting to see. I know she sure missed her li'l pumpkinbelly too. Come on, let's go say hi to your mommy and give her some of those big lovins you're so good at." She started for the chair where Olivia sat, but as soon as she tried to deposit Tilly onto the captain's lap, the little girl twisted around in Amanda's arms and threw a stranglehold around her neck.
"Till— " Amanda cut herself off, equal parts stunned and short of breath. Her gentlest and most well-mannered child was actively throttling her. "Matilda. Cut it out, I can't bre— Hey! Matilda, no. Now, you stop that. You're gonna hurt your mommy's feelings. And my neck." She patted Tilly's slender arms, first trying for gentle, soothing extraction. When that failed, she prized the child bodily from her, gritting her teeth and swearing under her breath.
Daphne had never witnessed Amanda losing her temper with one of the kids, although she was aware her friend had a short fuse and she had been on the receiving end a time or two. But more surprising than Amanda's reaction was Olivia's: normally the first to jump to her children's defense, even if they deserved to be scolded, she sat watching the current scene unfold like a bystander, no say in the outcome either way.
When the child finally landed in her lap, Olivia gazed sorrowfully down at her as if viewing a puppy behind a pet store window. Something longed for, but beyond her reach. A darling creature she couldn't touch. "Hi, sweet girl," she whispered, so tentative she might have been a frightened little girl herself. It broke Daphne's heart, but she wasn't the only one fighting back tears. Amanda turned her head aside, blinking fiercely, swiping her nose across the shoulder of her sweatshirt.
Matilda glanced back and forth between her mothers, still mouthing the thumb hooked inside her cheek, like a fish on a lure. Daphne had never known the girl to be a thumb-sucker or a nervous chewer. The way things were going, they could all probably use something to gnaw on. Daphne felt the long-dead urge to bite her fingernails, a habit she had kicked as a teenager, upon discovering fashion, cosmetics, and proper nail care.
After a long hesitation, gazing around at each of the faces that looked back at her in expectation, Matilda cranked her wrist up and down, waving the fingers not secured in her mouth. "Hi, Mommy," she whispered to Olivia, as if it were a secret. "I misseded you. We played Landy Cand. Aunt Daphy threw poop at us."
Of course the clearest thing to come out of the child's mouth was that charming and deeply unspecific nugget. It was true—Daphne had engaged in a game of hot potato with one of Sammie's stinky diapers at changing time the other day—but taken out of context, it sounded rather untoward. "Wrapped up tight in a Pampers, not just brazen feces flinging like a chimp at the zoo," Daphne hastened to add, but no one was really listening. She was glad of it. Her cute and quippy one-liners were painfully out of place at the moment.
"You love Candy Land, don't you, baby?" Olivia ventured a touch to Matilda's springy curls, smoothing them against her head, behind the tiny shell of one ear. She turned her hand inward, stroking the curve of one cinnamon-and-cream cheek with her knuckles. It looked as though she were memorizing every contour, every freckle and ivory-inch, of her daughter's sweet face. Usually it was a practice reserved for emotional goodbyes or involuntary separations. For loss of eyesight or loss of memory, when the mind had faded but the body remembered.
Tilly nodded, and with the hand not in her mouth, she mirrored her mother's movements, caressing Olivia's face with the utmost care. She avoided the bruises, tracing her tiny fingers around them like she was skirting lily pads in a pond, making ripples that could have an effect none of them would live to see. The chaos theory didn't explain this tragedy, though. What minor agitation out there in the universe could possibly have led to this?
"Not Mommy hair," said Matilda, gliding her hand over the lifeless strands of Olivia's remaining hair without touching it. She drew back from the shortened ends and shook her head so adamantly her entire body twisted with it. Then she began to cry. "No, Mommy, I don't like it. Hurts you. Make it go bye bye."
The anguish in the little girl's voice, and in Olivia's face as she held her daughter and cried, apologizing for her mangled hair, was almost too much to bear. Daphne bit her lip and swiped away the tears that escaped, even when she nearly drew blood. There was a deep split in Olivia's bottom lip, and Daphne was willing to bet that hurt a lot worse than anything she was inflicting upon herself. She'd been bedridden for weeks with the two broken legs, and she had still never been as broken down in body and spirit as her friend was now.
