Page 236 of Johnny

Christina Boston

A blanket falls over my shoulders and when I look up Megan is there. Wrapped up in a robe held

tight around her body. “Hey,” she says, sitting down beside me. “What’s going on?”

I look at the phone in my hand. “I gave that cuneiform contract to a friend for translation on the off

chance that it was some secret message from my mother.”

“Was it?”

I take her hand, place the phone in it, and then say, “Read it and tell me what you think.”

Megan takes the phone as I lie back and look up at the sky. A few moments later she opens the

blanket, pushes her body up to mine, and covers us back up.

“What do you think?” I ask.

She kisses me on the cheek just as Jasper comes bounding onto my chest to lick my face.

Whimpering with happiness and big expectations.

“I think it says we won.”

I turn to look at her. Study her blue-green eyes.

“And I think it says she loves you.”

I swallow down the sadness.

“And I think it says she’s sorry.”

“All that in one short message?”

“She is nothing if not efficient.”

Which makes me smile.

“I think it says… we should get on with our life.”

“And make babies,” I huff.

“And they will be safe.”

“Not yet,” I caution her. “One day. She made that clear.”

“But she also said it will all end soon,” Megan says. And then she kisses my cheek and lies back to

look up at the sky with me. “And our job now is to be happy.”

“Is that what you think we should do, then? Forget about it? Let her handle it?”

She climbs on top of me, fighting for attention with the still whimpering and licking Jasper. Then

holds my face in her hands. Stares right down into my eyes. Leans over so her long hair brushes

against my bare chest.