“Just promise you’ll give your boy a family. Real family. Love. Happiness.”
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted for him. Love and happiness.”
“Family, James. Family.” He finished on a wheeze.
I didn’t want to make promises I couldn’t keep. What did family even mean to him?
There wasn’t a single relative left. My grandparents were gone, and my parents were only children. A great-aunt might exist, but even if I found her, what kind of family would that form for my son?
Did my father expect me to reunite with Dylan despite our differences? Would that make a family? It made no sense for him to ask me to sacrifice my happiness when it would hurt Hunter.
Did he really believe I could magically build a new family? He’d lived in a solitary confinement of his own making. Why did he think I could succeed when he’d so desperately failed?
But he was right.
Family was what had been missing from our tiny existence. Family was the bond my son needed for the happy life I’d always wanted for him.
Family was what I had to figure out.
But first, I needed to find out where my child was. My text to him had gone unanswered, as had my three follow-ups.
Worry gnawed at me as I imagined what that might mean.
Was he with Eric, having a good time? Were they down at the waterfront, where Eric and I had played just two days ago? Or maybe they were hiking my favorite trail.
I needed to push aside my doubts and call Eric. I’d left my child in his care. I trusted him more than Hunter’s father, and almost more than I trusted myself.
But trust wasn’t the issue.
It was fear.
A big, healthy dose of fear.
I was afraid of the situation I’d created, forming a relationship with a man who was far too earnest for a temporary fling. I was apprehensive about bringing this steadfast man into my son’s life. Not because he didn’t deserve it, but because I was terrified I’d screw it all up.
And I wouldn’t be the only one hurt in the end.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Eric
Hunter and Caleb were getting along better than I’d expected.
They sat side by side on the hospital bed, heads bent together over my phone, like old friends picking up where they’d left off instead of two people who’d just met.
When Caleb laughed—really laughed—something in my chest shifted. For that moment, he was himself again. High-spirited, on the verge of causing trouble, alive in a way that had nothing to do with machines or medicine.
The tight band around my ribs loosened a notch.
Even if it didn’t last. Even if tomorrow swallowed this version of him whole. Right now, he looked strong. Like he could outrun the word cancer.
Just one more day.
As Day Zero crept closer, I could feel every possible disaster lurking in the shadows. I trusted Caleb to soldier on—he’d proven his strength time and again. It was all the variables I couldn’t control that had my jaw clenched tight.
But Caleb was unfazed, talking about the transplant like the most exciting adventure of his life. I’d been calling it doomsday. For him, it was new hope.
My parents arrived first, Marc and Celeste right behind them. The room filled quickly, voices overlapping, chairs scraping.
