The Mommy Miracle by Lilian Darcy

about it already. It’s the first time I’ve driven on a dark country road.”
    â€œIn so long?”
    â€œCouldn’t drive at all for the first few months, because of my leg. Since then, I’ve been pretty busy sticking close to town.” Taking care of a baby. Watching her mom wake up.
    â€œI’m an idiot.”
    â€œNo.” He shook his head, ran a still-unsteady hand down his face as if to wipe the emotion away.
    â€œI am. ‘It’s not always about you, Jodie,’” she said out loud, with bitterness, mocking herself.
    Dev opened the car door. “I need some air. For a minute. But this is not your fault. Let’s not do that to each other.”
    He slid out into the fresh night air, walking away from the vehicle, lacing his fingers behind his head so that his elbows stuck out. She heard him breathing, big whooshes of air blown out through rounded lips. He circled back and leaned his thighs against the hood of the car, looking out over the moonlit pond just yards away, still blowing those careful breaths.
    She scrambled out of the vehicle and went to him. “Dev…”
    â€œYou were lying there,” he said, the words torn from him as if by a force he couldn’t control. “I could barely reach you to touch. Just my fingertips. Couldn’t do anything for you. I could see blood in the dark. I could hear the other driver yelling and moaning. Crying on the phone when he got himself together enough to call 911. I didn’t know… I thought you were breathing but I wasn’t sure. And my leg was trapped. And shattered. They had to cut us out. It took three hours.”
    â€œOh, Dev…”
    â€œI’m sorry.” He pressed his fingers into his eyes. “Your family didn’t want me to tell you all that.”
    â€œNo. They wouldn’t.”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    â€œDon’t do that to me, Dev, don’t treat me like a child, the way they do. I’m not. I’m a grown woman. A strong woman. And I’m— I’m—” She didn’t know how to finish.
    In your debt, forever.
    Here for you, forever.
    Words weren’t strong enough.
    Touch just might be.
    She reached for him, running her stronger right hand—the one that she might actually be able to control—up his arm. She rested it on his shoulder, beside his warm neck, and leaned her body close. “You’re amazing,” she said. “You’ve carried this load of memory all on your own, while I’ve been free.”
    â€œI guess I did need to talk about it.” He was still shaking a little, not from weakness, she guessed, but from the effort of holding everything in. She didn’t want him to hold it in. Such tightness and control would surely kill him.
    Let go, Dev, let go.
    Not fully aware of what she was doing, she began to soothe his muscles with her touch, the way her own muscles had been massaged back into life with physical therapy. She knew all those movements so well, by now.
    That’s better. That’s good. Let go, Dev.
    He let out another shuddering sigh and wrapped his arms around her. She felt the warmth of the car hood from the hot engine, and heard it begin to tick as it cooled.
    â€œWhen the paramedics arrived and confirmed you were alive, this rush of relief, I can’t describe…” His voice rumbled against her chest, his breath making aheated caress in her ear. “And then they gave me drugs for the pain and I had this hallucination. I thought we were in a shipwreck, floating in a lifeboat with sharks circling in the water, the only two people left in the whole world. All I could reach was your hair. I held on to it….”
    He showed her, taking a soft handful in his fist. She could feel his thumb resting, light and warm, on the back of her neck. He moved a little, bringing his cheek against hers. It was a little rough, so familiar, so good. She turned her head and