“Me-ow,” Ramsey said and chortled.
Mia said, “Hey, watch it with that sexist shit.”
“Sorry,” Ramsey mumbled, not meeting her eyes.
Eleanor chuckled, and Stone’s glare bounced from me to her. “Really, Ell? You’ll call me out for saying rude stuff, but you laugh when Mia does it. Talk about a double standard, for real.”
Chewy gave a short little yap, but it sounded playful enough that I wasn’t sure who the dog sided with; I thought he just wanted attention. Mia appeared to think Chewy leaned more to her side because she pulled him into her lap and kissed the top of his head. Having gotten the desired attention, his stubby tail whirred into a blur. Mia then blew Stone a kiss. I was grinning, thinking she was sounding and acting more like herself. That was good, especially after what the wraiths had hurled at her.
I had witnessed Bob Ballard try the same thing on Mia in the basement of the house in Woodhaven. How he held the fact that she'd killed Billy—the father of her unborn child, who was infected at his time of death—over her head. Rather than let his mocking and taunting get to her, Mia, for the most part, owned up to it.
The wraiths, however, had apparently opened a wound from a decade or so before, and it had shaken Mia to the core. She was tough, tough as hell, but the baggage of what happened to her childhood hamster must’ve weighed heavily on her mind for years. And who wouldn’t get upset about that?
There are few things in life we hold as dearly to our hearts as the pets we grew up with. For me, it was my grandmother’s one-eyed cat; for my mother, it was the black Lab she wrote about in the short story I committed to memory and carried around in my wallet for years. So I didn’t blame Mia one bit for crying.
But, as it turned out, her tears flowed over something other than the hamster.
Later that night, before Mia told us the real reason for her sadness, we were gathered around the fire, sitting in warm silence.
Ramsey had lugged a couple of plush benches from the lobby into the cafe. When he told us he was hitting the hay, he pushed them together and grabbed a few pillows and blankets for Mia, and then he crashed on the floor in the corner of the room and fell asleep almost instantly.
The rest of us continued our silence after that. Mostly out of respect for Ramsey, but partly because, I think, no one felt much like talking.
Stone spun around in a computer chair from the manager’s office; every so often, he’d roll to the window and peer out from behind the coverings. Ell and I, we were perfectly fine on the floor, cuddled up together by the warmth of the flames and listening to the occasional crackle of a burning log. Chewy, of course, opted for the luxury of Mia’s plushy benches. He nuzzled against her socked feet (she had proclaimed that the swelling prevented her from being comfortable in her boots, which I didn’t think was a good idea—in case we needed to flee—but, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s best not to argue with a woman who’s very pregnant), and by the time Mia cleared her throat and said, “I wanna talk about…you know, what you guys might’ve heard the wraiths saying about me and why I was cryin’,” Chewy was already snoring away.
Stone stopped spinning. He had found a sudden interest in the dirt beneath his nails.
I looked up at Mia, channeling my inner Eleanor. “You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about.”
I was glad to hear her voice, though. It beat the wind’s screeching, and Ramsey’s unconscious mutterings mixed with the occasional yelp for good measure.
“Grady’s right,” Eleanor said.
“No, I have to.” Mia scooted. Bringing her knees up to her belly, she accidentally bumped Chewy, who snorted and continued on snoozing like nothing happened. I swear her stomach seemed bigger than it had an hour or two before. Any movement, no matter how small, made me fear she would go into labor, and part of me wanted that just so it would be over, while another part dreaded the moment. No matter what, we weren’t prepared for it—because, in those days, with the snow and the monsters, you couldn’t exactly get prepared.
“It was my mom out there,” Mia said. “She was talkin’ to me.”
Stone arched an eyebrow. “Yeah…and?”
That was when I realized what had shaken her up so much, and a sharp pain sliced through my heart.
Eleanor understood too. “You poor thing. I’m so sorry.”
“What? I don’t get it—” Stone began before Eleanor cut him off and politely asked me to hit him for her.
Now, I may be dumb, but I ain’t dumb enough to disobey my girlfriend. There was enough cold out there already; I didn’t need the cold shoulder on top of that. So I punched Stone in the arm.
“Ow! Christ!” he hissed. “You guys abuse me! If the world ever gets its shit together, I’m getting a restraining order.”
Ramsey stirred, kicked his boot heels together, and rolled over, but he stayed asleep for the time being. I figured the knock on his head was a big part of that. Hell, I was surprised he hadn’t clocked out earlier.
I lowered my voice. “Dude, her mom, she’s…you know.”
“Oh fuck,” Stone muttered. His face grew serious after that news, and he scooted his computer chair toward Mia’s benches. “Yo, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Mia.”
Mia waved his apology away. “It’s not like I didn’t expect it or nothing. Most everyone’s dead, aren’t they?”
None of us answered, which was probably an answer enough.
“It’s funny,” Mia continued, looking at Eleanor, “because I was just talkin’ to Mikey about this. He said he treated your guys’ mom bad, and then she was
