Page 31 of A Castle in the Sky: Fern & Connor
Fern poured a tiny amount of water into the beaker, then passed it to him, their fingers not quite touching. "Slow sips," she said. "Tip it just enough to wet her mouth. If she coughs, you stop."
"Got it," he murmured.
He edged closer, one hand cupping the back of Coral's head on the uninjured side, the other guiding the spout to her lips. "Alright, love,"he whispered. "Tiny bit. Like practising with your snorkel, remember?"
Coral's mouth twitched in something that might have been a ghost of a smile. She took a few clumsy swallows, then sighed, eyelids drooping again.
"Good girl," Connor breathed, his voice thick.
Fern watched them—her daughter demanding Da, her husband obeying like it was the easiest order he'd ever taken—and felt like they were back to when they were in Manchester, back before everything went to hell.
She had just told him this didn't mean anything… that she was doing it because Coral loved him.
That was still true.
But as she watched their daughter relax a fraction, watched the tension ease from her small shoulders, Fern couldn't shake the feeling that Coral, in her own hazy way, understood more than any of them what was really at stake.
***
Four hours later, after Coral had settled into fitful sleep and she had called her papa to let him know what was happening, they settled down again, her on the bed, him on the chair.
His hands were still on the small metal table, palms open, fingers trembling. Coral's little sketchbook sat between them, that half-finished drawing of a dragon and a girl in a cape. A few crumbs and a smear of ketchup marked the page. Fern could not look directly at his hands without remembering those same hands, sweaty and clumsy, onher waist in a car park years ago, on her belly when she'd first felt Coral kick.
It hurt how easily his voice could pull her back. How she could almost see him as a lad again—grease under his nails, eyes too old for his face, trapped by a mother and a girl he once loved.
Connor as a teenager. Connor without a choice. Connor alone.
She'd never really seen it from that angle; he'd never let her. And now that he was talking, something inside her threatened to soften against her will.
You were a child, and the women in your life had failed you, she thought.Your mum, Matilda, even Sawyer's mum to a point. You were scared, and you ran.
But I never failed you. And neither did Coral.
And we don't deserve this.
Chapter 17
She had stood by him. Her dad had wanted to help, but they had wanted to make it on their own. She'd packed up a life she loved and moved to this place where she had no friends or family. She had juggled childcare, and had compromised her dream while she learned to live with never quite knowing where he was or why he was late. She had stretched herself thin to make his life easier. And for what?
For him to run straight back to the people who'd broken him in the first place?
"Fern." His jaw flexed. "Say something."
She realised she'd been digging her nails into her palms, crescents carving into skin. She uncurled her fingers, pressed them flat against the side of the bed where he couldn't see. Coral lay boneless and innocent against her, unaware that her life was going to change beyond recognition when she woke up.
"I am saying something," she whispered, and her voice sounded strange to her ears—hoarse from disuse, tired, threaded with a bewilderment she didn’t know how to disguise. "Just... not out loud yet."
He huffed a nervous breath. "Right."
For a moment, all she could do was look at him. This time, the rose-tinted glasses had been ripped away, and all she could see was a troubled man who was trapped by his inability to trust. The bags under his eyes that hadn't been there years ago, the premature threads of greybeginning at his temples, the way his shoulders sagged like he'd been holding up a sky that finally slipped free.
"I am trying to understand," she murmured. "Some of it, anyway. You were a kid. Your mum's... behaviour wasn’t your fault. Matilda pushed and pulled you until you didn’t know which way was up." Her fingers brushed the edge of the sketchbook. "I can see how you ended up feeling like you had blinders on. Only one way forward. Grooming is an ugly word, but... "
Hope flickered over his face, quick and fragile. "So, you understand why I—"
"I understand why you ran away," she said, cutting him off. "Not why you brought us back to this dangerous cesspit. I can take care of myself, but Coral is only four."
And that hope died.
