Uncle Harry

-15-

Sleeping came easily to me, my body willed it, despite the terror that zapped through me at the realization of possibly being caught red-handed by Amelia. Before I was gingerly falling back into my place in the bed with Jack, careful not to disturb his gentle snores, I was upstairs sliding the window back in place. My mouth was dry despite the water I just sipped, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as I rewound the moments with Amelia. Replaying them to see if her strange attitude could have been directed to what she just saw or heard. Forcing my feet to move from their glued spot, I started to walk back toward the stairs, but not before pausing at the couches where the linen was thrown over. I wondered if she could hear me stopping there, staring at the fort she and my daughter were under. Hear my breath shake through my nose before I kept moving.

My dreams only consisted of him. Each frame and scene revolved around him in some way. Much like Harry, I found myself not wanting to wake up. I didn't get much time to process the kiss we had shared just down the hall and out the doors in the cold since I went directly upstairs and was intercepted by Amelia. Maybe that's why my brain was dissecting all the images of him I had gathered last night and converting them into the pictures I saw in my sleep.

Opening my eyes proved to be difficult. The wine and gin had maniacally collaborated and given me a perfectly pointed headache in my forehead and strange aftertastes in my mouth. The second morning in a row, I woke up without Jack at my side, and I was glad for it. How could I ever bring myself to look him in the eye again after what I had done to betray him? Minutes after laying together as husband and wife, I was wrestling tongues with Harry after a heavy confession of my feelings for him. I still loved Jack. So much. I didn't love Harry. Not yet, anyway. But I wanted to explore the thrilling feeling he gave me, more than anything, that's what I wanted. I hadn't even brushed my teeth in between them. It was that, not the liquor, that made me sick this morning.

Jack wasn't in the bathroom when I had got up to shower, so he must be upstairs eating breakfast. I wonder if anyone was making a big breakfast like yesterday or if we were to all fend for ourselves with what was in the fridge and pantry since people were leaving today. I hadn't even known when all of them were leaving. Not bothering to read the clock when I peeled myself out of bed, I wagered by the light in the window it must have been about 10:00. I prayed Liam, Amelia, and Eloise would be gone by the time I left the room. Amelia would have been up throughout the night feeding her daughter anyway, maybe she was exhausted enough with the newborn to want to escape to the comfort of her own home by now.

After combing the tangles out of my hair, applying my skin care, and finally brushing my teeth, I just pulled on my sweatpants and a tattered, crappy shirt from an automotive repair shop by my childhood home. It had bleach stains and hair dye permanently added to it and it was threadbare, but I loved it. Plus, after last night, I really didn't give a shit what I looked like. The almost purple marks under my eyes as a badge of my tiredness and dehydration and the guilt eating me alive from the inside out already made me feel horrible. No amount of primping could mask that. I don't think it ever would.

I forced myself to walk upstairs and I saw that someone had already folded all the sheets and blankets from the fort and placed them neatly in the corner with the pillows. Following the voices to the kitchen, it seemed like no one had left at all yet. I sighed and squeezed my eyes shut to ready myself before I fully entered the kitchen. Harry's bare back was the first thing my gaze fell upon as he bobbed his head to the music as he worked over whatever was on the stove that smelled so good. He certainly had a bounce his step. Lily had just finished up her porridge and asked Jack to put her bowl in the sink for her. Always a sucker for her, he did, and he stopped to give me a wide smile as he turned.

I received a round of mumbled hellos and good mornings from the sleepy folk around the isle eating their breakfast. With a small wave, I said hello back as I approached.