The group talked mostly about their feelings for their kids that night: how much they loved them, how much they missed them, how much their lives had been changed by them. He spoke when Shauna dragged something out of him, but kept his tongue the rest of the time. He didn't want to piss Alina off again, but more than that... "Love" was not a strong enough word to describe how he felt about his son. "Miss" didn't begin to describe the hole the boy's murder had left in his life. He couldn't talk about those ideas like they were just words. They were too much more than that. "I didn't even know there was a feeling like this," Ian had told Alina one night as he held the sleeping baby. Alex's heartbeat was warm and trembling against Ian's chest. "I don't just love him. I've fallen for him. I'm infatuated. I mean, you know... it's platonic, obviously. But it's more like when I fell in love with you, than anything." His effort to explain himself was pathetically inarticulate, but Alina had smiled at him anyway. She understood.
