The Gap by Ninie Hammon

Author:Ninie Hammon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling & Stone

Chapter Forty-One

Cyrus couldn't sleep. Of course, he couldn't sleep.

How would he ever sleep again, reaching across the bed to feel the warmth of Hannah when she wasn't there? When the bring-a-dish food was all gone and the relatives had departed to go home and take up their lives where they'd left off, he would be alone. He had no life to pick back up. Hannah was gone.

Suddenly, he had to see Hannah, had to, couldn't wait another minute, knew where to find her, too. She was lying on a bed in the middle of the parlor downstairs. He couldn't remember why exactly that was, but it didn't matter. As long as he could find her, as long as she wasn't … gone.

The red letters on the bedside clock said it was five minutes after three o'clock, but it didn't matter what time it was, he wanted go see her right now and he was her husband so they couldn't keep him away. Cynthia and Marilou and maybe Millie would be sitting up with her, of course, maybe others, too, but he'd get them all to leave so he could have time alone with her. He had to talk to her, had to explain.

Cyrus had concealed the pill Alex had given him under his tongue so she would think he had taken it. That was easier than trying to talk her out of giving it to him. Nobody talked Alex out of something if she was determined to do it. Even when they were children, he'd seen that trait in her, admired it, was envious of it. He was a teenager and she just a child, but she had an authority he never had. He'd spent only a small amount of time on a therapist's couch, back when he and Hannah were having trouble and she demanded they get marriage counseling. The counselor conducted some of the sessions with each of them individually, and he had gotten more insights about himself from those sessions than he'd ever gotten about their marriage.

Cyrus's father, Benjamin, was killed in the war, so Cyrus had grown up with only a mother who had to work hard to keep a roof over their heads. But they weren't the only families like that. Lots of little boys' daddies got killed in the war. Since it wasn't uncommon, the effects had been pretty well documented. The kind of little-boy confidence bestowed on a kid through daily interaction with a father, a strong man, was not available to Cyrus and other fatherless little boys. So he grew up quiet, reserved, and shy, suffering from the lack of guidance a strong father figure would have provided to mold his character.

When he married Hannah, she was the strong-willed one, while he was … oh, people had the wrong idea about their relationship. He knew they thought she’d led him around by the nose, but it wasn't like that. In all the ways that mattered, Hannah did respect and admire Cyrus, gave in to his wishes, it was just that when other people were around that she needed to be in charge.

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