Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

child’s artwork on the fridge, photos on the tables, a red blanket on the couch. Regina in a cap and gown smiled beside a dark-haired Antonia. Nick’s much smaller handprints were preserved in a frame on the wall.
     
    The children of the sea were magpies. Their sea caves and the court at Caer Subai were furnished with rich and shiny things— whatever fell beneath the waves that pleased their humor or caught their eyes. But their selections were not personal. They did not bear the weight of memory, the patina of sentiment. They did not cause this tightness in his throat, this howling in his chest.
     
    Nothing at Caer Subai ever changed. Gold and iron, sea and stone, would outlast these human keepsakes. But now, here, surrounded by the mementos of Regina’s life and her son’s childhood, Dylan was achingly aware of all that would change.
     
    And all that had been lost.
     
    He stood rooted on Regina’s shabby carpet, frozen with desire and despair.
     
    Regina saw him standing like a pillar of salt in the center of her living room and raised her chin a notch. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
     
    “No,” he agreed.
     
    She had bits of sea glass strung on fishing line dangling in her windows, green and gold against the darkness outside. Why should that jab at his heart?
     
    “Nick and I will be fine. You don’t have to stay.”
     
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    Her tone drew his attention. Her jaw was at a belligerent angle, her eyes defensive. She was embarrassed, he realized. She thought he was critical of her home. Her housekeeping. He could hardly tell her that the sight of Nick’s crayon drawings, the fat white candles on the table, the popcorn kernels in the bowl by the TV, made something inside him crack and flow like glacier ice.
     
    He shrugged. “It’s all right.”
     
    “Right.” She waited a moment for some reaction he did not know how to give. “You can have the couch, then. I’m going to say good night to Nick.”
     
    A crack of light showed beneath the boy’s bedroom door. She opened it and disappeared inside, and Dylan could breathe again.
     
    *
     
    “Hey, kiddo.”
     
    Nick’s head jerked up. His comic book slithered to the floor.
    “Mom!”
     
    He was glad, so glad to see her. Even if she did look like crap. Her face was white and tired. Okay, he’d seen her tired before. But her neck .
    . . Oh, man. Her neck made him sick to his stomach.
     
    She caught him looking and tugged casually on her collar. “How you feeling?” she asked. She sounded like Nonna when she smoked.
     
    Nick jerked his shoulder. “Okay. You?”
     
    She smiled and sat on the end of his bed, like she used to when he was little. “I’m fine. Everything’s going to be fine now.”
     
    He wanted desperately to believe her. She wanted it, too, he could tell. But last night’s terror was still too real. Too raw. He could see the bruises poking over the neckline of her shirt. That asshole had hurt her, and Nick hadn’t done anything to stop him, didn’t even know she was in trouble until it was too late.
     
    “What if he comes back?” His voice broke, embarrassing him.
     
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    His mom didn’t pretend not to know who he was talking about. “He won’t,” she said firmly. “He’s in jail.”
     
    Normally Nick knew better than to argue with that tone of voice. But his anxiety pushed him to ask, “But what if he does?”
     
    Somebody knocked on the door.
     
    Nick’s stomach lurched.
     
    The Dylan dude stuck his head in the room and nodded to Nick.
    “How’s it going.”
     
    “What are you doing here?” Nick asked.
     
    “We’re fine,” his mom said. “Do you mind?”
     
    Dylan ignored her. “I’m keeping an eye on your mother,” he said over her head to Nick. “Until she feels better. Okay?”
     
    Nick swallowed, some of the burden of worry and guilt lifted from his shoulders. Dylan was cool. He’d said he would find Nick’s mom, and then he did. If he wanted to keep an eye on her, that was fine. That was good. Somebody had to.
     
    Nick shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”
     
    Dylan nodded again, like they’d come to an agreement. It made Nick feel better than he had since he first saw the bruises on his mom’s neck.
    “Good. I’m getting that soup,” he said to Nick’s mom.
     
    The door closed quietly behind him.
     
    His mother sat on the edge of the bed, biting her lip.
     
    Something quivered in Nick. “Mom?”
     
    She focused on him then, her eyes and smile quick, warm,