Lori had given the girls each a vest so they could have their first meeting with their uniform that had their troop numbers on it. It was kind of adorable.
There was one blue vest, one brown vest, and one green vest for his three girls.
Cam chuckled again. “Yeah, that’s one thing about my family—they’re joiners. They do like all the things, 4-H, rodeo club. I think that Diana actually started the robotics club at the high school.”
“Isn’t that what Susan is into now? Engineering?”
Cam nodded. “Those two are eighteen years apart, exactly. Susan was born on Diana’s eighteenth birthday, and they are two peas in a pod.”
“It’s wild.” Mitch wasn’t sure he was jealous that Cam had so many brothers and sisters or incredibly grateful he didn’t have any. He wasn’t sure what to think about such a big family.
Of course, he’d wound up with three kids, which he wasn’t sure had even been the plan.
He and Allison had never been good at actual planning. They’d just gone with things.
He rubbed his breastbone a little, because that still caused an ache in his chest, thinking about all she was missing.
“You okay, man?”
The question shocked him out of his thoughts enough that he just told the truth. “Yeah, I was just thinking about Allison.”
One of Cam’s eyebrows quirked. “I couldn’t believe it when they said you were getting married and having babies…”
“I couldn’t believe it, either. It wasn’t in the plan, really, but I was just thinking about the fact that she and I weren’t bigplanners. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I loved her. I loved her dearly. She was an amazing woman, but I hadn’t planned on having a family.”
“Did she want kids?”
He nodded. “She did. I don’t think that she wanted them at the age we started, and we didn’t plan the last one. We didn’t really plan Sarah, but we weren’t tryingnotto have a baby either. That was in our we’re-just-going-to-see-what-happens-and-let-God-take-it phase. It stopped immediately after we found out that we were pregnant with Sarah.”
He started laughing, the sound half humor, half hurt. “And then we absolutely were not intending little Rachel. We were already having money problems, and she was talking about going to nursing school. I was thinking about starting up my roofing business on my own, and you know… what is that old saying? When man makes plans, God laughs? God was cracking his shit up when we were doing that.”
“Yeah, and then you…and she didn’t…” Cam’s cheeks were bright red, and he was stammering.
“She had a stroke. She had an aneurysm when she was about seven and a half months along. There was nothing I could do.” He’d come out of the barn to the sound of Bekka’s hysterical screams, her pleas for her momma to wake up. He’d never heard fear like that before, but he heard it over and over again, when he dreamed about that day. “She was dead before the EMTs got here. So they did an emergency cesarean. Thank God Rachel was hale and whole.”
She had cared about him enough to not make him have to choose to turn off the machines. She’d taken that out of the mix, saving him that guilt of having to admit, even to himself and the good Lord above that he’d chosen to kill his wife.
“Jesus, but obviously Rachel is fine?”
He nodded, blowing out a hard breath. “Yeah, she was fully cooked. She didn’t have to stay in NICU or anything. She was a perfectly healthy six-pound baby girl. She came home the day after she was born, and I held her at her momma’s funeral.”
“You’re the strongest fucking man I’ve ever met.” Cam sat there, shaking his head. “I think I might have just laid down and died.”
Mitch lifted one hand out of the water and let it fall back down with a splash. “Maybe. If I hadn’t had my babies. But I had babies. I had a six-year-old, a three-year-old, and a brand-new infant, and they needed me more than I needed to not deal. I can’t tell you I’m a good dad, but I can tell you I try and that I love them more than is reasonable.”
“Shit, man, you’re a great father, and I should know, because I have a pretty damn good father. Now, I have a pretty damn good father who has more children than is reasonable, and a mother who is the bossiest hen in the entire roost. My parents love us and I don’t think either one of them could have done as good a job as you’re doing. I think you’re a fucking hero, and I know without a shadow of a doubt you are those girls’ hero.”
“If I can’t be anything else, I can be that.”
“You know it.” Cam sat there for a while so he could bubble, both of them lost in their thoughts.
Then Javvy came in, grinning. “All right, prune dude. Time to come out.”
He stood, but he was like a noodle, and Cam came to help Javvy get him safely out. Something about being all wet and slippery and mostly naked with Cam touching him was threating to make him spring wood.
That would be embarrassing.
Not because of Cam. Not even a little bit. But because what he and Cam had, he wasn’t sure, but he knew it wasn’t for public consumption. Their feelings weren’t that strong yet, theirconnection wasn’t that real. It was a whisper, a promise from a ghost.
