Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
But this was different.
We had known it since Niro was all but seven or eight and getting into fights on the playground because some kid in town pulled Andi's hair or teased her.
It was innocent then, but still something Kennedy and I would talk about when we took the kids to the park, or she came over so Andi could show Niro whatever new creature we were fostering that week.
"He looks at her like she is magic," Kennedy said, watching as Andi held up a kitten to her face, smooshing her nose into the soft fur while Niro stood beside her.
"She is magic," I said, smiling at her.
She was so much like me with her love for animals, her steadfast determination to be kind to everyone, never to be violent, never to hurt anyone's feelings. She had Reeve in her too. She was introspective, loyal, always ready to lend a hand if anyone needed it.
She looked like a mix of us both with her wheat-blonde hair, her eyes that were the shape of her father's, but the color of mine.
It had taken all of two seconds after she came into the world for us both to agree she was the whole reason the sun rose in the morning and set in the evening.
Every year that passed just made us more certain of that fact.
Niro picking up on that, even as a little kid, just proved what good taste he had as far as we were all concerned.
And, it seemed, as the years progressed, so did his feelings.
He had been walking her home from school because she insisted that there was no reason to take the bus when it was only a twenty-minute walk (just like her mother). And because Niro wasn't the kind to let her walk alone through Navesink Bank, he skipped the bus to go with her. Even in the dead of winter with six-inches of snow on the ground. He just trudged along with her, carrying her bag because he was good like that.
And she had heard a whining cry that made her turn off the main drag to go investigate, always ready to nurse something in need.
According to Niro's report, the dog was emaciated and shivering, crying from where he was balancing on a log in the slightly frozen, but mostly thawed creek.
He said she ran before he could stop her.
And with the water and the freezing temperatures, when her foot landed on a rock she had likely stepped on dozens of times before without a problem, her shoe met ice, and she slipped and fell, whacking her head off the rock, and slipping under the current.
I didn't need to be there to imagine his frantic dash into the creek to fish her out, pick her up, and run back into town as he called an ambulance.
Reeve and I had gotten to the hospital just as they were unloading the stretcher they had her strapped to, Niro right at her side, soaked all the way up to his shoulders.
"I couldn't stop her," he said helplessly as she was wheeled inside, all of us rushing to follow.
"It's okay," Reeve said, clamping a hand on his shoulder. "It's not your fault, Niro. You got her out. That's what matters."
He had paced the waiting room like a caged lion, running his hands up the back of his neck in frustration, clearly beating himself up the entire time.
It wasn't until we got an update saying that she was okay, had some stitches, and a bad concussion, and that they would keep her overnight because of her stint - however short - in the water, but that she would be just fine after the mild side-effects of the concussion subsided in a week or two.
Reeve curled me into him, but I instinctively turned my head to watch Niro, seeing relief wash through his system like a wave before, suddenly, he turned, and ran.
"What the hell was that about?" Reeve asked as he steered me toward our daughter's room where she was just starting to struggle to full consciousness, her eyes small and pained.
"I have no idea," I admitted, worried about him enough to shoot a text off to Pagan, knowing he might understand his son - and his actions - more than we would.
It would turn out, half an hour later, he came walking back into the emergency room, finding us, still completely soaked through. Actually, if anything, somehow even more soaked then before.
"Heya Andi," he said, going for his usual laid-back, cocky charm, but it was clear this time that he was forcing it. "That's a nice hat you have there," he said, meaning the gauze wrapped around to keep her stitches clean.
"You're shivering," Andi said, changed by the nurses out of her wet clothes, and snuggled under three blankets to warm her up.