Becca's sleep schedule improved, mercifully, as the weeks passed, but in mid-September, she was still getting up at least once a night.
Sarah woke to her cries on a Monday morning. The clock said 3:17. In about four hours, she was planning to get up for a job interview at a restaurant down the street.
"Kid," she breathed as she climbed out of bed. She never seriously considered waking Tiff up; she wanted to let her rest.
She collected Becca from the swing - it was starting to get too small for her, but she wouldn't sleep in the crib they'd bought - and settled in with her on the couch. Becca's eyes were wide open in the darkness, framing a glowing smile. "Ha-boob," she said. "Ha-goo."
"Yeah," Sarah said, smiling back. "I got your ha-boob right here. How about 'mama?' Mama."
"Ha-boo," Becca insisted. "Ha-ga."
She slipped her nightshirt down, and Becca latched on, an old pro. Sarah stroked her temple. "'Mama,'" she said. "Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma."
Becca stared up, her jaw working, her little fingers pawing at Sarah's breast.
Sarah smiled. "Don't worry about it. You're smart, you'll get it eventually." She rested her head against the couch and dozed while her daughter fed.
"I'm surprised you can still sleep," the Messenger said, "after everything you did."
She kept her eyes closed; if she looked at him, she might want to stand up, and that would disrupt her daughter. She wouldn't disrupt her daughter for him anymore.
His voice came from behind her. She could imagine him there, smoldering with condemnation. "You used Cal, and now he's dead. Sure, he was a jerk, but did he deserve that? Andrea Miller really did trip down the stairs, you know. Cal wasn't a maniac until you happened."
A host of retorts leapt to her mind, a thousand defenses. She focused on the heat of her daughter's body in her lap, and let them slip away.
"If you hadn't decided to be gay, he would've actually changed. There was a good person in there, Sarah. I could tell that after talking to him for five minutes.
"He was clumsy and stupid, but he was trying to do the right thing. You wouldn't let him. You were always shutting him down. He was trapped between his dad and you. You two crushed him. Ground him to a pulp. He was ready to listen to anything." He leaned toward her ear and whispered, "You made it so easy for me."
She could've broken, then. Could've started crying and fighting, begging him to leave.
Instead she opened her eyes and looked at her daughter. The girl had slipped off of Sarah's breast and fallen back asleep, her mouth gaping open and a line of milky drool hanging from one cheek.
Sarah sang to her.
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine." The words were fragile. They glimmered in the darkness like stars.
"You're going to fuck this up. So full of yourself. You think you know better than God?"
"You make me happy, when skies are grey."
"Sinner, dyke, whore, idiot."
"You'll never know, dear, how much I love you."
He fell silent, boring a hole in the back of Sarah's skull.
"Please don't take my sunshine away."
She took in the sight of her daughter, absorbing her innocence and her vulnerability. She thought about the life ahead of this girl, the way everything would be new to her, like the entire world was being renewed and given a fresh chance.
"I love you," she said. The words broke. She was crying. She wanted to find the Messenger, to look him in the eye and say, I don't believe you. God didn't send you. She would turn around and tell him now, but he had fled; he was a coward. "I love you," she said again.
She didn't need the name of Jesus to banish him.
Those three simple words had done it.
More from Adam J Nicolai
Alex
Ian Colmes fears he's going mad.
His son, Alex, was killed six months ago. The boy was only five years old. In the wake of his death, Ian drove his wife away and nearly lost his job. Now, alone in an empty house, Ian is seeing his son again.
Every vision is a repeat of something the boy said or did in life: aching memories replaying themselves for Ian's eyes alone. Are these images of Alex real? Has Ian's son found a way back, to forgive or condemn his father?
Or has Ian's sorrow quickened into psychosis?
With a masterful hand, bestselling Kindle Suspense author Adam J Nicolai paints a picture of grief, madness, and the furious strength of a father's love for his son.
To read or hear an excerpt, click here.
More from Adam J Nicolai
Children of a Broken Sky
The peasants called it "The Storm."
On a cold autumn morning seven years ago, the sky exploded with silent lightning. In its wake, everything changed.
Now the sun may rise in the south, if it rises at all. Animals go mad. Crops ripen and die overnight. The Church–a body of miracle-workers who can heal the sick and walk through fire–warns that God's final judgment is at hand.
The world will soon end.
Now, stories tell of men that speak with beasts and peasants who work their own miracles. The Church decries these heretics, hunting them like animals and demanding the same of the faithful.
In a remote village, a small group of childhood friends are caught in the crossfire. Accused of heresy by the Church and sentenced to death, they escape their village as it burns behind them.
But some may find hope.
Their Church hunts them. A cursed world assails them. To survive, one of them will learn the true meaning of her beliefs; another, that some portents can be deceiving. But only one revelation has a chance to save them:
That they are not forsaken. They have each other.
Bestselling Kindle Suspense author Adam J. Nicolai invites you to a land beneath a broken sky, where sorceries clash with miracles, mountains are crowned with lightning, and faith–true faith–can topple empires.
Click here to read an excerpt.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my wife, Joy, for believing in me. I love you.
Thank you to my mom, Senja, for letting me figure it all out for myself.
Thank you to my grandma, Kay, for giving me a place to start. I miss you.
Thank you to my beta readers (those not previously mentioned) for providing excellent feedback on a tight schedule: Jason Parviz, Ryan Holthaus, Shelly Owen, Susan Neo, and Ethan Mills.
Thank you to Pete Gokey for refreshing my memory–and modernizing my understanding–of policy debate, particularly in Minnesota. Any errors are mine.
Most of all, thank you, for reading. If you enjoyed Rebecca, please consider posting a review on Amazon (an author can never have too many good reviews!) or recommending the book to others. Every positive review, no matter how brief, helps me more than you might think.
About the Author
Adam J Nicolai is a recovering Evangelical who lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife, Joy, and their two children, Isaac and Rydia. He has written several novels, all of which can be found here. He is a life-long nerd, game lover, author, Star Wars fan, Dungeon Master, and amateur game designer, and worked for several years as a policy debate coach and as a project manager for a major medical insurance company.
He started writing in elementary school, creating Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style books while he was supposed to be listening in class. His creative expressions widened to include video game design; he filled countless additional notebooks with expansive maps, dialog trees, loot lists, game stats, and mechanics. When he got older he was known to occasionally draft his younger cousin into play-testing, and authored three rule sets for role-playing games (which his gaming peers readily play-tested, in role-playing campaigns that lasted for five years or more). He attended high school at Park Center Senior High, where he had the distinct privilege of being in Brad Olson and Sue Hein's Humanities class, which fostered his love of creative writing and planted a seed that would sprout many years later.
His f
irst novel, Alex, was self-published on Amazon and was extremely well-received, breaking on to several bestseller lists. It remains one of the highest-rated novels by customer review in Horror, Thriller, and Suspense, and peaked at #3 top-rated in overall Kindle Fiction.
Adam loves connecting with his fans. To get in touch, just like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter (@AdamJNicolai). For more information on Adam's other books, see his website: http://www.adamjnicolai.com.
Table of Contents
Also by Adam J Nicolai
Copyright
Dedication
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Acknowledgements
About the Author
Rebecca Page 22