Episode 729: Come Some Rainy Day

He shut their back into the trunk and turned to her. "Yeah?"

She was loathe to say it, to ruin everything, but she had to say something. She couldn’t go. "I feel like I can’t leave the kids right now." It was better than feeling detached from them, but a ton of worry flooding you wasn’t anywhere near easy.

Quent stepped close; he took one of her hands and swayed it in his. "You’re not a bad mom if you take an overnight anniversary trip. You’ve devoted day and night to him from the second he was born. It’s okay to take a night off; you’ve more than earned it."

"I know." She really did. "I just can’t."

He nodded. "Okay."

"Are you sure? You were really looking forward to this trip."

"So were you. It’s okay though, when you’re ready, we’ll go. No pressure."

Quentin kissed her and told her that he would be in the kitchen explaining to his parents that there was a change of plans.

Justine went to check on the kids. She spied Tansy through her slightly ajar bedroom door, with a book in her hands and ear buds in her ears. Next, she moved on to Hero. She lingered in the doorway while he napped. Hero was perfectly fine. He would be perfectly fine with Quentin’s parents, as would Tansy. She and Quent really had earned some time to themselves, too. But she had this bad feeling about leaving, she couldn’t shake it, and if that wasn’t challenging enough to deal with, she had the added concern as she so often did of late, wondering whether her concerns were a normal mom thing, or something more troubling.

Justine didn’t know how long she’d stood there attempting to calm down when Quent placed a hand on her shoulder, startling her.

"Is everything okay?" She asked, her heart racing that much faster than it already had been, which was to say, excessively fast.

Episode 730: Stay With Me