Emma wailing against his chest. His eyes were red- rimmed. His hands trembled when he saw Carara in the doorway. Something between relief and shame crossed his face. She won't stop.
I've tried everything. She won't let me. He handed the baby over, too tired to protest, too desperate to guard himself. Cara settled Emma against her shoulder, began the slow rock, and without meaning to, without choosing to, she began to sing. The lullabi.
Her mother's song. The song she'd sung to her own belly every night for four months, promising a future that never arrived. The song she thought had died with her daughter. Emma's crying softened, stuttered, stopped. But Cara kept singing.
Tears ran down her cheeks as the melody poured out of her grief and love and longing twisted together into something that transcended words. She sang to Emma. She sang to the daughter she'd buried. She sang to all the broken parts of herself she'd thought were beyond repair. Jonathan stood frozen in the doorway.
He watched this woman, this stranger the storm had delivered, pour everything she had into comforting his child. Watched her weep silently while she sang. Watched her love Emma with a ferocity that took his breath away. Not because Emma was hers, because Emma needed her. The realization struck him like lightning.
Cara wasn't here by accident. The storm hadn't trapped her. It had brought her. She was exactly what his daughter needed. Exactly what his hollow house needed.
Exactly what he needed. He stepped into the room, not lingering in the doorway, not watching from a safe distance. Present. Cara looked up. Song fading, tears still wet on her face.
Emma slept peacefully against her chest. Don't, Jonathan said. His voice was rough, raw. Don't leave in the morning. I thought you wanted.
I was afraid. He crossed to her. Stood close enough to touch but didn't. I've been afraid for 6 months. Afraid of needing help.
Afraid of feeling something. Afraid of. He stopped, gathered himself, afraid of wanting someone to stay. Cara held his gaze, held his daughter, held everything fragile and frightening about this moment. "I'm afraid, too," she whispered.
"I've been running from grief for a year, telling myself if I kept moving, it couldn't catch me. Did it work? " "No," she almost smiled. It just meant I was alone when it found me anyway. The storm breathed its last gusts against the windows. The lamp flickered.
Emma sighed in her sleep. Stay, Jonathan said. Please. Just stay. The words that build houses.