"Mommy's hair will grow back, Tills," Amanda was saying, barely holding it together herself. She rubbed Matilda's back, her other hand behind Olivia, doing the same. Standing above them, casting down that empathetic look, she resembled a guardian angel in a religious work of art, guiding home a pair of lost children. "You just gotta give it a while, okay? By the time Jesse's birthday gets here, Mommy's hair will be long again."
Daphne did the math. Jesse's birthday was on Thanksgiving. The hair might very well be on the longer side by then, but there was no way Olivia could grow it out to its previous length in six months. But the kids didn't need to know that. Soon enough they would adjust to the shorter crop and probably come to consider it "Mommy hair" too. Poor Matilda just couldn't comprehend that, or the time required for regrowth, which might as well be decades to a three-year-old.
"I like it short," Jesse announced, mirroring Amanda almost exactly as she stood guard on the other side of Olivia, dutifully petting her shoulder. She was like a miniature goalie, ready to field any questions or critical comments and hurl them back at her opponents. No one would dare cross the captain on Jesse Rollins-Benson's watch. "It's like Mulan's hair, Tilly. 'Member? When she cuts it off with her sword to go fight the Huns. Mommy's ready for battle now, that's all."
There was no way the little girl could know just how close she was to the truth with that scenario, but Daphne sensed a collective holding of their breath among the adults in the room. Maybe even Noah, who lingered beside his mother and younger sister, and had watched with growing dismay as they both broke down in tears. He looked as awkward and uncomfortable as a teenaged boy right then, balancing on the sides of his Vans, hands in his pockets.
Honestly, Daphne didn't feel much different. Her old standby of cracking a joke to break the ice would get her nowhere now, and no words were adequate to express her sympathy or the terrible sadness she felt on behalf of her best friends. No, even more than that—they were her family. They had entrusted one of their children to her care, should anything awful befall them. Well, something awful had. Family should know what to say to family at a time like this.
"Did you . . . you sworded it?" Tilly asked, studying the snarled ends of Olivia's hair. Warily she grazed her palm underneath, as if seeing snow fall for the first time and reaching out to catch the powdery flakes. The brief crying jag had given her the hiccups, and her chest hitched every few seconds, accompanied by a sound like a squeaker toy. "To fight the Hums?"
The questions must have been hitting too close to home for Amanda, who scooped up Matilda from her mother's lap before an answer could be given. "Okay, guys, enough with the third degree," she said, and kissed the little girl soundly on the ear. Bending at the waist, she lowered Matilda to the floor, making sure she had her footing, but only just. She doled out more kisses to the top of each child's head, and didn't see her mistake until she had almost closed the circuit.
After Jesse's towhead came Olivia's, dark and disordered as an ink scribble. Normally, Amanda would plant a kiss there too, treating her wife as one of the brood—Daphne had watched her do it a thousand times before. This time she hesitated noticeably, then pressed her lips to Olivia's forehead without puckering them or making the loud smacking noise she used on the kids. When she started to ease off, Olivia caught her around the waist and hugged her close, face buried against Amanda's abdomen.
The captain was crying again, her shuddering frame the only outward indication of how vehement were her tears. She shed them in utter silence, under Amanda's arbor, but they were deafening in the small dining room. Daphne longed to cover her ears, or to say something, anything, to undo the horrible hush that hung over them like a curse. She was beginning to wonder if she—any of them—had a voice left at all, when Gigi finally couldn't hold back any longer.
With a distressed little yip, the golden sprang for her owners, nosing her snout in between them, her tail slapping the kids' across their legs, chests, and faces. An obedient dog with near-human intelligence, to be sure, but her master needed her. It was a duty she would fulfill, even if it got her scolded. Frannie Mae, who couldn't care less about punishment, ignored Daphne's protests and joined her sister. Unable to fit her head into the same space as Gigi's, she opted for throwing her weight against the women's legs, head and tongue lolling.
"Fran, Geeg," Daphne said in a stage whisper, snapping her fingers at the dogs. Neither paid her any mind, basking in whatever affection their owners bestowed on their furry heads, but miraculously, Hamilton did not flout her authority as usual. He heeded her warning look and plopped his curly rump back down on his big pillow. If they had been at home, he probably would have launched himself into the fray with his canine pals.
