by April Lust
“I want, um, I want Alex to have that,” Evan forced out, the words painful as they left his mouth even though he meant them. He did want Alex to have a Christmas. A real Christmas. A warm Christmas.
“I thought you hated Christmas,” Hannah replied, grabbing onto his hand more firmly.
“Not anymore,” Evan said, feeling himself blush more deeply, as if he was a weak little schoolboy.
“How would we do it?” Hannah asked.
“There’s an ax just inside the door,” Evan said. “I saw it when we came in. I can go out and take one of the skinny trees down and carry it in.”
“What would we do for decorations?” Hannah asked. “I don’t—I don’t want to leave the cabin unless we have to.”
Evan thought about it. “Well, what would we need, really? Some shiny, colorful shit. We got to be able to find that stuff around here somewhere.”
Hannah screwed up her face in concentration. It looked really cute, tempting Evan to lean in and kiss her again, but he let her think. “When I was a kid, we didn’t have any money, you know, so we made our own ornaments. We could…we could grab some paper and some scissors and make paper baubles that way. Let me look in the closets out there,” she said, crossing the bedroom to go to the main section of the cabin.
Evan put Alex back down on the bed, swaddling him securely with blankets before following Hannah out to the main room. “While you do that, I’m going to chop that fucking tree down before the storm sets in again.”
He grabbed the ax on his way out, heading to the tree right outside the bedroom window. Hannah’s favorite. But as he aimed his weapon at it, he mentally transformed it into another target entirely. Salvatore’s broad dumb face. “Yeah, eat metal, you fuck,” Evan muttered as he dug the ax into the base of the tree. “Fucking choke on it.” When the time came to kill Salvatore, Evan would enjoy it. Maybe he would hide that from Hannah. It might make her think less of him, but he couldn’t help but think some part of her would enjoy it, too.
***
Hannah
Hannah found some colored paper, albeit thinner than the kind she wanted, in an office room to the back of the house. Next, she located a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawers and set off to work, making rough, uneven circles out of the paper. Green, yellow, red, brown, and pink. Not exactly uniformly Christmas colors, but it would work. She got herself a pen from the office and traced out angel shapes, cutting them out as best as she could. They kind of just looked like wonky, lopsided people with huge arms, but it was good enough. More than good enough, she thought with a smile, listening to the low thudding sounds outside as Evan attacked the tree. They were making their own Christmas with their own hands. And it was Evan’s idea, which made everything a thousand times sweeter. She’d made him believe in Christmas again. That was the closest thing to a miracle she’d seen in a long time. Maybe ever.
Hannah found a set of paperclips next, using them to poke holes in the paper ornaments and sticking them through the new openings. She’d use them to hang the ornaments up, wrapping around the branches of the tree. A minute later, the front door swung open, and a panting Evan dragged the tree inside, probably ruining the nice welcome mat in the process, but Hannah couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Big mountain man,” she said teasingly as Evan huffed and puffed, pulling the tree to the center of the room.
“That’s about as far as it’s going to go,” he said between huge panting breaths, lifting the tree up and leaning it against the wall. “Little crooked, but it’ll have to work.”
“Let me get Alex. I don’t want him to miss this,” Hannah said before heading into the bedroom to grab Alex. She returned to the living room a minute later, placing him down on the couch so he could watch her decorate the tree.
Hannah grabbed the bundle of paper ornaments and placed them down in a pile on the floor next to the tree. “You want to help?” she asked Evan as she began to hang some of the paper baubles from the tree with the paperclips.
“That’s okay, I’ll just watch you,” Evan said, sitting down next to Alex, who was cooing lightly in curiosity.
“Come on,” Hannah prodded him. “Just hang one or two. For me?”
Evan was quiet a moment, but when she turned around to pout at him, it was all over. He got up and went over to her, bashfully smiling a little as she handed him an angel to hang from the tree. “Where do I—”
“Anywhere,” Hannah said, trying to be as reassuring as possible. “There’s no wrong place.”
“Yes, teacher,” he said teasingly before hanging an angel on a low branch.
But Evan didn’t stop at one or two. He kept accepting the ornaments as Hannah handed them to him, alternating branches to maximize coverage of the tree. Hannah felt her heart beat joyously in her chest. She hadn’t felt this good in…maybe ever. She felt like she and Evan were reinventing Christmas together, making it with their own two hands, reshaping it into something they could be proud of. They felt…like a family.
As they finished their task, Hannah clapped her hands together and jumped up and down like a small child, excitement filling her entire body. “It’s so cute!” she cried.
“No, you are,” Evan said, pulling her into a deep kiss.
“I just wish I had a camera to take a picture of it….or some hot cocoa or something to commemorate the occasion,” Hannah said against his lips as they pulled apart.
“Well, they might have some,” Evan said, walking off into the kitchen. “I’ll check.”
