Sugar’s hand snapped out like a reflex as her cellphone rang. She didn’t care who was calling her at two o’clock in the morning. Any call was better than hours and hours of no calls—and futile efforts on her own part leading straight to voicemail.

“Hello? Yes?” The words shot out of her mouth in an unfiltered panic.

“It’s Hebert Landry. I hope I didn’t disturb your slumber,” the older man’s voice streamed into her ear.

Sugar shook her head quickly as she gripped the phone and assured, “No, no. It’s quite alright, Mister Landry.”

She stood up from the armchair near the curtained windows she had been stationed at where she made a habit out of peeking out into the night every few moments. She began to pace back and forth, an attempt to stretch out her sore legs and iron out her wiry nerves.

“Well, I’m callin’ to inform you of your significant other’s whereabouts,” Herbert delivered in a flat, slow voice that did more harm than good to Sugar’s patience. “There was an altercation between him and another individual at a bar not too far from the Shuteye Motel. Police were called to the scene, but no charges will be brought against Renard. However, he had to be taken to the hospital for treatment.”

She gasped aloud, her eyes widening. “Oh my god.”

“He’s a little banged up, but nothin’ too serious. He’s been in worse shape,” Herbert reassured as if that alone would calm her down.

It didn’t.

Instead, it escalated her emotions.

“I’ll be right there,” she said hurriedly before she hung up the phone.

She yanked on some clothes, grabbed the keys, and left all within record time. With a roar of an engine, she peeled out of the Shuteye Motel and raced throughout the streets of Crowley. Every turn of a corner was sharp and wild. Every stop at a traffic light was a sudden slam on the brakes and screeching tires against asphalt. Hours ago, Miles had kissed her on the forehead and left her behind in the motel room, having told her that he needed time to think. She protested the idea, but he nonetheless departed on foot. It did comfort her some to know that he was somewhere within walking distance, but it didn’t remedy the medley of acute fear, anxiety, and impatience that dwelled inside of her.

When she had arrived at the hospital, she rushed into the ER waiting room. After a word exchange with the woman behind the registration desk, she was buzzed into the ER wing. A police officer was stationed outside a hospital room down the way, but it wasn’t the room she was looking for.

It didn’t take long to find him.

She stopped in the doorway as she witnessed Miles receive stitches from a doctor.

Her arrival prompted him to shift his eyes to the doorway. The way he looked at her was an unspoken command of dismissal. A command she blatantly ignored as she marched into the room and eased down in a visitor chair. Sugar stared at him, surveying the damage.

An impressive black bruise framed around his left eye.

A slanted gash across his temple was being stitched up.

A bluish purple bruise shined on the apple of his cheek.

A bandage straddled the bridge of his nose.

His right hand was wrapped in gauze.

With every injury she discovered, her stomach twisted with a sickness she had to fight back against.

It seemed like an eternity before the doctor had finished her task of stitching him up. There was talk of an offer for pain medicine prescription of and discharge papers, but Miles shook his head at the mention of painkillers.

“Naw, that ain’t neces—“

“He’ll take the prescription,” Sugar cut him off, her eyes solely on Miles. “Thank you.”

The doctor cleared her throat uncomfortably and asked, “It’s up to you, Mr. Thibodeau. Yay or nay?”

Sugar crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her seat, quietly daring him to deny her directive. He clenched his jaw for a moment before he answered the doctor’s question with a nod.

“We’ll get everything written up,” the doctor replied before leaving the room, shutting the door behind her.

Shaking his head, Miles sucked his teeth and replied, “Herb couldn’t hold water on a cloudy day.”

Sugar’s bottom lip quivered, tears building up. “That’s all you have to say to me, Miles? Are you being serious right now? You look like somebody’s punching bag!”

He ran his uninjured left hand’s fingers through his salt-and-pepper tousled hair. “The other guy looks like a cadaver.”

“If that was some kind of joke, it wasn’t funny, Miles. None of this is funny.”

“None of this is as serious as you’re makin’ out to be,” he countered gruffly.

Sugar stood up from her seat, approaching him with a cocked head. “You think I don’t know why you did this, Miles? I wasn’t born yesterday.”

He sucked his teeth. “That dumb fool started it. I merely finished it.”

Sugar shook her head. “You were aching for a fight, Miles. Craving to pound someone’s face in. A skilled boxer like you wouldn’t have walked away from a bar fight with some punk looking like this. Which lets me know that you let him go in on you on purpose. Now, why do you think that is? Why is that?”

Miles turned his attention away from her, staring a patch of wall by the door.

His voice was cold and restrained. “You’re walkin’ on thin ice, Sugar.”

