Page 36 of Protected By Duval
So sore.
She got up and moved toward the door on tiptoe.
Just before she reached the doorway, her foot found a squeaky board in the floor.
Both women froze in place.
Her mother leaned to the side to look at the bed.
Noelle held her breath until her mother’s shoulders relaxed.
Her mother put a hand on her shoulder and tipped her head toward the door.
They walked out together and left the bedroom door open so that they could hear Ciela if she woke up.
Ever since her daughter had been born she’d kept an ear out for her daughter.
Before her husband’s death, they’d both been attentive and nervous about the baby. One or both of them getting up at night to check on her even after she’d been accustomed to sleeping through the night.
After the shooting, they’d had to deal with nightmares.
Night terrors had been the phrase that doctors had given her.
Terror was an apt description.
She’d known plenty of it since that day.
As much as Ciela had suffered and developed a fair amount of separation anxiety, for Noelle it had been much of the same.
She found herself paralyzed at times if she had to let Ciela out of her view.
If she was with her grandmother then Noelle could white-knuckle it.
But trips to the store, any store, were put on hold.
Family would volunteer to do errands and bring things to the house.
With her work, she could work from home or her mother would volunteer to watch her daughter while she was working on her art.
It kept on that way until Noelle realized that she was hurting Ciela more than helping her.
They couldn’t hide away from the world if she wanted her daughter to heal.
She had to take a chance and get out of the house and move forward and that meant making the same efforts for Ciela.
Standing in the hallway, she looked up at her mother and let out a long, shuddering sigh. “Ma?”
Her mother looked at her and the love she saw in her mother’s eyes might just have been the only thing holding her together.
“What is it,Nena?”
There was something in that moment as they stood there in the darkened hallway of their home. Her mother reached out and wrapped her in her loving embrace.
The childhood nickname that reached her ears made her feel like she was just that, her mother’s little girl all over again.
Those years of fear and suffering were still there, but they had been pushed away far enough that she could breathe.
And the pain that had settled again in her chest loosened its hold a little.