Hannah grinned, watching him through the open doorway as he shuffled through the cabinets and drawers. It didn’t matter if he didn’t find anything. Happiness filled her up with warmth anyway. It was even okay with her that the storm had returned. For once in her life she didn’t feel afraid.
But her joy receded as she turned to check on her child.
Alex was slumped against the side of the couch, sniffling in his sleep lightly. He looked…fine, but Hannah still felt a wave of anxiety crash over her. It took her a second for her to realize what was wrong.
“Why is he sleeping so much?” Hannah asked out loud, worry seeping into her voice. She didn’t want to alarm Evan, but this wasn’t normal. Alex was a very active child, constantly babbling and trying to climb up places where he shouldn’t go. It was almost a relief that he hadn’t gotten into anything dangerous over the past few days, but it was concerning Hannah now that he’d been so quiet and still. That just wasn’t her son.
Maybe it’s just overstimulation, she thought. He’s had to move around so much, maybe it’s just tiring him out. But she couldn’t stop the bile from rising up her throat and filling her mouth as a result of her anxiety.
“Found some chocolate bars, will that work?” Evan said as he walked back into the room. “Hey, what’s up?” he asked, clearly detecting her worry right away.
“Um, it’s just Alex,” Hannah murmured, sitting down and reaching over to take her son into her arms, rocking him a little bit back and forth. “He’s not…he’s not himself.”
“He’s just sleeping,” Evan said. “He looks fine.”
“Yeah, but he usually doesn’t sleep all the time. He’s more…jumping around and getting into trouble, you know.” She clutched Alex tighter, trying to get him to wake up. Alex just sniffled some more and crushed his face against her chest. “He’s not okay,” she murmured.
“How can you tell?” Evan asked, putting the chocolate bars down on the coffee table.
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Hannah could feel panic fill every cell of her body. “I can just tell.” Mother’s intuition, she thought.
Alex sniffled again and whined low, deep in his throat. Shit. He had been sniffling a lot the past day. Did he just have a cold?
Hannah rubbed her hand down Alex’s back, detecting lots of tension in his tiny little muscles, as if all of them had expended far too much energy in too short a time period. “He’s not okay,” she said again.
“Okay, w
hat do you need to do?” Evan asked, sitting down next to her.
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Hannah said again, her voice rising in impatience and frustration. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean—I’m not mad at you or anything,” she rushed to add, turning to face Evan. “I just don’t know what to do. My baby’s sick.”
“Does he have a fever?” Evan asked, gesturing to Alex’s head.
Hannah placed one hand on Alex’s forehead, trying to detect his temperature, but it was hard to tell. He felt warm; was that bad or good? “I can’t tell.”
“Let me look for a thermometer. There’s got to be one around here,” Evan said, getting to his feet.
“I think there’s one in one of the kitchen drawers,” Hannah said, remembering from her search for the scissors earlier.
“Got it!” Evan yelled from the other room, running back with an oral thermometer in his hand. “Do I wash it off or…?”
“Just to be safe,” Hannah said. “I can do it.” She got to her feet to reach out for the thermometer, but Evan was already on his way to the bathroom to rinse it off.
A minute later, he returned with the tool again, handing it off to Hannah, who made sure it was dry and room temperature before sticking it under Alex’s arm. “Hold on for me, baby, okay?” she whispered, soothingly rubbing the back of his head.
After another minute, the thermometer beeped, and Hannah pulled it out of his mouth. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she said. “We got to….we got to go, Evan.” She got to her feet, pressing Alex against her chest tightly.
“What is it? What’s wrong? Is it bad?” Evan asked, following her to the front of the cabin.
“Really bad,” Hannah answered. “Get…get your jacket on.” She didn’t know why she told Evan that. Her maternal instincts must have been going into overdrive. They must be compensating for time lost, she berated herself. As she walked through the front door and headed for the car, she couldn’t help but beat herself up internally. All day she’d been playing house with Evan when her baby was on death’s door. What kind of mother was she?
“It’ll be okay,” Evan said, even though he had no idea how bad things were. “He’ll be fine, baby.”
Hannah didn’t say anything, quickly putting Alex in his car seat and sitting right next to him. “Hospital,” she directed Evan. “Closest one. Just…please.”
“Got it,” Evan said, hurriedly backing out onto the dirt path again, speeding through the woods and heading for the main road. “It’ll be all right. It’ll be fine, Hannah. I promise.”
“You don’t know that,” she whispered as they found the highway once again. She leaned over to rub Alex’s head, even though he was fast asleep again. How much was this baby going to suffer? How much pain was he going to feel? Is he going to be taken away from me? Hannah wondered. Is this my punishment, for staying with Salvatore as long as I did, for letting Salvatore hurt my son, for stealing cars, for being a shitty mother, for everything I’ve fucked up?
It was another twenty minutes of driving before Evan pulled into the parking lot of a hospital. “Go in,” he said, pulling up to the curb of the emergency room. “I’ll find a place to park.”
