But when I watched her sleeping next to me, she was simply cute. She had curled up into my side, in an almost fetal position with one of her hands holding on to my shirt, and her face buried into the side of my chest. When I placed my hand on her curved back, she let out a sleepy, unintelligible mumble in a high girly voice, asking me for five more minutes of sleep. Hearing it, my mouth stretched into a wide smile before I simply watched her sleep for another minute...
I leaned down while suppressing the pained groan to not disturb her too much, kissed the top of her head, and carefully extracted myself from the bed to visit the bathroom. The cane actually was a lot easier to handle than the crutch, though Claire was still right, as it didn’t give me quite as much support as the crutch.
Entering the living room, something felt off. It took me a moment to realize that I had grown accustomed to finding Claire already up and about when I got out of bed, but this morning the whole apartment was quiet. When I checked the guest room, I found Ava in bed. Just Ava. And there also were no sounds coming from their bathroom. It seemed like Claire never made it back from John’s.
A little worried, I grabbed my phone.
“Yes?” I heard Danny’s tired voice.
“Hey, it’s me. Is Mom still with you? She didn’t come home.”
There was a moment of silence before Danny answered, which made me nervous.
“Yes. She’s still here. She needs a little more time.”
“Oh, alright. Then I can stop worrying. Sorry for calling so early.” I apologized, and tried to end the call when I heard Danny call out to me.
“WAIT! Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?”
“That you were worrying when you noticed that she never made it home.”
“Of course I did. Why would you think I wouldn’t be worried!?” I felt a little offended.
“Well, after yesterday... ”
“For fuck’s sake, Danny! I took on three armed men to protect the woman after she did nothing to earn it for years. You think now, after she started caring for me, I somehow wouldn’t give a shit if she went missing!? I said that we grew apart, not that I no longer cared, and certainly not that I wished she’d vanish.”
“Oh. OH!” She didn’t sound happy, or shocked, or surprised. It sounded like she realized something or had an idea. That was weird. “Alright. Thank you, Tim. I don’t know how long she’ll stay, but she’s safe.”
“Okay. Then ... Bye.” I ended this more than a little weird call and moved into the kitchen to start on breakfast.
When I had finished preparing the waffle batter, I didn’t want to disturb either of the girls in their slumber. While I might have been used to getting up in the early hours, they weren’t. And it was a Saturday, after all. So, as quietly as I could, I went into my bedroom to get a change of clothes and then took care of my morning routine myself. Surprisingly, I felt myself missing Claire’s help. It was surprising because I still remembered vividly how I felt about her seeing me so weak just a week ago. And now I was catching myself thinking how nice it would be to have her scrub me down.
After my morning rituals, I plunged down on the couch exhausted and started watching TV on low volume. Apparently the TV was still too loud, since, not even two minutes after I sat down, my bedroom door opened and a half sleeping MIa walked out. Dressed in only her panties and one of my T-Shirts, she trudged over to me, plunged herself on the couch to my left, and cuddled up into me. She didn’t even say anything before she rubbed her face against my shoulder, got comfortable, and closed her eyes as if to keep sleeping.
I wasn’t exactly against this. Quite the opposite. Seeing how much she enjoyed this physical closeness between us made me happy. It did get a little weird though, when, another minute later, Ava’s door opened and she basically repeated Mia’s actions. She also walked out of her room dressed in nothing but her panties and one of my shirts, before plunging herself onto the couch on my right. Ava, however, thankfully avoided cuddling up into my side. Instead, she lied down and placed her head on my healthy thigh.
Mia spontaneously woke up completely and looked at us with a peculiar expression, when Ava suddenly spoke in a sleepy voice.
“Don’t look so surprised. He saved me too, you know?”
“Oh.” Mia responded instantly as if what Ava just said made any sense, before her face took on a thoughtful look for all of ten seconds, she shrugged her shoulders, and then cuddled back into me again.
I sat there for about a minute trying to figure out what they had just talked about, waiting for them to say anything further that would make sense to me, but they seemed to be content with this situation.
“Okay, does anyone want to enlighten me?” I finally asked.
“You’re cute when you’re slow, little brother.” Ava mumbled, Mia chuckled, and then they went back to being silent.
I shook my head and decided to resume watching TV while attempting to move as little as possible to not disturb them in their slumber. After about half an hour, though, Mia started stirring.
“I hate to say it, but I’m kinda getting hungry.” she said in an annoyed tone.
“I have the waffle batter ready in the kitchen. If you want, I can get the iron out.”
“Waffles!” Ava suddenly shouted and jumped off my lap. “Are they as good as your pancakes?”
“It’s hard to screw up waffle batter.” I shrugged my shoulders, inwardly grinning because I knew that Claire only made regular Waffles.
“So...” Ava started while plugging in the waffle iron. “ ... where’s Mom?”
“John’s.”
“She Okay?” she probed casually.
“Yup. I’ve talked to Danny shortly before you got up.”
“When’s she coming back?”
“No idea.”
“Oh.”
Mia followed our exchange quietly sitting at the dining table, while her eyes jumped between me and my sister like she was watching a tennis match. I think she drew her own conclusions, given how much she already knew about my family life, but refrained from commenting until the food was ready.
“You know, I think I really need to rethink that whole marriage thing. They taste way better than regular waffles.” she said, earning herself an eager nod from Ava.
“They’re buttermilk waffles. I like the taste better.” I explained matter of fact. “So, want to tell me now what that exchange between the two of you was about?”
That caused them to exchange a quick look before Mia acted a little shy as she spoke up.
“Well ... remember the idea I had about how I could get Dad to ... help us spend more time together?”
I had to think for a moment before the conversation came back to me.
“Yeah. I think. You said something about needing me to stick around to calm yourself, after Campbell broke into your house.”
“Not exactly.” she corrected me. “I said I might need the guy who saved me to stick around, so I could sleep peacefully.”
“Oh!” I finally understood the meaning of her words and got a little concerned. “You have trouble sleeping?”
“Yeah. Though, you went through a lot more than I, how are you so cool with it?” she looked at me with a pleading expression. That must really bother her, and I had no idea.
“Well, I can tell you that alcohol doesn’t work at all.” I chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. “When we get asked that question by clients, we normally tell them to secure the house, talk with people, exercise, and get closure. We already secured your house and I assume you’re already talking about it with your parents. Personally, I’m simply too exhausted at the end of the day to think about it, but I hear Yoga works for people.”