The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

that she could do as Miriam said—give the kids what they needed now.
    Which made her think about Sam and what he needed. It had been a long time since she thought of what Sam might need or want from her, but he was here now. Suddenly she didn't want to let him go this morning. Time was ticking away. She didn't know how many more times they'd have to talk. Suddenly there were so many things she wanted to know.
    "Why did you start sleeping somewhere else?" she blurted out.
    He paled, his jaw clenched tight all of a sudden. He glanced in her direction and quickly looked away again. "It seemed like the thing to do."
    "What does that mean? You didn't want to be with me anymore?"
    He didn't answer for the longest time, finally saying, "Sometimes it's easier. To keep some distance between us. You told me that. You felt it, too."
    He was right. Sometimes everything hurt. Seeing his face when he saw her too caught up in her own pain to do anything for anyone. Seeing that same kind of pain in him and not knowing how to fix it. Did he think he was fixing it? By walking away? Did he think it too late to do anything else?
    He must. He was going.
    Rachel started shaking. Come here, Sam, she thought. Just come to me.
    "I miss you," she said truthfully, painfully.
    He flinched, his jaw going even harder than before. "Well I thought if it bothered you—having me sleep somewhere else—you would have said something about it. Honestly, it seemed like you didn't even notice at first."
    She stared back at him.
    "Do you even know, Rachel?" he said bitterly. "Do you know when it started? Or how long it's been going on?"
    Rachel started to cry, thinking with something akin to panic, How long had it been? She dipped her head down low, over the baby's, trying to hide from him, because he hated it when she cried.
    "Too long?" she asked. Too late to change things?
    "Three weeks and five days," he said.
    Rachel closed her eyes, thinking, That long? It seemed like a lifetime. Her marriage had all but died, nearly a month ago, and she hadn't even noticed. How could a woman miss something like that?
    "I'm sorry," she said. "But I do miss you."
    Sam stood there and stared at her. She could feel anger radiating from him and a strong sense of self-control. Even now, he wasn't going to tell her. He was going to bury it. Ever since the baby, they'd buried so many things.
    "I'm sorry," she said again. Sometimes it seemed they did nothing but apologize to each other.
    "It's hard to sleep in the same bed with you and not touch you," he said, still angry. "And it's really hard to touch you and see you cry."
    "Oh." It came out as the breath rushed from her body. She remembered now. For the first time, she knew why he was sleeping somewhere else.
    And it was her fault, too. There had been times when she went for days with no one breaking through the barriers she'd erected, but before Sam still tried. One night in particular, the last time, she remembered, it coming to her in a rush—Sam, the richness of his touch, the terrible need she had for him, and then it was like all the sadness she had inside her just burst through. He froze, and she'd told him not to stop, because she was so very lonely and she still needed him, even if it hurt. He'd held her in his arms while she cried, but he'd hardly touched her since that night.
    "I remember," she admitted. "It's just... It's easier in a way, when you're hurting that much, to not feel anything at all. It hurts sometimes just to touch you. To be close to you."
    Sam said nothing, just stood there.
    "I'm sorry," she said again.
    "Me, too."
    And that appeared to be that. "Thank you for letting the children stay," she said.
    "Sure."
    "We can try to have a nice Christmas, can't we? We can..." Pretend, she thought. They'd gotten so good at pretending.
    "We'll see that they have a nice Christmas. And then they're going. Don't forget that, Rachel."
    "I won't."
    He was going, too. If she thought her house had been lonely before, she couldn't imagine what it would be like then. No children. No Sam. No nothing.
    Sam left, and Grace finished her bottle. Rachel burped the baby, then they just lay there in the warm, soft bed and dozed for a while longer, and Rachel had another dream. She dreamed her baby hadn't died. That it was nearly twelve years ago. She was eighteen again, and they were in Rachel's bedroom on a cold winter's morning close to Christmas, Rachel and her baby, with their whole lives ahead of them. Sam still