Hannah nodded, too stressed to argue even though the hairs on the back of her neck stood up at the idea of splitting up even for a few minutes.
She rushed in, holding on to Alex with one arm and gripping her bag with the other, getting in line to talk to the receptionist to get a number for the nurses to see her son.
It was excruciating, waiting, but she didn’t want to ask anybody to skip the line or ask for help in any other way if she didn’t absolutely have to. The fewer people noticed them, the better. For all she knew, Salvatore had people camped out at all the hospitals, waiting for any sign of her.
Evan walked in a minute later, walking up to their place in line and taking Alex from her arms to give her a break.
“Thanks,” she whispered in response. She wished she could lean into him, let all of her weight sink into his body, but she was afraid of calling attention to herself in any way.
Finally, after another few minutes that stretched on and on and felt more like decades, it was her turn to talk to the receptionist and receive a number. “Hi!” Hannah half-yelled. Her voice was out of her control right now. The panic in her stomach was driving everything she did like a puppeteer. “My son is sick. Really sick. Got a really bad fever. Please, can we see a nurse, like, immediately?” she asked in a rush.
“Do you have insurance?” the lady at the front desk asked, rather than answering her question.
“Why does that matter?” Hannah asked. “I’m going to pay you, but please, look at my son, he’s sick, he’s really, really fucking sick.”
“Please refrain from using profanity, ma’am,” the stuffy nurse replied, her tone as even and calm as ever, as if a little boy wasn’t at risk of death. “It’s our policy right now. We need to know who’s able to pay up front.”
“I—I…” She couldn’t use her insurance. It was Salvatore’s insurance. He’d be alerted right away if Hannah used it to save Alex. Hannah sighed deeply and reached into her purse, rifling around for her supply of cash. She probably had a few hundred dollars left. That might work as a method of payment. Maybe she could even pay up front. That way they could get out of the hospital faster after Alex was better.
She pulled a pile of bills out of her bag and held it out for the receptionist to take, but the woman just shook her head and pursed her lips. “We’ll need to have a credit card on file if you don’t have insurance,” the woman said. “We don’t know what the total costs will be yet.”
Hannah blew out her breath in frustration. It was taking every last ounce of energy left to restrain herself from leaping across the desk and throttling the woman with her own two hands. She knew she’d told Evan that she didn’t want to kill anyone, but she was seriously considering rethinking that stance right now. “Please. Just take my money,” she said between gritted teeth.
“Credit card, ma’am. Credit. Card,” the lady said back, her voice going hard and mean.
Hannah sighed deeply and reached into her wallet for her card, handing it over a second later without a thought. “Will you please treat my son now?” she asked. Another wave of anxiety crashed over her, but she didn’t have the time or energy to ask herself why.
***
Evan
Hannah used the card. Maybe she hadn’t realized it, but Evan did. He knew what that meant. Salvatore’s men would be coming soon. Evan scanned his surroundings, looking for any sign of a familiar face among the crowd, but he couldn’t detect anything suspicious. Yet. He realized that they wouldn’t attack in this hospital lobby, but the second Alex was better and Hannah left the hospital with him, they’d be ready and waiting, and there was no way Evan could fight all of them off. The sensation of doom slipped down over Evan’s mind like a dark cloud, slow and steady and unstoppable. There was no way out. There was no way they were coming out of here alive.
Unless…unless I find a way to get to Salvatore first. Evan had an idea of where they were, geographically-speaking. They were actually closer to Salvatore’s place than they’d been just a few days earlier. That means it’ll take less time for them to get here, he thought silently, but it also meant Evan had an opportunity to reach Salvatore’s hideout, sneak in, and take him out before the hit was even called in. It would take them a few hours, probably, to notice the credit card activity and trace it back to the hospital. He had a head start, if he was willing to take it.
I am, he realized. I’m willing to do anything to protect them. Anything at all.
“Ma’am, you’ll have to wait with everybody else,” the receptionist lady was saying to Hannah.
“Excuse me, miss,” Evan said, stepping in front of Hannah to talk directly to the receptionist. “Hi. Could you please move us up as quickly as possible? Our child is very ill.”
“Everyone here is very ill,” the receptionist shot back. “Take you
r number and sit down.”
Evan could tell that arguing with her wasn’t going to get them anywhere. He took the little slip of paper with their number on it and nudged Hannah’s arm, encouraging her to follow him over to one of the seats against the wall.
Alex squirmed uncomfortably in Evan’s lap, his little chubby cheeks stained with tears. But he was crying silently rather than wailing sharply like he usually did. That’s not a good sign, Evan realized. It’s not a good sign at all.
But they were already doing all that they could for the boy, waiting for a doctor to come see him. And none of that would be worth a thing if Evan didn’t handle Salvatore, who would definitely know soon enough where they were. Alex sniffled against him and pressed his tiny hand against his chest, and Evan’s heart filled up with emotion. He knew what he had to do, and he had to do it now.
