Page 53 of Dragon’s Dream

At the sound of Waylon’s voice Walker’s head shoots up off of Cane’s shoulder and he screams for his brother. Waylon is already crawling up the bed to get to me and Walker is scooting off of Cane to try and get to Waylon. I chuckle at the sight and Cane finally lifts Walker up onto the bed and tells him to be careful, then helps Waylon sit on the other side. Waylon’s little arms try to wrap around both myself and Walker.

“I mished you, mama. My heart hurt.”

Tears start to fall down my eyes as I pull my boys in closer and I look up and see Rhett walk in with Jaxon. Then following behind him is my entire family and I can no longer control the sob that comes out of my mouth.

“We really wanted to come see this place our baby sister calls home and to meet these adorable little boys in person.” Rhett says as he brings my baby boy over to me.

Jaxon is making grabby hands at me as I reach to take him from Rhett.

“Careful, baby. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“Shhh, I’m fine. I just want to hold my babies and see my family.”

My siblings move over and standing behind them is my mama with tears in her eyes.

“Oh my baby, I have missed you so much. You’re a mama.”

She rushes towards me and gives me a hug. My body shakes with sobs and I feel at peace for the first time in a long time.

Chapter Thirty-One

Dragon

Today we finally get to leave the hospital, I have to say that I am thrilled to be taking Liza home. I hate that she has been in the hospital for the last week. The doctor told us she looked over the scans of the baby and everything looked like it was progressing well. We have to come in for a couple extra visits to continue monitoring her due to the trauma that Liza endured and that kills me. I hate that she was put through all of this even for one second. I hate that Walker had to deal with all of that too. We had a talk with both of the boys about what happened and Walker had asked about why that man told him he was his dad. It was a conversation I hated having, but we knew that it was something that needed to be done. He had brought it up before we were able to get him to see a child therapist and maybe ask how to go about talking with the boys about this. So we did our best to address it and explain it to them both, but we are not sure how much a four year old can comprehend of this situation.

I can still see the look in little Walker’s eyes when he asked about some of the things he heard while he was taken for those few days that he did not see Liza.

“Mama, dat man, is he our daddy?”

“You met our daddy, Walker?”

“I-I no know .”

Liza looked up at me with tears in her eyes not knowing what to say. I crouched down next to him so I could look him in the eye. Both Waylon and him were watching intently. I stole a quick glance over to Liza before I began talking.

“Buddy, what do you think a daddy is?”

“Um, sumbunny that helps us, day teach us tings , day keep us safe. Like you do.”

“I know that a lot of what has happened the last few days has been very confusing buddy and you have a lot of questions about things that were said, but all you have to know right now is that that man no matter what you heard or what he said, he isn’t your daddy. You’ve already got a daddy.”

“We do?” both boys said at once.

“Yeah, I’m your daddy, just like I am Jaxon’s daddy. I love you all so much. No matter what happens I am always going to protect you and keep you safe. Is that okay with you?”

Both boys don’t answer, instead they jump into my arms and hug me as tight as they possibly can and I look at Liza and she has tears in her eyes.

That night after the boys went to sleep on the cots we have in the room and Jaxon was asleep on my check Liza and I had a very serious talk. One that I think made us so much closer than I ever thought we could be. We opened up in ways we had never before and talked about the past in a way that we were both receptive to.

“Did you mean it? You know what you said to the boys?”

Liza looks at me with tear filled eyes and so much hope that it killed me she didn’t know if I was serious.

“Yeah, baby. They are already mine, I just think we should make it official. If you’ll let me.”

Tears start falling down his face and I lean forward the best I can without disrupting Jaxon and wipe the tears from face.

“I um, I think maybe we should get everything out in the open and I think we should do it now before I change my mind. If we are going to move forward, we both need to get out everything so we can put it all behind us. I think it will make us stronger.”