I wondered for a moment if this is what my parents felt on the few occasions I’d caught them walking hand in hand through our local shopping center, or along the beach. Two people in their fifties, who’d lived a life together, who were still living that life together with no plans to change the status quo.
A warm sense of happiness rolled through me at the idea, because the nice I was feeling right now was pretty bloody wonderful, and the thought of Mum and Dad feeling it as well made me happy.
It seemed I was back. Brendon Osmond. Back.
Even in the face of a possibility too traumatic to contemplate, I was okay. Amanda and I were going to be okay. Together. In whatever capacity that togetherness meant, we were going to be okay. I would make sure of that.
Tanner’s face split into a wide grin as we entered his room. The oxygen tube in his nose this evening was fluro blue. “Mommy!” he cried, wriggling about on Chase’s lap, whacking her on the cheek with Optimus Prime.
“There you are, my tough guy.” Amanda hurried to him, scooping him up from her sister’s lap and cuddling him with gusto. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
He giggled again. “Here,” he answered before cupping her face in his small hands and giving her a smooching kiss. “Aunny Chase.”
I looked at Chase. Her electric-blue dreadlocks were pinned up on top of her hair like a whale’s spout, her lips were painted the same color. In one hand she held a Spiderman soft toy, in the other, her smartphone.
“We’ve been Instagramming, haven’t we, Tanner?” she said, smiling at her nephew.
Tanner nodded. He twisted in Amanda’s arms, giving me a curious look. My chest tightened a bit. Did he remember me?
Amanda shifted so she could look at me as well, and gave him a little jiggle on her hip. “Can you say g’day, Daddy?”
Tanner regarded me silently, one hand clutched into a fist in Amanda’s shirtfront. I smiled at him, even as my brain registered the ashen pallor of his skin and the bruises on his arms and legs that hadn’t been there that morning. I knew enough about leukemia – thanks to Hollywood and my mum’s addiction to television medical dramas – to know the bruises were a symptom of his condition, but at the sight of them my gut clenched and a heavy lump settled in my throat.
Cancer sucks. Cancer in kids? That more than sucks. The only bruises any kid should bear are the bruises of discovering the joy of running and climbing and adventuring.
Pulling a steadying breath, I stepped deeper into his room. “G’day, buddy,” I said, deliberately keeping my voice low and calm. “Remember me?”
He grinned. Was it my voice that he recognized? My very Australian accent? “Oppimus! Tuck!”
I laughed. Hey, it was a start. “Yep. Optimus.”
He patted Amanda on the cheek and smiled at her. “Oppimus da!”
She burst out laughing. “He’s that good, eh?” She flicked a grin at me. “Hear that, Daddy? You’ve made the Optimus grade.”
Tanner wriggled in her arms, trying to show me the toy in his hand. He clocked Amanda on the back of the head a good one in his efforts, the dull thunk of the collision of skull and plastic robot making her chuckle out an oww.
“Da,” Tanner said, finally getting Optimus over Amanda’s shoulder. His arm and the toy got snagged in his oxygen tube and, for a moment, my heart stopped as a frustrated frown creased his forehead and he grabbed the blue tube with his free hand. “No tube. No.”
“Hey hey hey.” Amanda circled his wrist with gentle fingers and jiggled him on her hip again. “Slow down, tough guy.”
I moved closer, tapping Tanner’s shoulder with a soft touch before helping him get his hand – and Optimus – free of the tube. “There we go,” I said, as he grinned up at me.
“Da! Tuck!” he crowed, waving the robot about in such as way Amanda had to dodge another blow. “Tuck.”
“Y’know, sis,” Chase said from where she stood behind us, “he’s never shared Optimus with Robby.”
I looked at her. For some reason, her statement made my heart pound faster.
She arched a pierced eyebrow at me, blue lips twitching. “Maybe the Wonder from Down Under isn’t that bad after all.”
Pulling a face of mock disbelief, I pressed my palm to my chest with an obvious thud. “Did you just compliment me, Chase?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s it. I’m outta here.”
I grinned. She narrowed her eyes at the three of us standing there together, and then, without a word of warning, raised her phone and snapped off a photo.
“You going to Instagram that?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe. Depends. Can you say hashtag Happy Ever After?”
My breath caught in my throat. I turned to Amanda and Tanner, gazed at them for a second, and then turned back to Chase. “Hashtag Happy Ever After.”
A smile stretched her lips. When Chase wasn’t snarky with the world, her smile could – as the song goes – light up New York City after dark. “Consider it Instagrammed, Daddy.”
“Da,” Tanner echoed, grabbing at the sleeve of my shirt.
My own grin splitting my face, I turned back to Tanner. “That’s me.”
He pulled my sleeve again.
Amanda laughed. “I think he wants you to take him.”
I agreed. Sliding my arms under his armpits, I took his weight and repositioned him onto my hip.
“I’m just going to walk Chase out,” Amanda murmured, her hand on my biceps. Damn it, I liked the way it felt there. It was . . . nice. “Fill her in on the results.”
I don’t know if she kept her voice low so her sister couldn’t hear, or if she didn’t want to crack the happiness of the room with the bleakness of my failed match. Whatever the reason, I nodded and held Tanner closer. “No worries.”
Australians say no worries a lot. It’s a bizarre term to use sometimes, because often we say no worries when all the worries of the world are crushing down on us.
Amanda regarded me for a lingering second, and then, hand still on my biceps, reached up onto her tiptoes and brushed her lips over mine. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Eww,” Chase complained, although there wasn’t a hint of disdain in her voice.
Tanner snagged his mother’s hair and pulled her to his face for his own kiss.
“C’mon, sis,” she said with a laugh, extracting herself from his grip. “I need a coffee. You can buy me one on your way out.”
“What?” Chase responded, voice comically louder as she walked past, head shaking, eyes wide. “I didn’t hear you. Sorry, I’m deaf.”
A heartbeat later, it was just me and Tanner.
“So . . .” I asked, pulling a melodramatic confused face. “What are we going to do?”
He mimicked my expression, shrugging. “Tuck?”
Laughing, I moved to the bed and sat in the middle of it – me cross-legged, Tanner resting in the hollow the position made. I don’t know how much time passed as we played with Optimus, but they were gloriously wonderful minutes. Tanner spoke to me at length about the robot – and by at length, I’m pretty certain you’re aware the words tuck and Oppimus featured often, also the occasional Pime (translation: Prime), more than one Da, and a lot of Mommies.