Silt, Denver Cereal Volume 8 (2 page)

Chapter 246 – In the
park

Chapter 247 –
Enough

Chapter 248 – Scared
kids

Chapter Two Hundred and
Twenty-Two
Perfect

Saturday morning—5:15 a.m.
Somewhere over the United States

A little woozy from the airline champagne,
Yvonne turned to look at Rodney. His airline blanket was pulled up
to his chin and his eyes were closed. She was about to touch him to
see if he was awake when he opened his eyes.

“
You okay?” he
asked.

She nodded.

“
What’s up?” Rodney
asked.

“
I wondered if you were
serious about being naked all week,” Yvonne said. His eyes scanned
her face. When he didn’t say anything, she continued, “It just
doesn’t seem like you.”

“
How so? I’ve always had
an intense desire for you, woman.”

“
I would expect you to
have a big plan about how we’re going to this museum and that one,”
Yvonne smiled. “We have to, just have to, see this other thing. I
guess, if I were to imagine you in Paris, I wouldn’t imagine you
spending the whole time in bed. Some quality time, sure. Not all
week. But then I don’t know. Maybe you go to Paris every
weekend.”

Rodney laughed.

“
Do you go to Paris every
weekend?” Yvonne asked.

“
No,” Rodney said. “In the
summer, I work on Saturdays. In the winter, I split my time between
Cañon City, Limon and Buena Vista prisons to mentor young men on
Saturdays.”

“
You just go to Paris on
Sundays?” Yvonne smiled.

“
I spend my Sundays at
church and with my daughter,” Rodney said. “Your mother fixes an
afternoon meal. Bumpy and Dionne come. Miss T is there when she
can. It’s nice, reminds me that I’m free.”

“
Oh.” Yvonne looked
straight ahead.

“
You’re saying you don’t
want to be naked all week?” Rodney smiled and Yvonne turned her
head to look at him. “Well, what do you think?”

“
I think some naked time
is definitely in order,” Yvonne said. “But I want to see everything
and eat all that delicious French cooking.”

“
Now that you mentioned
it.” Rodney smiled and took out his phone.

“
You can’t use that,”
Yvonne said. “The lady said that when we took off!”

Rodney smiled.

“
What?” Yvonne
asked.

“
You remembered,” Rodney
said.

“
I did!” Yvonne
beamed.

“
The phone’s on airplane
mode.” Rodney showed her the setting and she nodded. “I was going
to show you.”

He passed the phone to her. There was a map
with detailed notes about what to see at each location. He pressed
a button, which opened a spreadsheet with a schedule of everything
he wanted to see.

“
That’s my Rodney,” Yvonne
said. “What’s this and this?”

She pointed to timeslots on the
itinerary.

“
Your friend Claire,”
Rodney said. “The woman who made your pretty dresses?”

“
I remember her.” Yvonne
gave him a bright smile.

“
Just checking,” Rodney
said. “I asked if she could help get appointments to buy you some
clothes. She set up appointments for the both of us. She said that
either she or her son Frederec would come with us to
help.”

Yvonne gave a happy clap.

“
Perfect?” He raised his
eyebrows. She leaned over and kissed him.

“
Thank you,” she
said.

He smiled.

“
Can I ask you a
question?” Yvonne asked.

“
Anything,” Rodney
asked.

“
It’s kind of
a . . .”

“
Just ask.”

“
Was the spider in the car
next to your car? You know in the parking lot of the
7-11?”

Rodney became very still. His eyes reviewed
her face.

“
The car was a US
Government Fleet car,” Rodney said. “There was a guy who was
definitely some kind of cop watching us, and the car. He wasn’t
wearing Kevlar, but he had a Glock 22 or 23 in a side holster like
the Marshal’s carry.”

“
Smelled like him.” Yvonne
gave a little shiver. “I made myself not look.”

“
The windows of the car
were dark tinted and looked like they were bullet proof,” Rodney
said. “The way it was rocking and not moving, I’d say it was an
armored car.”

“
You noticed all of that,”
Yvonne said.

Rodney nodded.

“
Was he in there?” Yvonne
asked.

“
I honestly don’t know,”
Rodney said. “If he was, it wasn’t because I asked for him to be
there.”

“
Then who?”

“
Seth, maybe,” Rodney
said. “Your handsome Homeland Security agent, Senator
Hargreaves . . .”

“
You know some important
people now,” Yvonne said.

“
I met most of them
through you,” Rodney smiled. “What if the spider was there in that
car?”

“
Well . . .” Yvonne sighed. “It didn’t seem
like he could get out.”

“
I don’t think he can get
out,” Rodney said. “He’s in witness protection. That’s kind of like
being in prison. He can’t go where he wants to, can’t see who he
wants to; he has to work a real
job . . .”

“
What about his family?”
Yvonne looked horrified. “That lovely girl I met today?”

“
He traded everything to
not to go to prison,” Rodney said.

“
Everything?”

“
All his money, his
secrets, everything,” Rodney said.

“
I don’t believe it,”
Yvonne said.

“
Everything,” Rodney said.
“Bumpy said that his daughters just found out. They’re quite
distressed. The youngest was in college. She’ll have to drop out.
Seth’s fiancé lost her job. So did her older sister.”

“
And he traded it all just
to not go to prison?”

Rodney looked away from Yvonne.

“
He traded it all for me,”
Yvonne whispered. “Then why am I here? Why didn’t I have to go with
him?”

“
Because of your book,”
Rodney said. “Because you are not without friends. But mostly
because the world is filled with decent people who used this
opportunity to free you.”

“
So I go free,” Yvonne
said.

“
And he’s locked up like
you were,” Rodney said.

“
I’m sorry about his
family, especially his children,” Yvonne said.

