Page 114 of Hush, Little Baby

“Daddy, I’m okay.”

He bows his head and brings my hand to his lips, holding it there as if trying to inhale my pulse, the proof I’m alive. His beard is scratchy, but I savor it, even the sting of soft hairs against my battered knuckles.

“Never again,” he says, voice thunderous and low. “Never fucking again.”

He sits like that for a long moment, his hand engulfing mine, the ferocity of his grip squeezing blood to the surface and making my already throbbing fingers sting. I almost protest, but then he softens, tender as a bandage. He keeps kissing the back of my hand, as if that could somehow undo the last twelve hours.

I can’t stop crying.

I don’t even try.

The tears just keep coming, my chest hitching with every raw, sodden breath. I want to be brave, to make him proud, but all I can do is cling with my good arm and let him pet my head and tell me, “Shh, shh, Daddy’s got you, Daddy’s here.”

Eventually, my exhaustion gets the better of me, and my blubbering slows to a hiccupy silence. I blink crusty salt from my eyes and study his face, just to reassure myself he’s real. Not a dream, not a mirage.

“Daddy,” I whisper. “I love you.”

“Oh,” he gasps out wetly, “baby, thank you. I love you too. More than anything.”

A gentle knock interrupts the moment.

Nikolaus catches his breath, sighs, and glances toward the door, wary, but only slightly. “Charlie?” he asks.

“Yeah?”

“There’s someone here who really wants to meet you. Can she come in? If you don’t want any visitors, that’s fine. Everyone will understand.”

Confusion ripples through my exhaustion, but I end up shrugging. “Okay.”

“Come in,” Nikolaus calls out.

The door opens, and the woman I glimpsed earlier steps in, dressed in a tailored jacket of deep burgundy, with a silk scarf in autumn hues draped at her neck, and dark curls threaded with silver that catch the lamp light.

She pauses by the bedside, eyes flecked with both reproach and relief. “I cannot believe you kept him hidden from me,” she says, voice crisp.

“Mother—”

Mother?

“For months!” she snaps. Nikolaus opens his mouth; she ignores him, turning to me. Her sharp features soften instantly. “Oh, sweetheart…” She reaches out, smoothing a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I have been worried sick.”

My heart aches with the unfamiliar warmth in her tone. “You have..?”

She nods, concern shining in her eyes. “It’s a blessing I dropped in for a visit when I did. Oh, the way he walked in here with you in his arms, all bruised up and looking like death herself. I was beside myself, and then—then he told me he loves you and you’ve been living here with him!”

Nikolaus groans; his mother pays no heed.

“And then he keeps me waiting for hours! And I’m just sitting there thinking that I’m about to lose the precious boy my son has only just told me about! Oh, Charlie, you must be feeling terrible.”

I manage, “I’m sorry that we’re meeting now, and not like when I’m not all beat up.”

She waves it away. “Oh, sweetness, don’t apologize. This is all my Nikolaus’s fault. All of it.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

“Hush, you,” she hisses at her son.

A tremulous laugh escapes me, and she smiles broadly, as though it were the best sound she’s heard all year.