"It's okay, Daph. They're just saying hi." Amanda scratched the dogs' heads one at a time, though she did shoo them back from trying to lick Olivia's downturned face. "They missed their mommy too, didn't you, guys? Huh? Okay, now you've said hello, that's enough. Get. Hey, Noah, could you—"
Without waiting for the rest, Noah set to work rounding the dogs up by their collars. He met with resistance from both, although Gigi was, for once, the more difficult of the two. She refused to budge until Olivia stroked her muzzle and murmured, "Go on, girl." Snuffling her displeasure, she allowed Noah to lead her into the living room, where Hamilton wiggled and pranced in anticipation of his playmates' return.
They were in danger of slipping into another uncomfortable silence as they all waited—for Noah's return; for someone else to speak; for the bad dream to end, breaking the speechless curse they succumbed to every few minutes—and Daphne couldn't let it happen again. Not while her friends were struggling to regain their composure, the children gazing on in wonder to see their mommies behaving so abnormally. Matilda's eyes were still full of tears that threatened to spill over at the least provocation, and nothing but a science experiment, math equation, or joke about bodily functions had ever held Jesse's attention for quite so long.
"I know a great stylist whose number I can give you," Daphne blurted, inwardly cringing as soon as she heard herself. She had a feeling any subject she chose would have sounded too crass, and so she pressed on, ignoring her inner critic. Her friends knew she wanted only what was best for them; whatever else had changed in these last few days, that hadn't. "She's the one who cut my hair when I decided to go shorter. She'll get you evened right out, Liv. Once you feel up to it, I mean. No rush."
The hollowness in Olivia's eyes, her ghastly, bruised face, was terrible to behold, but Daphne maintained her smile. She would be damned if she'd let on how difficult it was to look at the captain and not imagine the atrocities that were done to her. Olivia dealt with cases like that every day—women who had been through the worst degradations life had to offer—and she never wavered, never put her own feelings before theirs. Never had to look away.
It was one of the many qualities Daphne loved and admired about her friend, and she wanted to repay it in kind. If only she could stop shaking.
"Thank you." Olivia said the words out loud, but they had such little vitality they appeared mouthed. She put a hand to her throat as if she were quelling blood flow, the way people in slasher flicks did when their throat got cut. Almost at once, she withdrew the hand like she could feel the ring of bruises around her neck with her fingertips. "Appreciate that."
"Yeah, Daph, thanks," Amanda echoed, and at first it was hard to tell if she was being sarcastic or not. She'd been so on edge since Sunday morning (who could blame her?), everything came out slightly sharp. But she followed up the remark with the faintest of smiles, suggesting she actually meant it. "Although, how you could go any shorter is beyond me."
Poking fun at Daphne's height was a favorite pastime of Amanda's, and Daphne took it as a very good sign that her friend might someday return to the snarky, wisecracking tough-girl she knew and loved. Someday.
Before Daphne got the chance to respond, Noah surprised them all by returning with his baby sister in his arms. She was still half-asleep, eyes rolling behind slowly blinking lids, her tiny mouth hanging open like she was shocked to find herself in the room too. Groggy babies bore an uncanny resemblance to drunk people, Daphne noted, but kept the observation quiet. Noah had an announcement of his own to make.
"Sammie really missed you," said the boy, standing next to Olivia but hardly looking up from the baby's face. When he did, it was only for a peek out from beneath his voluminous curls. He was always a bit soft-spoken, a little shy, although that didn't seem to extend to his mothers—until now. As the oldest, and the only boy, he was about to take on a whole new set of responsibilities. Did he know his childhood was ending? Did they? "She was worried you weren't coming back. I told her you would. Here."
Without waiting for Olivia or anyone else to object, Noah leaned over and placed the baby in her arms. He had become such a little pro at passing his sister around, remembering to support her head and ease away gently, she barely stirred as he slid his arms free. He stood back and looked at Olivia head-on now, as if examining her cradling technique, the way he'd needed to be supervised at first.
For several uncomfortable beats, it almost looked as if she had forgotten how to hold her daughter. Her posture had gone stiff and unnatural, and she didn't instinctively draw Samantha against her, but rather, kept the sleeping bundle away from her body, like the blanket was dripping wet on her dry clothes. Gradually she let both arms relax somewhat, settling Samantha into the alcove of her breasts and inner elbow. Perhaps the baby caught the scent of her long-awaited mommy, because she chose that moment to open her eyes and gaze up at Olivia in awe.
