A Missing Heart (32 page)

“He’s adorable,” she says. “How has he been doing through all of this?”

I take a long look at Cammy before formulating my answer. The casualness of our setting is a dream I’ve always had. She’s in flannel pajama bottoms with a loose, white cotton top. Her caramel hair is in a messy knot on the top of her head and even without makeup, she’s glowing like she always did when we were young.

“You’re beautiful, more beautiful now than you ever were,” I tell her, leaving behind the question she just asked.

“You’re changing the subject,” she says with a soft smile.

“It’s been the hardest thing I’ve had to witness next to Hunter losing Ellie. It’s like Tori died too. In a sense, she did. The Tori I knew before we had Gavin no longer seems to exist. For the first few weeks after she left, Gavin would sit up and cry for her, calling ‘Mama’ every two minutes. She was never a great mother, but Gavin never judged her for that. I had to listen to him call her name night after night, and I sat there and cried like a baby myself while he did it. I didn’t know how long it would take for him to understand that she wasn’t coming back.”

Cammy’s eyes fill with tears and she’s quick to wipe the loose droplets from her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

“I took him to the pediatrician almost every day, scared he was suffering from a broken heart or something. I don’t know how this kind of stuff affects a small child, and I was scared I wasn’t handling it right, you know?” I can feel the familiar burn behind my eyes sneak up, and I don’t want to go there right now so I take another sip of my coffee and create a long pause in our conversation.

“Can I tell you something?” she asks.

Still afraid to speak, I nod my head.

“You’re doing better than I could have done. He’s dressed perfectly. You over-packed for him,” she giggles.

“How do you know?” I ask with a questioning grin.

“He woke up at four this morning. He had a wet diaper, so I changed him and rocked him back to sleep.” The tears are unstoppable now, and I pinch my fingers around the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes shut. I’m a fucking mess. The thought of someone else caring for my son means so much to me. What I used to have to beg Tori to do for her own son, Cammy has done without even being asked. I feel a glimmer of what it might be like to have a partner in parenting.

“Hey,” Cammy says, leaning over and placing her hand down on my knee. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“You drove all night to see me. You were tired. It was the very least I could do. Plus, I wanted to spend time with him.” She isn’t trying to impress me with her answers. She’s truthful, and I almost can’t understand someone caring about me that much. It’s such a foreign feeling.

“Oh my God,” Ever says. “AJ, you’re here!” She runs over to me and throws herself onto my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

I lean back, taking a look at her. “Who is this person smothering me right now?” I say, joking. “This isn’t the Ever I recall, dressed all in black, with more make up than any teenager should ever wear.”

She cocks her head to the side and gives me another tight hug. “Mom convinced me to dress a little nicer,” she says in my ear.

Mom. A word Cammy never heard before, a word she deserved to hear a million times over the course of thirteen years.

I look past the messy mop of hair in my face and over to Cammy, who has her hand plastered over her mouth with her eyes half shut, assumedly fending off the tears. “She called me Mom,” Cammy mouths to me.

“How’s it been going?” I ask Ever.

She hops off my lap and takes a seat at the table between us. “It pretty much sucked for the first couple of months, being back here, but then I got to come live here, and I’ve been having the best time.”

“You have no idea how happy that makes me,” I tell her.

“You know,” Ever begins. “I had a good life. I was taken care of and stuff. I never needed or wanted anything since they were pretty loaded, but the only thing that was always missing was real love. I don’t know if they ever felt that way for me, the way I can tell the two of you do.”

Guilt seeps through my veins once again, even though I didn’t have any say in the adoption process, I know how badly some parents want to adopt a baby, and they would do nothing but spend every second of the child’s life loving them with a real kind of love. I also know there are a few who adopt for the wrong reasons, and I always prayed that would never happen to Ever, but what could we control? They seemed genuinely excited to get her that day in the hospital thirteen years ago. How would we have known any different? “Some adopting parents were put on this earth to save a child. And some birth parents were never meant to be without their child. Then, there are some who should never have had children.” We’re all placed accordingly in life, there for those who need the love.

“I know,” she says. “I pretty much know everything there is to know about adoption. I’ve been researching it since I was ten.”

“Do you miss them?” I ask her. I don’t want to pretend like we’re swooping in to save the day. She had a life with these people, and they did take care of her, kept her safe and healthy until they passed away, until the time was right for Ever to come back into our lives again. I owe them respect for that.

“Yeah,” she says. “I do, but they were never around. I miss my nanny more.”

“Understandable,” I say with a sigh. “So tomorrow is the big day, huh?”

Ever clasps her hands together and smiles harder than I’ve ever seen her smile. “I can’t wait!”

“Us too,” Cammy says, proudly. “Actually, wait here. I have something for you—something I wanted to give you today.” Cammy jogs down the hallway into her bedroom and returns a moment later, handing Ever a small, suede bag. “I want you to have this.”

Ever pulls a silver ring out of the bag and examines it with a gleam in her eyes. “A ring?” I examine it a little closer as well, recognizing it.

“I couldn’t think of a better day to give this to you. AJ gave it to me right before you were born. It’s a promise ring—it was a promise that we would be together as a family.”

“I don’t understand,” Ever says. “But I love it. Thank you!” Ever throws her arms around Cammy’s neck and then mine. She doesn’t understand because it was our intention to be together and a family from the beginning.