“Then let me start tap-dancing then, Miles. You wanted to punish yourself, didn’t you?”

He refused to speak, his self-control no doubt wearing thin.

“You used that man for own gain. You wanted to feel pain because you think it’s your fault for Mel—“

Miles shot up from where he sat at the edge of the hospital bed and encroached her personal space, growling, “That’s enough. You hear me? I ain’t gonna hear no more of this.”

Sugar tilted her chin up at him defiantly, gazing at him head-on. “Melina’s death isn’t your fault, Miles.”

He leaned down, inching his face dangerously close to hers. “Stop it, Sugar.”

Tears brimmed his eyes, but they refused to spill over. His composure was unraveling at the seams; threads of steel snapping apart to unveil his rawest state.

“Melina’s death isn’t your fault, Miles,” she repeated.

“Su—“

“Melina’s death isn’t your fault,” she cut him off. “Do you hear me, Miles? You were an amazing father. You and Alicia did everything right. You two did everything you could. Nothing I can say will take away the suffering you endure every single day as you cope with Melina’s death, but I want to be there for you. But I can’t do that if you push me away.”

She took his hand and placed it on her belly. “I can’t do that if you push us away.”

His teary gray eyes slithered down to where she had rested his hand.

“Let us help you,” she whispered. He slowly pulled his hand away from her and tilted his head back, blinking back his tears and sniffling. He stroked his beard, backing away from her—doing everything in his power to keep calm.

Then there was a knock on the door sliced through the tense air. A nurse entered with discharge papers and prescription slip for painkillers.

It was time to go back to the motel, but what awaited them there?

{}{}{}{}

“Here,” Sugar said as she offered Miles a cup of lukewarm tap water. He eyed it momentarily before he accepted it and tossed chalky white painkillers into his mouth before he chased them down with water. She plucked the flimsy plastic cup from his grasp and disposed of it in the trashcan. After making it back to the motel, he had stationed himself in the very armchair that she had declared watch-post hours ago.

“C’mere,” he croaked tiredly.

She obliged and approached him once more, smiling weakly as he used his free hand to take ahold of hers, tugging her into his lap. He buried his nuzzling face into her chest. She curled an arm around his shoulders, stroking the nape of his neck. Within moments, she felt his shoulders shiver and wetness seep through her shirt and lick her skin.

“I got you, baby. I got you,” she whispered.

Miles let out shaky breaths as he tried to exert control over his emotional spiral.

“Just let it out. Let it happen. It’s just us,” she encouraged, snuggling her cheek against his messy hair.

“I remember holding her for the first time. She was an itty-bitty thing. So soft and quiet. She stared up at me so curious and innocent, not knowing she had me wrapped around her tiny finger. I showered her with so many kisses, Alicia got mad at me. Told me our baby girl wasn’t goin’ anywhere, so I had the rest of our lives to love on her,” Miles spoke, his voice raw and throaty. “I shouldn’t have let her go. I should’ve held onto her for as long as I could.”

“Oh, Miles,” Sugar breathed, hot tears stinging her eyes.

“I thought stayin’ in the Marines would provide for my family, but I let Melina starve. I had always known she struggled with me bein’ away. I knew and I kept leavin’ her behind—kept bein’ the reason she’d fall apart,” he continued.

“You did what was best.”

“No, what I did was selfish. I put my career over my family—over my marriage. I knew settlin’ down in Crowley and managin’ Thibodeau’s was an option, but I didn’t want nothin’ to do with my parents. I wanted to keep my family away from Crowley. I wanted to keep her away from Crowley,” he paused, his whole body shaking. “I tried to keep her from them—from him—and in the end, she preferred him over me.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but Miles went on.

“Why did she have to go to him,” he sobbed. “Why him and not me? What did I do wrong?”

Sugar closed her eyes. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Miles. She probably went to Rene because she didn’t love him like she loved you. It was easier to tell the truth to someone that was barely in your life than tell the person your world revolves around. You were that girl’s world. She loved you so much that the last thing she did was condemn your father for all his wrongs…to defend you, Miles. Don’t you see that?”

He lifted his head from her chest, his tear-streaked face staring at her with glassy red eyes. His brow knitted at her words. She could practically see the gears in his troubled mind churn as he attempted to process everything. His face scrunched as heavy cascade of tears poured down his battered face. Sugar brushed the salty teardrops away as they came, sniffling as she struggled to compose herself from his sake. Witnessing his suffering was difficult to swallow and digest.

“We traveled hundreds of miles to get the truth out of Rene. Now, we know, Miles. The truth is Melina Selene Thibodeau loved her parents. The truth is she adored her father.”

That was the truth.