"I'm here, sweetheart," Olivia whispered, fewer breaks in her voice when she didn't raise it. She kissed the pad of her thumb and touched it to Sammie's chin, her hand lacking the steadiness of her words. Daphne had an agoraphobic aunt who shook like that any time she got near a door that opened to the outside world. In the middle of her living room, shades drawn, she was perfectly fine.
Where was that center of safety when your own body was the battleground?
"I'm sorry it took so long. We won't ever leave you like that again." Olivia looked to Amanda, and though the setup for the question was rhetorical, she sounded as if she were really asking, "Will we, Mama?"
Each of the children, save the youngest, turned to Amanda for her answer. At the axis was Olivia, uncertain as the rest, doubting the security of home and family even while she was in it. Amanda started to speak, but nothing came out. She pressed her lips together firmly, and nodded, instead. She kept trying to stick her hands in pockets that weren't there.
"Uh, no," she finally managed, shakily, "we sure won't." Her resolve strengthened, jaw tightening, as she gazed at the kids in turn, ending on Olivia and the baby in her arms. "I'll do my damnedest to make sure of it. No one's ever gonna try to tear us apart like that again, I swear to God. On my life I swear it."
There was no reaction to the cursing, not even by Jesse, who was always eager to point out when an adult slipped up. But she and her siblings must have intuited that there was another level to the conversation they weren't in tune with, a frequency only adults could hear. Perhaps infants could as well—hadn't someone said that babies were born knowing everything, but forgot it as they grew?—because Samantha thrust a pudgy fist into the air and yowled in protest.
Something about the promise didn't sit right with the littlest Rollins-Benson, or so it seemed.
"Oh," Olivia uttered, as if it were a new development, her baby crying. She sat forward in the chair, poised to stand up but finding no leverage or energy to do so. She could barely bounce the little girl without wincing, her arms lacked so much strength. The best she managed was to prop Samantha higher against her chest and rock her own body slightly side to side. "Don't cry, honey. Please don't cry. I know I don't smell or look like Mommy right now, but I will again soon, shh."
She continued murmuring to the baby, everyone ready to intervene but not sure if they should, until her patience ran out. No longer than a few seconds, when, before, she hardly ever lost her cool with the children. At least not that Daphne had ever seen. "You have to take her, I can't . . . Amanda, please take her." The switch came on so suddenly, there was a lag before anyone realized it wasn't part of her comforting technique for Samantha.
Her distress hadn't quite reached full magnitude, but it amplified the baby's, and by the time Amanda scooped her up, Samantha was wailing at the top of her lungs. Used to the immediate gratification of being the youngest in a large family—all of whom cherished her and spoiled her rotten, Daphne included—the wait was too long. Red-faced, outraged, Sammie Grace said to hell with her middle name and her mothers' nerves. She flailed her plump little arms, fingers splayed and snagging Amanda's loose hair, pulling.
"Shit, ow," Amanda hissed. She freed herself relatively quickly, though a few flaxen strands drifted like cobwebs from Samantha's fingers. The baby seemed disappointed with the sacrifice and writhed so vehemently it was a wonder Amanda could hold onto her. After all, she was her mother's daughter.
The detective did appear to be struggling, glancing down at the front of her sweatshirt, Samantha at arm's length. Daphne couldn't figure out why until she spotted the blotches forming on Amanda's chest, faint but expanding a little at a time, getting darker as the sweatshirt soaked up more of the milk. Before, they had laughed when that happened, one or other of them cracking a joke about milk cows, Milk Duds, the Milky Way—or, if Olivia wasn't nearby, a lewd remark about possible uses in the bedroom for what Daphne had lovingly dubbed "the one-woman freak show."
"Um, why don't I take her while you . . . yeah," Daphne said, about to point out the wet spots, but tapering off at an ambiguous gesture. The children were well-educated on breastfeeding ("You got to make her think it's Mama and Mommy's nipple, Aunt Daphy," had been Jesse's expert advice during Daphne's first attempt at bottle feeding. "It taste-es better to her that way.") and Amanda didn't embarrass easily, but there was no sense in making an already uncomfortable situation even worse.
