“Hey, Dad,” he said weakly.
He looked like hell—dark circles under his eyes, his face swollen and still pale. But his heart was beating, and that was all that mattered.
“Let me see him!” Hannah yelled, climbing up onto my bed and into my lap. “Hey, Travis.”
“Hey, Hannie,” he mumbled.
“How ya doing?” I asked, turning the phone on the side so he could see both Hannah and me in the same frame.
“Not good,” he groaned.
My stomach pitched, but Charlotte immediately moved the phone to her face and corrected him.
“He’s doing great. His BP is steady, pulse ox is coming up, and his EKG looks better than any of us had hoped. He’s still a little groggy and tired from the medication, but as soon as that wears off, he should start feeling better.”
“Okay. Good,” I whispered when I didn’t trust my voice.
God, this sucked. In all of the times Travis had gone to the hospital, I’d always been the one to go with him. And, now, I was stuck at home like some kind of caged animal waiting for permission to see my own damn son.
“And, now, he’s asleep,” Charlotte drawled, flashing the camera to my son, his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open in slumber.
I chuckled at the sight, but it did nothing to tame the anger brewing inside me.
“Go watch your movie, baby,” I told Hannah. “I’m going to talk to Charlotte for a minute and then I’ll be out.”
“Okay,” she chirped. “Bye, Charlotte.”
“Goodnight, Hannah. I’ll see you soon.”
Hannah started to climb off the bed, but then she froze and leaned back into the frame. “Travis only likes red and orange Jell-O. If he gets green, Daddy brings it home to me.”
Charlotte laughed. “I’ll be sure to set it aside for you.”
Hannah nodded and then wandered out of the room.
I shoved two pillows behind me and reclined against the headboard. Once I was settled, I asked, “How are you holding up?”
She quietly moved through the hospital room and into the bathroom, where she shut the door. “I’m okay, actually. He really is looking better, Porter.”
“Like, good enough to maybe come home?” Even I heard the hope in my voice.
She winced and shook her head.
“Right. Of course,” I said, pretending like I hadn’t been stabbed in the gut.
“He’s going to get a heart, Porter. I can feel it.”
“I’m glad you can, because I’m not feeling anything these days but a whole lot of worry and dread,” I replied, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. But I found myself unable to get comfortable.
“Turn off the light, Porter,” she whispered.
I shook my head. “I can’t. I need to go feed Hannah dinner. Something with, like, an actual vegetable. Mom dropped her off earlier and I swear she had a lollipop stuck in her hair. I love my mom, but she takes the job of spoiling her grandkids seriously.”
She stared at me blankly. “Off, Porter.”
“It’s still daylight outside, Charlotte. I could turn all the lights in the house off and it wouldn’t never be dark enough.”
“Okay. You want to talk in the light?”
Suddenly, a lump of emotion lodged in my throat and I had to force the words around it. “Is this the light? Because it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it.”
“Everything is going to be okay. He’s asleep, baby. I feel really good about his stats—as a mother and a doctor.”
I shook my head. “See…that’s the problem. I felt really good yesterday. I was lecturing you on holding on to the happy times and not allowing the fears to consume you. And here I am, learning that it was a bunch of bullshit. Just because you don’t think about the future doesn’t mean it won’t one day become the present. I’ve known this day was coming for a long time with Travis. And I still feel like it came out of nowhere.” I turned my face away from the phone with hopes that she didn’t see me wiping my cheek on my shoulder.
Fuck. I was supposed to be the man here. I should have been the one taking care of my family. My woman. My son. Protecting them from the harsh realities of life.
And there I was, helpless and grounded like a fucking teenager who’d stayed out past his curfew.
I cleared my throat, but that pain-filled lump settled right back in. “And this waiting bullshit? That’s all I’ve been doing recently. Waiting on custody hearings. Waiting on the cops to clear my name. Waiting for the judge to allow me supervised visitation. And, now, I have to wait on someone to die so my child can get a goddamn heart? I mean, what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”
She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know. But I’m doing the exact same thing.”
“Swear to God, Charlotte. Tanner and I passed a fucking fender bender on the way home and my first thought was, oh maybe someone died. Who does that?”
“Desperate parents do that, baby. All the time. You aren’t alone in that guilt.”
My heart thundered in my ears as I confessed, “But that’s the thing. I don’t even feel guilty.” I rose from the bed and began pacing, holding the phone out in front of me even though I wished I could hurl it across the room.
“And you aren’t alone in that, either.”
“I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“And you’re entitled to that. It’s been a tough two weeks for all of us. But the key words here are two weeks. A few weeks ago, I didn’t think I’d last a day in this hell. But we’ve made it through two weeks. And, now, we’re going to make it through the next two days. And then, together, with Travis and Hannah, we’re going to make it through the next however long it takes for him to get a heart. We can do this, Porter. And we will do this—because there is no other choice.”
I stopped pacing and allowed her words to infuse me. There had been a lot of days in my life, not just over the last two weeks, when I’d thought the world was going to swallow me. After Catherine died, I hadn’t had the first clue how I’d ever move past that kind of hurt and betrayal. But I had. And, through that, I’d found Charlotte.
The day I’d met her, I’d told myself that people entered our lives for a reason, and I was determined to figure out why she had come into mine. Logic told me it was because I’d needed her to treat my son. The more spiritual answer was that I was raising her son and the heavens saw it fit for us to figure that out. But, right then, as I stared at her on the phone, her brown eyes bright with love and her face strong and fearless, I decided that this was the reason she’d come into mine.
Without her, I’d still be lost in the hate and pain.
Without her, this would have been another source to feed the constant rage forever growing inside me.
Today would have come regardless if I’d met her or not. Travis had been fated to need that heart from the get-go. But Charlotte quieted my storm. She extinguished the fire. And she soothed my demons.
Without her, I’d be lost in darkness. Alone.
Sinking to the bed, I closed my eyes and willed my pulse to slow.
She stayed silent, in true Charlotte fashion, until I was ready to return to the world of rational thinking.
“Hi,” I whispered as I lifted my lids.
“Hi,” she whispered back.
“You stole my line with that whole ‘no other choice’ bit,” I told her, my smile tight.
“Then take it back,” she told me. Her gorgeous grin felt like a drowning man’s first breath of air.
“There’s no other choice. He’s going to be okay.”
“And…” she prompted.
“And…” I drawled in question.
“And we’re going to stick together before, during, and after it happens.”
I fell back on the bed, holding her smiling face above me. “Well, that was a given. You are stuck with me for the rest of your life.”
“Good,” she smarted. “Ian will be happy to have the company.”
I barked a laugh. “Did I forget to mention that I swung by your place on my way home?”