Free Uncaged by Lucy Gordon Page A

boy. In the moonlight she could see that the bedspread was decorated with pictures of racing cars, photographs of football players adorned the walls, and a small teddy bear was perched on the pillow. Suddenly her heart was joyful because the long, lonely separation was over, and she opened her arms to her son. “I’m here,” she told him. “Oh, Tommy, its so lovely to see you again.”
    * * *
    Daniel didn’t know what had awakened him, but he sat up quickly, certain that something was wrong. He was out of bed in a moment, pulling a light robe over his nakedness, and hurrying into the hallway. There he stiffened with shock. The door to his son’s room was open, and a voice was coming from inside. He went quietly as far as the door, and there he paused, halted by an instinct for danger that warned him to take the next few steps cautiously. The voice coming from inside was Megan’s, saying things that broke Daniel’s heart.
    “Did you think I wasn’t coming back, darling? I know I’ve been away a long time, but I thought of you every moment. I knew we’d be together again one day. I’ve missed you so much...but now we’ve found each other at last.”
    Daniel crept noiselessly into the room. Megan was sitting on the bed, smiling and talking eagerly to someone that only she could see. His first unnerving thought was that she’d lost her wits, his second was that she was trying another trick. But as he grew closer he realized that this was no trick. Daniel had seen sleepwalking before and could recognize the real thing. Megan’s eyes were open, but it was clear that she was oblivious of him. Daniel held his breath lest he make a clumsy move and awaken her abruptly. As he stood, undecided, she began talking to her son again, and Daniel listened, not to the words, but to the aching loneliness that infused them. There was a note in her voice that told him, as nothing else could, the truth about what she’d suffered in the past three years, the distracted misery of separation from a beloved child, a misery that drove out every other thought, and that he understood so well. Now she thought the separation was over, and he dreaded the moment when she must learn the truth.
    “Megan.” He spoke quietly, leaning down to touch her on the shoulder. “Leave him now. Let him sleep.”
    She answered without looking at him. “But he can’t sleep. He had a nightmare. I heard him calling for me. I’ve heard him so often...but it was always a dream before.” She smiled and the radiance took his breath away. “Now he’s really here at last...I want to stay with him...just a little longer—”
    Daniel looked around him wildly. He must get her back to bed before she awoke to cruel reality, but he didn’t know how. Playing for time, he sat beside her and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “He needs his sleep,” he urged. “He’s just a little boy.”
    She spoke wistfully. “He needs his mother. He’s been without me for so long. Perhaps he’s forgotten me.”
    “Of course he won’t have forgotten you. He loves you.”
    Her face lit up. “Do you think so? Do you really think so? It’s been so long. I wonder what they’ve told him.”
    “Does it matter?”
    “No, not really. All that matters is that Tommy and I are together again, aren’t we, darling?” She appealed to Tommy. “We’ve got so much to talk about and so much to do—all the things that we used to do together. Do you remember how we loved going to fun fairs? And we’d go on the scenic railway and you held my hand when the big dips came because I was always scared? We’re going to find the biggest fun fair in the world...and it’ll be just like old times....”
    Something seemed to be grasping Daniel’s throat and making it ache, and for a moment he couldn’t see properly. And then the thing he’d feared happened. A motorbike screamed past in the road outside, making a noise loud enough to awaken the dead. A violent shudder went through