Looking grateful, Amanda walked the outstretched infant straight to Daphne, as if Sammie were being propelled toward her. That did not suit Samantha at all, and she amped up the screaming when she landed in Daphne's arms. It was so loud Olivia could barely be heard muttering to herself, "She's afraid of me. It's my fault, she's a-afraid of me. She— she doesn't even know wh-who I am." The captain's head was bowed, shaking back and forth, her hands clamped to the sides of the chair like she was on a thrill ride, hanging on for dear life. If she didn't get her breathing under control, she was going to hyperventilate.
Amanda did an about-face and went back to Olivia, dropping to her knees beside the chair. She had to pry one of her wife's hands loose just to hold it. "Yes, she does. She knows you're her mama, darlin'. She probably just senses that you're hurt. Or she's hungry, or gassy, or whatever else makes babies scream like that—"
"Uh-uh, Mama," Jesse said above the din, "she ain't hungry. Aunt Daph already fed her. And she farted a whole bunch this morning."
"Shut up, stupid-o." Noah jabbed the back of Jesse's shoulder to make her stop talking. He seldom mistreated his little sisters—in fact, he stuck up for them most of the time—but his boyishly pretty face was twisted up in anguish at the sight of his mother falling apart, the other trying to hold her together. Younger siblings were the easiest target when you had nowhere else to unleash big feelings, Daphne knew that from experience. "No one asked you."
"Ow! Mommy, Noah poked my shoulder and called me a stupid-o!" Jesse turned and socked Noah a good one on the arm. It looked like it hurt, and indeed, the boy rubbed at the spot, wincing. The retaliation was a surprise, even more so than Noah picking on Jesse; she defended all of her siblings fiercely, including Noah, who never had to worry about being bullied for his love of dance with her by his side.
"No!" Matilda cried, taking her finger out of her mouth to shake it at the older children. The most good-natured of the bunch, she rarely got upset, let alone shouted at her brother and sister. She pressed both hands against her ears and twisted side to side in a vehement, full body head shake. "No, no, no, no!"
Red-hot fury rolled off of Amanda in a wave that swept over them all as she shot to her feet and bellowed, "Everybody shut the hell up! What the fuck is wrong with you? Can't you see what you're doing to her? Can't y'all just be good and listen for one goddamn second? I need you to just— I need you to . . . " Slowly losing steam as she came back to herself, she gazed around at each of the stunned faces staring back at her. The ranting, red-faced woman was replaced by a pale, stringy-haired ghost, who looked every bit as gaunt and forlorn as you would expect from one recently dead.
At the sound of her mother's angry outburst, Samantha had actually quieted, taking the odd stuttering breath but no longer releasing it in an ear-splitting scream. The other kids were quiet too, though Tilly's chest kept hitching and Jesse sniffed like her feelings were hurt. Noah had crossed his arms, trying to be tough, but he just looked frightened and defensive. There had been some oppositional problems between him and Amanda in the past, but as far as Daphne could tell, those had long since been resolved.
Just when they seemed about to return full-force, Noah let both arms drop to his sides, nearly as defeated as Amanda herself. "I'm sorry, Mama and Mommy," he said in a voice small and soft enough to belong to his little sister, Tilly. He had a gentle spirit for an eight-year-old boy, and it was easy to imagine him growing into a sensitive, artistic young man who danced and painted and loved with his whole heart, the way his mothers did. He was about to get a crash course in the selflessness and understanding it took to love that unconditionally. "I didn't mean that. You're not a stupid-o, Jess."
"I know I'm not." Jesse huffed at the insinuation that she might have believed the insult, but she wasn't as hard-nosed as she let on, either. Underneath the sassy six-year-old veneer beat the heart of a true Rollins-Benson, fiercely loyal, deeply compassionate. She had her mama's quick temper and her mommy's willingness to forgive. "I'm sorry too. Is your arm okay?" To her younger sister, whose twilight-blue eyes were wide and alert for further signs of the family drama to which she was so unaccustomed, Jesse added, "Sorry, sissy, I won't hit big bubby no more."
"Okay." Matilda looked to their brother for confirmation.
"I'm okay. Didn't hurt." He was clearly downplaying the punch, his hand wrapped around his small bicep, but it was good enough acting for a three-year-old. Matilda accepted the white lie—"Okay, bubby"—and all three children exchanged uneasy smiles before turning them on their parents.
