“You need to talk to her, Sebastian.” Sebastian sat perched on the edge of the quilted queen sized bed, his head resting heavily in his hands. 

“Please, Nizhoni, not right now.” Sebastian closed his eyes, curling his fingers tightly into his hair and squeezing his eyes shut. Nizhoni heard the plea in his voice. The thick emotion making his vocals sound like what storm clouds might, had they the ability to speak. She stood behind him on the opposite side of the bed watching him. He looked as if his world was crumbling and utterly helpless to do anything about it. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. She didn’t want to fight. She was tired; both emotionally and physically. Looking for a fleeting moment of longing toward her pillow, sighed and walked around the bed and sat next to him. 

“When then? Over the phone lines where you really don’t have to face her in person? When if not now?”

“She blames me, Zhoni,” he said suddenly, his voice thick with barely repressed emotion. “She blames…me…” His voice trailed off, dying below a whisper.

“For Jaxsen? Bastian, I’m sure-“

“No,” he interrupted, his voice muted and strained. He tried to swallow the knot that formed in his throat. “Though I’m sure she blames me for that. I should have…” He trailed off again before clearing throat again and restarting. “No,” he said again with conviction. “For Daniel. She…blames me for Danny.” And with that broken admission, he wept.

On December 30th at eight a.m. the air was brisk and ruthless. Sebastian’s breath came in large, white puffs of steam that reminded him of train exhaust as they loaded the last few remaining bags they’d brought for the trip. The gifts were also packed and Sebastian closed the trunk feeling mildly accomplished. Jaxsen had slept mostly through the day before, breaking his fever in the process. He’d woken early, checked on Jaxsen and began loading up the car.

He was not looking forward to Chicago’s traffic but anxious to get on the road again; and then, eventually home. Sebastian stood leaned up against the car staring out into the distance. The wind blew the bare tree branches in a slow rhythmic dance that chilled his soul as it did his body. The sky was dark with heavy clouds that threatened snowfall. It had not snowed again since the day Jaxsen fell through the ice, and he hoped they’d be on the road before it began to fall.

Inside, Jaxsen quietly ate his breakfast in only half enjoyment. Gramma Rose made him a breakfast of his choosing of bacon, two pancakes, two scrambled eggs and a single slice of honey-wheat toast with a tall glass of orange juice. The tension between Sebastian and Gramma Rose didn’t settle well in his stomach, making it queasy and sensitive. Nizhoni and Rose talked quietly, their tones absolved of most of the tension and any hostility that might have remained between the two of them.

Jaxsen had observed that while he no longer saw the burning rage in his father’s eyes, a deep resonating sadness took up its residence there instead. He had no idea how to fix what was wrong. Come to think of it, he didn’t really know what was wrong at all, let alone how to rectify the problem at hand. He ate his breakfast slowly, his mind running too fast to really catch any one particular thought, but as a combination, his mind was a whirlwind of chaos he couldn’t gain a foothold against. He sighed and took a long drink of his juice.

“Gramma Rose?” Jaxsen asked quietly.

“What is it, sweetheart?” she asked with a smile tugging the corners of her mouth.

“Before we go, will you watch one of my new movies with me?”

Rose smiled. “I’d love nothing more.” They smiled at one another and Jaxsen forked the last bite of pancake into his mouth.

The movie finished and as the credits rolled Rose squeezed the child in her lap with love and longing of her grandchildren close at hand. So many years had passed since a moment like this that she was loath to part with it. She felt more than heard Sebastian enter the living room from the adjoining foyer, but made no move to break the moment or her hold upon her grandson. He rested his back against her chest, his head reclined against her shoulder. Rose inhaled his scent which was a mixture of her Shea-butter and coconut body wash, the strawberry and cream shampoo and conditioner, and a smell that was clean, but unmistakably boy.

Sebastian said nothing but, instead of invading their last moments together for the foreseeable next several months, went into the bedroom he and Nizhoni had stayed in. She glanced up at his entry, a small smile fluttering across her face as their gazes locked.