“
He’s a monster,” Rodney
said. “Only an evil man would do such a thing to his family. But
look at what he did to you? To us?”

“
Why do you think he was
there in the parking lot?” Yvonne asked.

“
I don’t know,” Rodney
said.

“
Any guesses?”

“
To show him what he
lost,” Rodney said.

“
Me?”

“
Everything he stole was
returned to where it belonged,” Rodney said. “There’s some justice
in that.”

Yvonne smiled and leaned back against her
seat.

“
What?”

“
He never stole my
heart.”

Rodney smiled.

“
That’s what he really
wanted,” Yvonne said. “But he never could have it.”

Rodney couldn’t think of anything to say. He
just smiled.

“
Do I really get all new
clothes?” Yvonne asked.

“
Do you have any
clothes?”

“
No,” Yvonne said. “But I
really get all new clothes?”

“
We’ll have fun,” Rodney
said. “Do you want to go to all these boring old museums with
me?”

“
I’m never bored when I’m
with you,” Yvonne said.

Rodney smiled. Yvonne shut her eyes.

“
Are you going to sleep?”
Rodney asked.

“
If I sleep, we’ll get
there sooner,” Yvonne said.

Smiling at her logic, he closed his eyes.
Yvonne opened her eyes to look at him again. He opened his eyes and
reached for her hand. For a moment, their eyes held. She smiled and
he kissed her hand.

“
Sleep?” he
asked.

“
Sleep.”

~~~~~~~~

Saturday morning—5:15 a.m.
Denver, CO

Heather heard a sound and sat up in bed.
She’d been sleeping with one ear open for Blane to come home. But
this wasn’t Blane.

After the ceremony, she’d taken Mack and
Tink home. While Mack was used to sleeping at the Castle, Tink
needed her medication and some real rest. Heather had to be super
good and try to keep her on her schedule if they were going to be
her forever family. So they came home, had a snack, and went to
bed.

Heather checked the crib in their room. Mack
was sound asleep with his head on his favorite stuffed giraffe and
his thumb was just to the side of his mouth. She put her hand on
him to see if he was warm or sick. He seemed fine. She went out of
her bedroom and into the hall.

She heard a noise from the room across the
hall where Tink was sleeping. Having had a nosy, invasive mother,
Heather debated with herself as to whether she should look in. She
went back in her room to get her phone. Normally, she would just
call Blane. They lived their life together and made every decision
together. But tonight, Blane was with Honey, and Honey really
needed him.

Which one of her girls was awake? Tanesha
had left right before they did because she had to study. Jill was
becoming a continent on her own. She was surely asleep. She heard
the noise again. Unable to stop herself, she jogged across the hall
and opened the door.

“
Tink?” Heather leaned in
the door.

The girl was lying diagonally across the
Queen sized bed. Her body jerked and she was making a low moaning
noise. Her fist jerked as if she was trying to hit someone.

Heather blinked. She’d seen this before. She
crept out of the bedroom.

In the hallway, she dialed Sandy and waited
impatiently while the phone rang.

“
Yeah,” Charlie said in
the phone.

“
Jeez, Charlie, were you
raised in a barn?” Sandy asked in the background.

“
Yes,” Charlie laughed.
“Uh, Sandy’s phone, this is Charles Delgado-Norsen. How’s
that?”

Sandy’s voice was muffled.

“
Can I talk to Sandy?”
Heather asked.

“
Who may I say is
calling?” Charlie asked.

“
You know who this is,”
Heather said. “It’s kind of an emergency. And when did you become a
Norsen?”

“
I thought that would
sound super fancy,” Charlie laughed. He moved away from the phone
and said, “It’s for you.”

“
It’s my phone,” Sandy
said. “Of course it’s for me. Sorry about that.”

“
Sandy, I need some help,”
Heather said.

“
Just a second,” Sandy
said. “Okay, I locked myself in the bathroom.”

“
Tink’s doing that thing
that you used to do,” Heather whispered. “They told us she had
seizures, but that’s not a seizure.”

“
It’s a nightmare?” Sandy
asked.

“
Looks like those things
you used to have,” Heather said. “Night terrors.”

“
Poor thing,” Sandy said.
“Should I come over?”

Someone pounded on the bathroom door. A
deeper voice, probably Aden, said something to the person pounding
on the door.

“
The natives are full of
sugar and excited,” Sandy said. “The outside party is just getting
going and Delphie wants them in the clothes she got for them. I
hate to say it, but they actually look . . .
civilized.”

Sandy chuckled and Heather smiled.

“
I hate to
ask . . . I know you have . . . but
Blane he’s . . .”

“
Give me five minutes,”
Sandy said.

The phone went dead. Heather went back to
the doorway of the other room. She remembered from Sandy’s night
terrors that if she didn’t do it exactly the right way, anything
she said or did would get integrated into Tink’s night terror. At
this moment, she couldn’t remember what the heck she was supposed
to do. Her phone buzzed. She looked down to see that Blane was
calling.

“
How’s Honey?” Heather
tried to be breezy so he wouldn’t know how worried she
was.

“
She’s just starting real
labor,” Blane said. “Sorry it’s been so long. We’ve had a tough
time deciding what to do.”

“
Why?” Heather
asked.

“
Because the midwife wants
Honey to fight through natural delivery,” Blane said. “The doctor
wants to do a safe C-section. MJ isn’t able to talk and Honey,
well . . . I’m always amazed with her ability to
handle everything.”

“
Can she deliver
naturally?” Heather asked.

“
Steve thinks she can, and
he’s her nurse,” Blane said. “Anyway, I called because I just had
that . . . twinge that you needed me. Are you all
right?”

“
I think Tink’s having
night terrors,” Heather said.