Solace
By Fewthistle

Author's Note: Written for the Safe Haven Challenge: Third Round at the Thursdays100 LiveJournal community.

The breaths came out in soft puffs of air. Anita sat and watched the gentle rise and fall of narrow chests, the erratic motion of eyelids registering the secret Morse code of dreams.

Four a.m. Earlier tonight, she had stood and gazed down at another child, someone else's baby. Those eyelids had been open as dead eyes gazed heavenward. That chest had not moved, stopped as it was by the jagged hole left by a bullet.

Sitting quietly on the corner of the bed, Anita said a silent prayer of thanksgiving for her blessings, and a plea for solace for a woman she did not know, who would never again sit at 4 a.m. and watch her child sleep.