Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 144

Chapter 144

Chapter 144

BIANCA

He was carrying something. A small bag, canvas, worn at the strap in the way that meant it had been used constantly and handled with the particular intensity of a child who didn’t separate easily from objects they’d decided were important.

I recognized the bag.

I’d bought it for him at a market stall eight months ago, before everything, because he’d seen it and pointed at it with the wordless urgency of a child who doesn’t yet have language for wanting something. It had been red then. It was still red, faded now at the edges, one of the strap buckles replaced with something that didn’t quite match.

He’d kept it. Matthew had kept it for him.

My throat closed.

Theo moved to a section of the playground near the far fence–not the climbing equipment, not the open space where most of the children were

but a quieter corner near a low bench where there was a small patch of level ground. He set his bag

down with the

them, and

ateness of someone who always put things in the same place so they’d be there when he needed

e it.

anyone was watching him. He did not scan the playground for friends or assess where the most He simply sat down, opened his bag, and took out his dinosaurs.

hose too. A set of twelve, small enough to fit in a pocket, detailed enough to be identifiable by species–a cant importance to Theo, who had strong opini

proximation of one. I’d bought them at the na ything had changed, because he’d pressed his

Made a unilateral decision.

d the dinosaurs out now, arranging them wit as sorting them, though I couldn’t tell by w egorization system he’d developed since I‘

He looked quiet.

Not unhappy, exactly. Not visibly distre

the absorption of a child engaged wi

seem further away than the length

Around him, the school fill running and occasional

on the swings, compe

Theo sat in his co

“Is that hi

the difference between a properly rendered Stegosaurus museum gift shop on a Saturday afternoon three weeks glass of the display case for so long that my heart had

on the flat ground beside him. I could see from here that distance. By type, maybe. Or by some private

ay that was different from his usual focused quality, different from ng. This was a quieter quiet. A turned–inward quality that made him ified.

1. A group of boys were engaged in something that involved a lot of were performing an elaborate jumping game with a rope. Two children were rul chaos of children given space and permission to be children.

s and was somewhere else entirely.

which was a testament to how completely Theo had occupied my attention.

indow glass in a way that would have concerned me under any other circumstances. “He

I said.

Louis said it with the matter of fact directness of a child who had processed his own losses

died.”

44

losaurus. Does he have

1. rs. Not loudly, notly not hing. I’d watched himed him

t narration directed atcted at

at you can’t closet close.

ut had still madelitnade it-

: his mother was dewas dead.

usly and then the truth of

explainedtained to me at

wvery everytime with

suf loss of it. The specific, ethere the same as being

was okay.

ath about ‘Theo’s age. The #needed to be protected was moving with the

no’d sat in that same

he boy opened his book to a

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