“You about ready?” Nizhoni was tying her shoes but peered up at the query. He nodded and visibly swallowed, the despondency from the previous few days still clearly raging within. She said nothing more, giving him a moment of privacy to collect himself while she gathered the last odds and ends of their belongings. Nizhoni did not again speak on the matter of him and his equally stubborn mother, though wished fervently for one of them to break down their pride.

“Ready, Jack?” Sebastian asked, his voice carrying a forced airiness to it. Sebastian knelt down and with a soft smile wrapped Jaxsen’s new scarf around him. Lightly he tucked the lock of hair that fell into his eyes behind his ear. He smiled, but Jaxsen saw the pain he tried so hard to hide. He didn’t understand why Sebastian looked so sad. As he walked away Jaxsen sent a questioning look to Nizhoni in the hopes that maybe she could help, but she smiled sadly and told him to hug Gramma Rose goodbye.

They’d been on the road for just over an hour and Jaxsen was getting hungry. The ride had been mostly heavy silence, and Jaxsen dared not break it but hunger and the urge to pee was getting too hard to ignore.

“Jack, you getting hungry back there?” Sebastian asked as if reading his mind.

“Yeah. And I have to pee, Daddy.”

By the time they arrived home it was early the next morning, Sebastian having chosen to just drive straight home, and Jaxsen was complaining of an upset stomach. 

“101.6,” Sebastian read off the thermometer. “Not great, but not too terrible, either. You hungry, Jack? I could make you some soup or something.” The very thought of trying to eat anything turned his stomach. He groaned, folding himself as if in pain. Sebastian grimaced in sympathy as he ran a comforting hand along his back. Jaxsen took deep breaths in an attempt to calm his stomach, and failed to do so. He swallowed convulsively trying to dispel the pooling, sickly-saliva. Suddenly a bin appeared in front of his face just as the little remnants of food, bile, and spit came rushing up.

Sebastian tucked him gently into his covers, a rag atop his brow that cooled his fevered skin. “You think that you can handle a pop-sickle?” He asked, sitting down and playing with the boy’s hair. Jaxsen felt his eyes begin to grow heavy as his body began to relax. “Or you wanna sleep for a bit?” All the while Sebastian kept up his light ministrations. Jaxsen nodded, a move barely perceptible, as his eyes slid shut into sleep.

“Zhoni?” Nizhoni lowered the book she had been engrossed in, then shut it, setting it aside. Without preamble, Jaxsen climbed into her lap and cuddled in an almost clutching manner. His thumb was in his mouth and Nizhoni could feel his ragged breathing against her rib cage. Nizhoni caressed the fine strands at the back of his neck with slow, calming benevolence. She did not speak, nor did she feel the need to try and persuade him to initiate parlay before he was ready. He sometimes needed space, if not in physical proximity, a mental one, like now, to gather his words and his wits. He’d begun feeling better the night before, his fever finally having broken just prior to half seven on a brisk Tuesday evening.

“Zhoni, why is Daddy so sad? Is he disappointed in me?” Nizhoni frowned, her arms wrapping around him. 

“No, Yanaha, of course not. Why would he be disappointed in you?” A small shrug was his response but he otherwise stayed quiet for several long moments.

“He’s just been acting sad or disappointed…or sadly disappointed since before he took me home to Gramma Rose’s. But since that night he and Gramma Rose argued he’s been really sad. Did they fight about me?”

Nizhoni was quiet for a moment. “No, not so much about you in specific.”

Jaxsen frowned, uncomprehendingly. “What do you mean?”

“Yanaha, Sebastian and Rose have a difficult and rocky history. When Daniel was born they…kinda came to an unspoken agreement to be civil. As time passed they’d begun to actually mend fences; then Danny’s accident happened and…” She trailed off with a slight shrug.

“Does she blame him?”

She thought for a moment. “Sebastian thinks so. And if he believes that to be true, every other truth is a lie.”

“Do you think she blames him for Daniel’s accident? It wasn’t his fault was it?” Nizhoni rocked the recliner slowly, her foot rising to and falling from the ball of her foot in slow rhythm.

“I’d like to think she doesn’t. But I don’t know for sure. And no. It wasn’t. The fault lies with someone who made a very bad choice and got behind the wheel drunk.”