They always said kids were more resilient than adults, and it proved accurate right then, with the little ones making the effort to restore peace while Olivia and Amanda floundered, still in shock from their respective meltdowns. Olivia had yet to catch her breath, a hand on her heaving chest; and Amanda—well, the best description for her that came to Daphne's mind was torn. Torn between taking care of her wife and her children, torn between staying strong and falling completely apart, torn by the reality she was in and the horror she'd lived through during Olivia's abduction.
In the end, she went to Olivia and, kneeling in front of her, took several deep, calming breaths, guiding her through each inhale, hold, and exhale. When the threat of hyperventilation passed and Olivia could be touched without flinching away, Amanda helped her to her feet, the captain's arm slung around her shoulders for support. Amanda motioned the kids back when they tried to assist, but she waved them forward to hug Olivia about the waist and the legs once she was steady.
"Where's she going?" Jesse asked, ever suspicious.
"Mommy, hold me." Matilda released Olivia's legs and stretched up her arms, waiting for a lift.
"Mommy needs to rest," Amanda said, nodding for the kids to let them pass. She patted Matilda aside, steering her in Noah's direction when the little girl didn't willingly move. "I'm just putting her to bed for a bit, she's not going anywhere. She'll hold you when she's feeling better, Tillybilly. Won't you, sweetie?"
Olivia gave an automatic and distracted hum of agreement, as if she hadn't really heard. But before she was led into the hallway that connected the family's bedrooms, like the honeycombs in a beehive, she gazed back over her shoulder with profound sadness. "It's not your fault," she said to the children, stair-stepped together, watching after her like she was being led away to execution. Her hair was worse in the back than in front. "None of this is your fault."
Urging her wife on, Amanda signaled at the dogs as they passed by the living room. "Gigi, come. Frannie, you stay there."
As soon as the women disappeared into their bedroom, the golden retriever in tow, Jesse turned to Daphne with a question: "When will Mommy feel better, Aunt Daph?" Her brother and sister looked on with the same serious faces, the good humor that had made it easier to keep them happy and distracted the past several days now gone. Olivia was right—they looked bigger, older.
In Daphne's arms baby Samantha had started to drowse again, the pink-veined skin of her eyelids reminding Daphne of a featherless baby bird, blind and without flight. Sometimes there were no good answers, just lies you hoped came true. "Soon, munchkins. She'll be back in business before you know it. Hey, how about some Go Fish while we wait on your mama?"
. . .
Language was strange and cumbersome to the golden retriever, who wished her human family could communicate in the dog ways, but she did understand many of the word sounds they made to her: Gigi (her self sound, it tickled her ears more than all the others), sit, stay, bed, potty, park, no, and so on.
Most dogs didn't know half as many word sounds as she did. Her sister-animal Frannie, for instance, recognized several of the Good sounds (park, play, treat, go get it, McDonald's) and a few of the Bad ones (no, down, bath, what in Sam Hill . . . ), but she only understood how isolated sounds connected to a specific thing, not how all of the sounds went together. Their friend-animal Hamilton was even less skilled at figuring out what the humans wanted or needed.
What they lacked, and what Gigi had excelled at since she was just a whelp, was the ability to listen to body words. Human body words were different from dogs', and even different from the word sounds they made. Lots of times they made a sound that didn't match up with their body words. Like when Olivia said she felt fine, but Gigi could smell the sad on her, heavy and musty as an old overcoat. The basement of Gigi's first home had smelled like that when it rained, and on the night the Bad Man trapped her down there while he made her masters bad sleep. Humans didn't wake up from bad sleep, they were just gone.
The thing a lot of other dogs didn't get was that body words each had their own smell, and to complicate matters even more, there were types of smelling that didn't involve the nose at all. There was hear-smell, see-smell, brain-smell, lick-smell, and a host of others Gigi used on instinct. You were either born with it, or you went through life ignoring your humans' sounds and getting scolded.
Fortunately, Gigi was born with it, and in Olivia she had found the closest thing to a human being with her level of instinct as any dog could hope to come across. Olivia knew about body words and brain-smell, and she came home almost every day with an aura Gigi could see-smell from expending so much energy on other humans. Gigi always tried to stick beside her master on those days, sharing some of the spirit energy that had been lost. She had plenty to spare, and sometimes she worried Olivia would run out entirely.
