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February 4th 2006

She stole a quick glance into the rearview mirror and sighed in relief. Finally, Baylee had busied himself with something else than asking if they were there yet. She watched him play the handheld game furiously. Nick had given it to the boy a few weeks ago. She hadn’t been really charmed by that. Baylee was spoilt enough already, but Nick claimed you could never be spoilt enough for Mario.

There was surely a sense of logic missing in that man.

She told herself to focus her attention on the bare highway again. New Jersey to Atlanta was a thirteen hour drive, and they were only halfway across. The day was passing into the evening and they desperately needed to stop and look for a place to spend the night somewhere.

She really didn’t want to do that.

Of course, they could spend the night in the car. She had done it a few times when she’d left high school, desperately looking for a job anywhere and everywhere. Of course, she’d been nineteen then and alone – well, sort of, if you didn’t count the one night stands from that period. Point was, she didn’t have a three year old and a sick husband with her then.

She carefully looked over at him. He was still sleeping like a log, just like he’d done for the past three hours.

He slept a lot and she assumed it was only for the best.

Up ‘til this point, no nightmares had appeared and she was glad for that. She’d been looking forward to the day she could finally take him home, and yeah, sure, the logistics and planning were a little wobbly, but that was only a side-matter. Her first idea was to take a plane towards Atlanta’s airport and get the journey over with in two short hours. Then she had thought of all the people that would stare at them in awe and pity and she had quickly dismissed the whole idea. Admitted, normally, she’d be a sucker for attention. This wasn’t normally though.

Kevin and Harold had helped strapping them in that morning, both unusually excited about the road-trip. Kevin had run around, worrying about every single detail, no matter how small. She smiled at that thought.

They were going home. They were finally going home.

Two months ago, she’d never thought that would be possible. But here they were, in the middle of the Godforsaken road, while she was left reading the vague route descriptions. Damn, she’d never been good at map-reading.

“Are we there yet?” A small voice drifted from the backseat. Leighanne sighed deeply.

“No.”

“How many more minutes?” Baylee asked sweetly.

“I’m not sure honey. Must be a lot.”

“But I need to pee!” The little boy whined, stomping his feet and wriggling his small body, to make his point clear.

“Shh, your daddy is sleeping,” Leighanne hissed softly.

“He’s always sleeping,” Baylee sulked, turning his face towards the window with a pouting expression. “And I have to pee.”

“We’ll stop as soon as possible. I can’t just pull off the highway,” his mother tried to explain. It was pretty hopeless. Try to explain to a three year old why he couldn’t have what he wanted, when he wanted it.

“And I’m hungry!” He exclaimed, an angry tone to his young voice now.

Worried, Leighanne turned her face to the passenger seat for a moment. Brian groaned and mumbled something unintelligible, pressing his face even further into the passenger door. He stayed perfectly asleep though. She smiled softly. She used to be slightly annoyed by his inability to lay still, even when he was sleeping, or the sporadic murmurs falling from his mouth. It made him a pretty challenging bed-partner, that much was for sure.

But now, after two months of deathly stillness and silence, she found herself amused seeing the old habits resurface.

“Mommy!” Baylee grabbed her attention again, feeling rather ignored. “I. Am. Hungry!”

“I know you are dear,” she smiled sweetly, “I tell you what. If you can behave until we get to a rest stop, maybe we can get you something nice.”

“Like ice-cream?” The boys eyes twinkled at the prospect.

“I think so.”

“When?”

“Another fifteen minutes, I guess,” Leighanne muttered, checking the road signs for gas-stations. It was another twenty miles to the next one.

“How long’s that?”

“You know, I’ll tell you when we get there, okay sweetie? Why don’t you continue with your video game and I’ll put on some music, what ya say?”

“Okay!”

“Okay.”

