Читать книгу The Book of Rapture - Nikki Gemmell - Страница 26

Tidge is vastly asleep, dangling a leg off the bed and taunting his brother with his effortless flop. Soli told him to trust and that’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s always the one who falls instantly into sleep. Motl says it’s the mark of a contented soul.

Mouse writes with a staccato pen.

Look at him. God. Typical! SUCH a believer. NEVER thinking ENOUGH.

Unlike him. And you. All the thinking haranguing you awake, night after night.

Soli’s now curled tight and troubled in unsmooth sleep. That strange-tired finally won. You long to brush the hair from her forehead and unfold all her folded bits, long to stretch her beautiful limbs back into lightness. No child should ever sleep so … condensed. Her eyes suddenly shine like marbles in the dark, she’s awake. She looks around, trying to work out where she is. Sees Mouse. Remembers.

‘I need a cuddle,’ he says, quick, even though he’s still annoyed at that mother voice she stole. But you know him. A magnet of need is pulling him into skin and warmth, any he can get. She’ll do. They hold, and hold, in this unknown dark.

So small, alone, lost.

The cuddle works, stills them both. Because even though she’s all angles and elbows and coltish length she gives the most enveloping hugs. Like you’re a hot-water bottle warming her right through and she doesn’t want to let go, ever. She’s all-calming when she holds you and you’ve never told her the gift of it. So much you’ve never said. That you marvel at Mouse’s mind, the cogs of it, the singularity of his thought. And Tidge’s robust sunniness, his ability to weather turbulence. And the joy from all of them that floods you; that you feel stronger as a mother than you ever have in your life.

He who is unaffected by transiency can be called tranquil.