Her heart word for Olivia was Love.
And now something was bad wrong. Not only had Olivia's body words changed, but her scent was so altered that Gigi barely recognized it. The baby had smelled it too, except her senses weren't as keen as Gigi's, and she hadn't been able to find her mother's scent under all the hurt. Hurt smelled like leaves burning in the fall, something hot and a bit rotten smoldering under the skin. Usually, Gigi was able to sniff out where most of the hurt came from, whether from one or multiple sources.
This time the hurt wafted off Olivia from everywhere. Gigi couldn't find a single point where it ended or began, although certain areas were worse than others. The neck was bad and some of the ribs were broken, grating inside of Olivia's torso like twigs and tree branches during the harvest time, when the moon was very bright. Her shoulder wasn't injured like it had been by the Bad Man, but her arms were weak, the muscles so strained they practically sang out to Gigi.
She was hurt in the female places too, like Amanda had been after Samantha was born. But there was no new baby to show for it, and Gigi knew for certain that Olivia had not been carrying a child. Amanda had the mother-smell when she was carrying, and even afterward there was a sweetness to her pain, a scent of warm milk and fresh-cut grass, that Gigi associated with happiness and love.
The smell on Olivia was not happy or love; it was crouching scared, shivering fur that shouted like the rabbits Gigi used to chase in Woods Home. Rabbits couldn't brain-smell, at least not in the dog ways, and didn't understand she only wanted to play, not rip and tear to make blood food.
Wolves ate blood food. There were wolves in Olivia's world too, and they ripped and tore at other humans instead of rabbits. The Bad Man, the self sounds Olivia made in her sleep (Serena, Daddy, Lewis, Calvin, Elliot), the girl-stranger who shot Amanda, the man-stranger who had tried to take Matilda a few days ago—they were the wolves, though they looked like regular people. Gigi tried to sniff them out before they got near her family, but sometimes she was too late.
Sometimes the wolves got in and you couldn't stop them.
Gently Gigi leapt onto the bed when Amanda signaled that it was all right. Amanda was Alpha in their home, at least when it came to protecting the family and fighting anyone who threatened it, and Gigi trusted her to do what was best for Olivia. She and Amanda were a lot alike in that way—their loyalty and love for the woman who had saved them, taken them in, given them home and family. Now Olivia needed them to take care of her and give her that same safe place she'd given them.
"Good girl," Amanda said, patting Gigi on the rump as she settled in next to Olivia. Gigi avoided resting her chin on Olivia's belly as she normally would, since much of the hurt originated there. Instead, she lay alongside her master, her head at hip level, close enough that snout and ears could be rubbed without reaching. She had often felt Olivia's body words go from tight and anxious to loose and relaxed with each stroke of her fur. Not only that, but it felt good to Gigi too. Her calm helped calm Olivia.
She nuzzled the woman's hand when it didn't immediately start petting. It came to life like a small creature awakened by Gigi nosing into its burrow, but it didn't massage her muzzle or make her ears do floppy dances, it just dropped to rest on top of her head, still as bad sleep. Her first family's hands did that after the Bad Man, only theirs were covered in blood that hurt-smelled. Olivia and Amanda had tried to drag her away from the bloody hurt-smell, to protect her from the Bad Man.
He'd gotten to her anyway. And so had the human wolves gotten to her master-friend, whose dreams and body words Gigi felt as strongly as she did in sleep: Gigi see-smelled human faces she didn't recognize, though they made mean word sounds at her, as if they knew her, hated her, wished her great harm. She always woke from those dreams to find Olivia smelling of anguish, which was salty like sweat and tears, but also giving off a subtle hint of unripe fruit. That was the way children smelled when they were afraid.
It had taken Gigi several of those strange awakenings to realize she was brain-smelling Olivia's dreams, and the unfamiliar faces belonged to Olivia's tormentors. The wolves in humans' clothing.
Gigi tucked her chin into the crook of Olivia's elbow and sighed. If she had the ability to make word sounds she would tell her friend she was sorry, that everything would be okay; but even the dog ways couldn't show that to Gigi for sure, and even if they had, she didn't have the language to express it.
Sad Love. That was her heart word for Olivia today. It smelled like summer raindrops, but weighed heavier on the golden's spirit than the worst of brewing storms.
. . .