Free One From The Heart by Cinda Richards, Cheryl Reavis

herself?
    “It’s all right, Petey,” she kept whispering, but they both knew it wasn’t true.
    The phone rang, and, still carrying Petey, Hannah went to answer it. She was afraid to let it go because it might be Elizabeth. She tried to put Petey down on the couch—Lord knew, she was little comfort to the child—but Petey clung to her desperately. She answered the telephone with Petey in her arms, still sobbing.
    “It’s me,” the male voice said, and her heart began to pound. Ernie might not come back, but he was keeping his promise to Petey that he’d call. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “Ernie, I can’t talk to you now,” Hannah said over Petey’s crying. As much as she wanted to, needed to, she couldn’t. He was the one who had left; she had to remember that.
    “What’s wrong!”
    “I can’t talk to you now!”
    “Let me talk to Petey, Hannah.”
    He was still upset; she could hear it in his voice. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
    “Ernie, I don’t think she will,” she said, because Petey had finally acknowledged her mother was gone, and Ernie, beloved though he was, as a disembodied voice, wasn’t likely to be of much help. “You can try.” She held the receiver to Petey’s ear, but she only cried louder.
    “Hannah, what’s wrong with her?”
    “Ernie, I can’t—she wants her mother. I have to go—”
    “Hannah, wait! Are you and Petey all right?”
    No. No, we’re not all right .
    “Yes. You don’t have to worry about us. Thank you for calling.”
    “Hannah, I have to talk to you!”
    “Not now, Ernie. Please.”
    She made herself hang up the phone, swallowing hard to control the burning ache in her throat. The last thing she needed was to cry, too, and having to face her stupidity about John Ernest Watson was enough to undo the last remnants of her control. She carried Petey back into the bathroom, talking to her continuously, a soft running account of what she was about to do next to get the oatmeal off and leave the face unwashed, but to get the hair brushed and braided. Petey still cried, less hysterically and more desperately, suffering it all in tearful misery.
    Damn you, Elizabeth! Hannah thought at one point, because Petey, trembling and afraid, again pleaded, “Make my mommy come here, Anna-Hannah.”
    Dressing them both in clean jeans and T-shirts, Hannah led Petey back into the living room. She intended to sit down and take her onto her lap, but someone pounded on the front door. Petey’s crying immediately intensified, and she clung to Hannah with all the desperation that Hannah herself was feeling.
    Hannah answered the door the same way she’d answered the phone—carrying Petey. Strange, she thought, that she couldn’t make Petey stop crying, and yet the child still wanted the comfort of her arms.
    No one was there. Just a photocopy of the standard apartment lease taped to the door—with the No Children clause circled in black Magic Marker and punctuated with exclamation marks.
    “Great!” she said, snatching it off. “Subtle, but to the point.” She crumpled it in her hand and slung it toward the nearest wastebasket. It bounced off the rim and landed on the rug. She kicked the door shut, only to have someone knock on it again almost immediately. Expecting the building superintendent, she hugged Petey tightly and gave her a kiss on the cheek, breathing deeply a few times to shore up her courage before she opened it.
    Ernie was standing there with his thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets, looking about as haggard as she felt. She had never in her life been bombarded with so many conflicting emotions. She was angry with him for leaving the way he had, and embarrassed that her response to his kiss had precipitated it, and relieved that he’d come back again—all at the same time. She wanted to tell him to go away, and she wanted to fall into his arms. But she stood still and said nothing, looking into his eyes.
    Ernie had never been one for