“I can’t believe you kept that, after all this time,” I say to Cammy.

“It’s been locked away in my hope chest,” she says through a small smile.
I get it.

“I do have a question, though,” Ever says. “Does this mean you’re officially my dad?”

While I know the answer to this, I also know what I wish the answer would be.

“It’s a little complicated,” Cammy tells her for me.

“You mean; you have to get married or something to make that official?”

“That’s one way, yeah,” Cammy agrees. “But—”

“I know,” Ever says.

“I am half responsible for you being in this world, Ever, and for that reason alone, I will always be your dad. The legal stuff will come in time, okay?”

“Okay,” she says with a sluggish shrug. “I’m hungry.” She changes the subject, reminding me she’s a teenager as she stands up from the table and goes into the kitchen to fix herself a bowl of cereal.

“Daddy!” Gavin screams. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” I run into the other room, finding Gavin nearly in tears. He looks confused, as I’m sure he did at four in the morning too, though it was probably still dark at least. Now, it’s pretty clear he’s in a room he’s never been in before.

“I’m here, buddy.” I take him out of the crib and quickly change his diaper. Grabbing the diaper bag, I bring it out to the kitchen so I can put together some food for him.

“Does he like eggs?” Cammy asks.

“Probably more than dried cereal,” I laugh.

“Eggs!” Gavin shouts.

“I can make the best eggs ever,” Cammy tells him, sweetly.

Gavin shrieks with excitement and squirms out of my arms to get down. He runs over to Cammy and wraps his little arms around her leg as she cracks the eggs into a bowl. “I help!”

“Of course you can!” Cammy lifts him up and places him on the counter next to her and hands him a whisk. “Go ahead.” Eggs spray everywhere but Cammy doesn’t seem to care. She’s in hysterics laughing, and Ever is grinning from ear to ear, watching this play out. “Bad idea!”

I’m not sure I’ve been in a room with four people laughing this hard. Or at least, it’s been a real long time. I miss the feeling of just being happy and free of worry.

“It’s finally Friday,” Cammy says, walking up with a smile on her face. “God, this week went by so slowly until you got here the other day.”

“I hear ya,” I tell her, pulling my clothes out of my bag. “You have an iron?”

She points to the closet and slips out of bed. “You’re wearing me out,” she groans with a lazy smile.

“I can stop if it’s too much for you to handle,” I say, padding across the room towards her. I loop my arms around her and pull her into me. She tilts her head back and I lean forward, pressing my lips to hers, feeling even more perfect than the last time I kissed her.

“Today is the best day,” she mutters against my mouth.

“You said that yesterday,” I remind her.

“Tomorrow will be even better,” she says.

Loosening the grip I’m never quite ready to release, I retrieve the ironing board and iron from the closet. She brushes past me at the same time, ripping through the hangers in a loud debate on what to wear the day she becomes a mother again.

An hour and twenty minutes later, we’re all dressed appropriately, or whatever seems appropriate for being granted a second chance at parenthood. “I’ll drive,” Cammy says as we’re walking outside. “No truck with this dress.”

“I know better than to argue with that,” I tell her. “I’ll just grab Gavin’s car seat from the truck.” I place Gavin down in the grass with her and he immediately lifts his arms to her, determined to be picked up. He clearly has good taste in women.

After settling everyone in Cammy’s SUV, we take off for the courthouse, which is about a half hour from here I guess. The music is turned up, the girls are singing, Gavin is kicking his feet into my seat, and I’m resting easy knowing life is on its way to amazingness.

Or at least that was the plan before the truck coming towards us decided to skid out of control.
Shit.

“Cam!” I scream. “Watch out!”

I turn around in time to see the fearful look on Ever’s face and the unknowing smile on Gavin’s, but the sound of metal eating metal sends me spinning quickly into a dark hole, one that doesn’t give me the chance to look back at the oncoming truck.

With the darkness eating me up, the sounds around me take over all of my senses. Screams and cries fill the air, and I want to snap out of my haze to take care of my family but I can’t move. I feel heavy and pinned to the seat.

The noise fades around me and then escalates in volume. The repetition of growing and shrinking volume continues, causing incredible nausea. As the minutes pass, the volume stops growing, the cries stop blaring, and the screams become mute. The world around me halts its movements, and suddenly, everything is still. Everything is paused. How can my life be almost completely perfect one minute and then turn into a state of destruction seconds later?

My mind and thoughts feel like they’re coming to a crawl, and part of me wonders if my mind can’t comprehend the reality of what is happening, while the other part is considering the thought of my mind completely shutting down for good.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I’VE HAD SEVERAL
significant moments of realization in my life. Two of them were when I saw my children for the first time. One of them was when Cammy left me for good. One of them was when Hunter lost Ellie and became a widower at twenty-five. Another was when he became happy again with his second chance at life as he met Charlotte, and another was when Cammy and Ever stepped back into my life. Then there’s today, the realization that all of that might not matter because only one of those realizations will stick with me for the remainder of my life.

“He’s coming out of it,” a woman says. “Andrew, can you hear my voice? Please squeeze my finger if you can.” I don’t recognize her voice, but I can hear her, and I squeeze with a weakness that has seemingly taken over my entire body. It’s hard to feel much right now, if anything. “Page the doctor!”