Yes, just like that I loved him. Feel free to roll your eyes now, but it was the truth. I don’t do things half measure. Go hard or go home, remember, and I wasn’t going anywhere.
What I was doing was grinning at my son. And crying. Damn it, my cheeks were wet. When the hell had I started crying? When the hell did I ever cry? I don’t cry. Not because of some macho, tough-guy bullshit reason, but because the world is too incredible to waste energy crying.
But here I was, crying. Weeping at the marvel of my son, sitting there on his mother’s lap, watching me. Swiping at my eyes with the back of my hand, too choked up to say anything, I touched Tanner’s toe again.
He giggled again, this time leaning forward on Amanda’s lap to tap me on the cheek.
“I think he knows you already,” Amanda murmured. “He’s normally a little more stand-offish with new people. Especially since . . . since coming here.”
She was smiling down at Tanner, an expression somewhere between sorrow and joy on her face. Like me, her cheeks were wet.
“He’s beautiful,” I said truthfully.
A soft laugh, more a sob really, fell from her and she met my gaze. “He is.”
Tanner tapped my face again with another giggle.
I looked at him again. The sight of the tube inserted into his little nostril tore at something in me I didn’t understand. A powerful mix of fury and love. I wanted to tell him I was going to make everything better. The promise welled through me with equal force.
I bit it back. I’m an eternal optimist, but I’m also a student of the human body. I’ve got letters after my name that prove I know a thing or two about how the body works, even if only on a physical level, but those letters and the years of study that earned them were enough to silence my promise. I knew what leukemia was, what it meant. Tanner was not going to get better with a change of diet, three cross-fit sessions a week and daily meditation. Tanner wasn’t going to get better without more chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. Maybe not even then.
Fuck. It hit me. It hit me hard.
Not even then.
What if I wasn’t a match? What if I—
“Oppimus!”
Tanner’s happy proclamation jerked me back from the edge of an abyss I’d never stared into before – bleak misery. I gave him a wide smile, still touching his toe as he waved the Optimus Prime toy he was holding. “Optimus is pretty awesome, isn’t he?”
Tanner nodded, his face lighting up. Mutual appreciation of trucks that turn into robots – the perfect mood lightener. “Oppimus tuck.” He held out the toy to me, wriggling about on Amanda’s knee. “Tuck.”
“You want me to make Optimus into a truck?” I asked, reaching for the offered robot.
“Tuck!” Tanner echoed.
“I can do that,” I said. God, I hoped I could. It had been a while since I played with toys, and if memory served me correct I’d been more a Ninja Turtles boy in my wild toddler days. I didn’t want to let my son down on his first request of me. How to suck at being a dad 101: fail to turn Optimus Prime into a truck.
Dropping my focus to the plastic blue and red robot, I turned the toy over in my hands. Okay, this looked trickier than it should, given it was a toy for a kid. “Err . . .”
Amanda laughed.
I raised my head and gave her an admonishing scowl, even as my lips twitched. “That’s enough from you, Mandy.”
Tanner giggled, and then wriggled about. “Tuck!”
I heard movement behind me, low talking. No doubt Charles Sinclair was weighing up my failure and adding it to his list.
What did that list look like?
1/ Gets my daughter pregnant.
2/ Deserts her.
3/ Has a degree only in Exercise and Sport Science.
4/ Unlikely to know how many sonnets Shakespeare wrote.
5/ Possibly doesn’t even know who Shakespeare was.
6/ First time meeting son wears crinkled clothes.
7/ Can’t make a simple toy – gives up on being a father.
Ignoring my brain’s attempt to derail me, I turned to the task of alien/automobile transformation. Surely there had to be a button somewhere . . .
“Ah-ha!” I burst out, as – almost of its own accord – Optimus folded in on himself and became a semi-trailer. “A truck!”
“Tuck!’ Tanner cried, hands out, fingers opening and closing. “Oppimus tuck!”
Smile stretching wider, I offered the toy back to him.
He took it with an enthusiastic snatch and an enthusiastic, “Tuck!”
I laughed, smoothing my hand over his head before I realized what I was doing. The downy-soft fuzz of his hair – so short, so sparse – and the warmth of his flesh, his life, beneath my palm stole my breath away.
And then my wrist bumped against the oxygen tube that rested on his shoulder and I stopped, staring at him, undone.
He smiled at me and pressed back against Amanda’s breast. “Tuck.”
“Truck,” I agreed, although the word sounded more like a croak.
He yawned, rubbing at his eyes with his empty hand as he pressed closer to Amanda and closed his eyes. Around me, around us, the beeps and whirrs of the machines connected to him grew to a deafening soundtrack.
Amanda’s fingers gently brushed over his temple. “He’s tired,” she murmured. “That was a big event for him, sharing Optimus with you. He’s normally very protective of it.”
“Oppimus,” Tanner said, although this time it was less a jubilant cry and more a subdued mumble.
From the corner of my eye, I saw legs and feet appear at the bedside.
“Temp time, Tanner,” a gentle female voice said.
I looked up to see a nurse at Amanda’s side, holding a thermometer to Tanner’s ear. His eyes were closed. A tiny frown pulled at his fair eyebrows. His thumb was in his mouth.
I watched the nurse take the reading. Watched her make eye contact with Amanda for a quick moment. Watched Amanda’s own eyebrows dip into a frown.
Watched a tear trickle down her cheek as she lowered her face to our son and pressed her lips to the top of his head. I swallowed, my throat tight.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, keeping my voice low and calm. I wasn’t calm inside. Inside, I was a turbulent mess. I also knew everything wasn’t okay. So why the fuck had I asked?
I think because the mind clings to okay. It hopes for it. Craves it. And in situations that clearly weren’t okay, we project that craving by asking inane questions.
A firm hand on my shoulder made me flinch. I almost shouted. As it was, I lost my balance in my crouch, my right knee crunching to the cold floor.
I looked up at the owner of the hand. Chase was standing there. “Want to grab a coffee with me?”
No. I didn’t. Not at all. I wanted to stay there with my son. I wanted to know what the wordless look between Amanda and the nurse meant. I wanted to know why Amanda was crying again.
I wanted to know how I could help.
I wanted to know when I could help.
When I would be tested. When they would take my bone marrow . . .
“We’ll get one for Amanda as well,” Chase said. “And some chocolate.”
I blinked up at her.
She gave me a cheeky smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. “When was the last time you ate chocolate, Osmond? And I don’t mean in a protein shake?”