“He and Gavin were staying with me. We’ve been giving him a hand with Gavin,” Hunter says. “He didn’t want to tell you until he figured out his next move. He was waiting on the hearing; I know that much.”
“Wow,” I say through a heavy breath. “We talked almost every day.”
“He didn’t want to add stress to your plate,” Hunter says. “Don’t blame him for that. I can tell you it was all out of love, Cameron.”
“I would never question that,” I tell him, feeling more relief set in.
“Looks like all of your pieces are falling into place,” his Mom says.
It takes a little over an hour before a nurse comes back to get us. Gavin is wound up and going through his hyper hour of the day so we’re taking turns visiting with AJ. I insist that Hunter and his parents go in first this time. “Mom, are we really moving back to Connecticut?” Ever asks.
“Yes, is that okay with you?” I ask her.
“Yeah,” she smiles. “What about school?”
I look down at my watch for the date, noting that school must be starting in less than three weeks now, being that it’s the beginning of August. “We’ll enroll you in the high school—my old high school. There will be lots of new kids there for freshman year, and it will be the perfect transition for you.”
She looks a bit nervous, as I would be, but I know this is what’s best for her. “We'll go back-to-school shopping, and you can pick out whatever you would like. How does that sound?”
“You would have always been a really great mom, you know,” she tells me, instead of answering my question.
“Maybe, maybe not, but I’ve learned that this was always meant to be my life.” I sit down next to Ever and kiss her cheek. “And this little guy. After spending so much time with him this week, I don’t know if I could imagine not having him in my life too.” I kiss Gavin’s head and squeeze him as he wriggles out of my arms.
“It is kind of cool that I have a brother,” Ever says.
Hunter and his parents come back out, all three with large smiles on their face. “Looks like the surgery added an extra hop to his humor. Good luck with him,” Hunter says.
I laugh a bit, wondering what they mean, but AJ has always been a clown. The clown in him has just been buried under a lot of darkness from this past year. It’s time for happiness and a new start now.
I take Gavin by the hand and swing my arm around Ever as we make our way down the hall and into AJ’s room. His head is bandaged up but he’s awake and pretty alert considering what he’s been through. His face lights up instantly when I smile at him. “You’re going to be okay, I hear.”
“I heard I’m perfect,” AJ says. “I also heard I’m a little hard-headed.”
“I think I can attest to that,” I say through laughter.
“AJ, I’m so sorry for all of this,” I tell him.
He looks a bit confused at my apology. “What are you talking about?”
“I was driving the car,” I say with a shrug.
“Yeah, and I didn’t have my seatbelt on. Plus, that truck swerved and hit us, remember?”
I nod a bit. “I know. I feel like I should be apologizing for a lot more than just the accident, though.”
“Stop, Cam,” he says. “Don’t. You have nothing to be sorry for. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that everything happens for a reason—to teach us a lesson or make us appreciate something we didn’t appreciate before.”
I place Gavin down on the bed. “You have to be gentle with Daddy, little buddy, okay?”
Gavin, with his dark head of hair and AJ’s matching vibrant blue eyes, nestles under AJ’s arm and immediately closes his eyes. His feet curl up and he tries to pull the sheet over himself too. Gavin hasn’t slept much in the past week. I know he’s had a hard time being away from AJ, which has made me love AJ just a little more. He’s had such an impact on this little boy, and for someone who refused to ever have another child after what we went through with Ever, he’s turned into a father any kid would want to have.
“Can we go home now?” AJ asks through a grin. “You brought my clothes right? No one will see us leave. But, um, I’m going to drive, if you don’t mind?”
“You’re out of your mind,” I tell him through laughter.
“I was. I think they took my brain out for a few minutes. That was funky.”
“When you get out of here, in a few days hopefully, we’re going back to Connecticut, and we’re buying a house, just like we talked about.”