Chapter 18 - LEO
Aria called Ethan at two fourteen in the morning.
“Dad.”
He sat up instantly.
“What’s wrong?”
“My water broke.”
Ethan was dressed before she finished the sentence.
Olivia laughed while pulling on her shoes.
“You have been preparing for this call for nine months.”
“I am calm.”
“You put your shirt on backward.”
Ethan looked down.
It was backward.
At the hospital, Aria labored for fourteen hours.
Daniel remained beside her.
Olivia moved between the waiting room and delivery floor.
Ethan paced.
Rebecca arrived with coffee.
Marcus arrived with sandwiches.
By afternoon, half of Haven House seemed aware something was happening.
Then Daniel appeared.
He was crying.
Ethan stood.
“Everything okay?”
Daniel laughed.
“He’s perfect.”
Olivia covered her mouth.
“A boy?”
Daniel nodded.
“Leo Ethan Mercer.”
Ethan froze.
“Ethan?”
Aria’s voice called from inside.
“Don’t make it weird, Dad.”
Everyone laughed.
Ethan entered the room.
Aria looked exhausted.
And radiant.
A tiny baby slept against her chest.
Ethan approached slowly.
For a moment, time folded in on itself.
He remembered another hospital.
Another newborn.
Another young mother exhausted after surviving something terrible.
He looked at Olivia.
She was remembering too.
Aria held out Leo.
“Want to meet your grandson?”
Ethan took him.
Leo opened his eyes.
Ethan’s throat closed.
“He’s small.”
Aria laughed.
“That’s usually how babies start.”
Olivia stood beside him.
“Look at his nose.”
“He has my nose.”
“No.”
“He absolutely has my nose.”
Daniel laughed.
“That is exactly what my father said.”
For the next several years, Haven House became Leo’s second home.
He learned to walk in the garden.
He learned to ride a bicycle on the long driveway.
He learned that the enormous staircase was excellent for toy cars until Olivia established a rule against it.
He knew nothing about the terror associated with those steps.
To Leo, the staircase was simply part of Grandma and Grandpa’s house.
That realization healed something in Olivia.
One afternoon, Leo sat halfway up the stairs eating a cookie.
Olivia stopped below him.
For a second, the old image returned.
Her own body falling.
The railing slipping past.
Derek’s face.
Then Leo smiled.
“Grandma, want some?”
He held out half the cookie.
Olivia laughed.
“Yes.”
She sat beside him.
They shared it.
The past did not disappear.
It became smaller.
A memory instead of a prison.
That evening, Ethan found her sitting there.
“What are you doing?”
“Eating contraband staircase cookies.”
He sat beside her.
“You okay?”
Olivia nodded.
“I used to think healing meant I would stop remembering.”
“And now?”
“Now I think it means remembering without being pulled backward.”
May you like
Ethan took her hand.
They sat on the staircase until sunset.
