THE STARS ARE BEAUTIFUL - WATTYS AWARD NEW ADULT WINNER 2019

Callum | 34

"'SHE LIKED HIS TEARS so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it. Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.'" Everly closed Peter Pan. "Time for bed, little wonder."

"Mama? Is it true?" He twisted his neck to see her face as he sat all potato-sack slumped in her lap. "You get better if I baweeve in fayweeze?"

"It's only a story." Into the bed he went with one fell swoop of her arms. "Say your prayers, beautiful beat."

Her hands washed over his dark, half-curled head of hair as he cupped his hands and closed his eyes, lost in silent prayer. Everly watched him with a look I knew all too well. She was once again questioning her purpose—and perhaps his, too.

"Mama?" He peeked at her. "Is God like a faywee? Can He make you better if I beweeve?"

She paused. "It depends on what 'better' means to you, Andy. Words have different meanings depending on how you intend them. I trust God, if that's what you need to know." She pulled the covers higher and turned off his pirate-ship lamp. "Dream. That's what little boys should do. They should dream."

In the dark and quiet, she spotted me spying from the doorway. There was no smile or toying in her inflection as she said, "Besides, it's all the work of the tick-tock croc." She was peaceful as she slid past me,her hand ghosting across mine. "Ain't that right, Callum Andrew?"

Her smile materialized when my phone alerted me of a message. I kissed her forehead and closed Andy's door softly behind us. My phone buzzed a second time, refusing to be ignored.

"I'd say someone better be dying... but..." Dutifully I surrendered to the message waiting on my phone. "Well, what do you know?"

"Someone's dying." She leaned in and kissed me. "It's okay, go. But come back to me before morning."

I returned her kiss. "It would be impossible not to, Everly Anne."

But she held on to my hand as I tried to leave. "He wants to know," she said quietly. "I mean he does know... He knows something is wrong with me."

I closed the small space between us. "He knows that going to the doctor kicks rocks."

"He's smarter than that," she argued. "More intuitive. He deserves to know the truth, Callum."

"He's not going to understand, and truthfully, Everly, I don't want him to know."

"Are you saying that as his father or as the boy who lost his mom?"

"Both." My phone sounded again. "I promise we'll talk more about this when I get home."

"Callum," she began, "I only asked because I want to tell him as someone who never got a voice in what happened to me as a child."

I wanted to hold her, to tell her that I understood, and smooth out the wrinkled lines of this problem, but the damn phone insisted on me leaving.