Taking a family road trip, what a good idea. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to keep her eyes trained on the nearly empty road. The journey seemed endless. Why didn’t they just get on a plane? Who cared what people thought about them? It probably sure beat having a whining three year old and a sleeping thirty year old, who could wake up from a nightmare at any given moment, stuck in the car with her.

Owch!

Oh yeah, and an unborn son that just kicked against her bladder. Now she needed to pee as well. Thanks a lot Wailon.

They were quite a bunch of people.


Twelve minutes later she sighed in relief as she finally pulled the SUV in the parking spot of the gas station. She was a classy lady, not really all that charmed of fast food, but God, she was starving now. She reached down and squeezed Brian’s hand softly. Not his arm, never his arm.

Nick had told her bits and pieces of what had happened when he’d touched Brian’s arm, and she didn’t want a rerun of that show. Not in the middle of the high way with only a three year old as other company.

She slowly got out of the car, stretching her arms and legs and blinking against the winter sun. Baylee was already impatiently fumbling with the door handle. It was a child-proof lock, impossible to open from the inside and he stared furiously at her while she made no attempt to open it. Instead she watched her husband wearily. He’d be safest in the car, but she felt like a bad person for just leaving him there. She didn’t have much choice though. He couldn’t even walk and it wasn’t like he was Joe the Plumber if she wheeled him into the station. There would be people recognizing him, there always were, even though he didn’t look much like his old self. His hair was shorter and darker, and his face looked way older than it used to. He’d be fine on his own for five minutes, wouldn’t he?

Baylee decided to answer that question for her as he started to pound on the car’s window with a small, angry fist. She hastily opened the door for him and he jumped out, annoyed.

“Ice cream!” he demanded with a scowl.

“Don’t look at me like that, young man,” she told him sternly and his face softened.

“Please?”

“That’s more like it. What do you think, should we ask Daddy if he wants anything?”

Baylee turned to look at the car with an uncertain expression. Frowning deeply, he seemed to seriously consider the question before shaking his head. “Daddy sleeps.”

She nodded with a smile, taking his small hand into hers.

She’d get Brian some food, that was for sure. They’d worry later about how he’d be able to eat it.

The store was quite busy around dinnertime and for the moment, she was glad she decided to leave the Backstreet Boy in the car. Especially when Baylee started grasping people’s attention when he outright declared which ice-cream he wanted and made no hesitation in telling random bystanders how he’d earned said ice-cream. Leighanne did her best to stay inconspicuous, grabbing a few sodas out of the cooler without even looking what they contained.

She smiled, a little awkwardly perhaps, to the now interested lot that had gathered around the excited young boy.

He was a story teller, alright.

She kept smiling as she hurriedly grabbed his arm and gently guided him towards the registers. “Come on, babe, we need to get going.”

“But, ice-cream!”

“Yeah, I know,” she remembered, “Blueberry, right?”

He nodded frantically while she opened the fridge to collect the flavor. She held it in front of him so he could confirm her choice and he nodded excitedly again, clearly satisfied. “”s Daddy’s favourite too!”

“Yeah, I know, baby,” she murmured, finally able to join the checkout line. She hurriedly paid the cashier, who flashed her a warm smile.

“Feel free to come back anytime, dear,” she told her.

Leighanne nodded back. Not in a million years, she thought.

Finally outside again, she instantly noticed two things.

They’d been inside longer than she’d planned. It was darker now, the sun almost gone. They needed to find a hotel to sleep for the night.

And Brian woke up. They were about forty feet away, but she could clearly notice, even in the dark. Not because there was much change in his composure, neither did he make any noise or whatsoever. No, that was not the problem she was faced with.

There were people, about ten or twelve of them, gathered around the car, a majority of girls, naturally. They interestedly peeked inside, talking amongst themselves as if it were the most fascinating thing they’d ever seen.

Leighanne clenched her jaw, gripped Baylee’s small hand tight, before scooping him up, and resolutely walked over to the car.
Chapter End Notes:
They'd probably never call their kid Wailon, but I like the name, so... deal with it.

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