Chapter 14: Gavin
Mom calls when June and I are most of the way down the mountain, tiredly clomping along the flatter part of the trail.
I figure it’s right about the time the surgery is done. I don’t figure he survived the whole six hours only to die at the end. So he’s probably okay.
“Hey, Mom,” I say.
June halts, her eyes wide. I should have said something to her before I answered.
“I’m going to put you on speaker with me and June,” I add.
We sit on a rough boulder, me holding the phone between us.
“Your father is out of surgery,” Mom says. “They said it all went fine. Took three arteries out of his leg and two out of his arm.”
“Gross,” June says.
I nod my agreement.
“That’s what they have to do,” Mom says. “He’s in ICU, of course, so I haven’t seen him. They will let him sleep off the anesthesia, so he won’t wake until later tonight.”
“How you holding up?” I ask.
“I’m fine. Maybelle is here. Corabelle and her father left after she threw up all over Grandma K.”
June lets out a snort, then claps her hand over her mouth.
Uh-oh. Morning sickness must have hit. “Is Corabelle okay?” I ask.
“Maybelle said it was probably nerves.”
I know better. “Okay. I’ll check on her.”
“They’ve been home a long time by now. You went on a hike, they said?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Cooke’s Peak.”
“That’s a big hike!” she says. “Is June all right?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” June says. “We made it to the top!”
“Oh my,” Mom says. “I assume I won’t see you tonight?”
“You spending the night there?” I ask.
“I have a hotel room,” she says. “With my brother Ben. He’s here. I can’t sleep in the ICU like I did his room.”
Right. “Well, fill us in tomorrow and maybe I’ll take June up there,” I tell her.
My sister whacks my arm. “I’m not going if you’re not.”
“You will both come up here,” Mom says. “You’re his family.”
“Okay, Mom,” I say, giving my sister some hard-core side eye.
“And let me know how Corabelle is,” Mom says. “She looked positively green.”
“Will do.”
I end the call. June hops off the rock.
Corabelle hasn’t messaged me today at all, and nobody has told me she was sick. I remember the tough time she had with Finn the first few months and worry that this is the beginning of that again. It will be hard to hide the pregnancy from her parents if it keeps up on this trip.
I want to shoot her a message, but June keeps going, so I have to hurry to catch up. We’ll talk when I get back, I guess. She would have called me if anything big was happening. The fact that her mother stayed with mine means it was minor.
“I wish I could have seen Corabelle barf all over Grandma K,” June says. “That would have been awesome.”
“She’s probably mad as hell,” I say.
“She deserves it,” June says. “You’ve gotten to miss all the horrible Christmases with her yelling at everybody all day.”
“I remember those.” Guilt washes over me that I wasn’t there to make those days better for June. “How has Dad been since I left?”
“I dunno. Angry and brooding as ever. He has a hard time keeping anybody working with him. They quit after a few months.”
Dad does landscape work. He usually has some sort of assistant, as some of the jobs require a lot of lifting and grunt work. I’d helped him most summers growing up.
Sounds like they are getting the brunt of the anger he used to save for me.
“Is he all right around you and Mom?” I ask her this whenever we talk on the phone, but she always says he’s fine. Face to face, though, I can judge her expression when she answers.
“He’s a jerk, like he’s always been, and I can’t stand it when he yells at Mom.” She jumps over a boulder on the path. Our conversation has gotten her energy up again. “I know I’m supposed to love him because he’s my dad. But I don’t know if I do. Does that make me a bad person?”
“No, no,” I say. “It makes you a sane person. He hasn’t earned it.”
“I don’t know why Mom stays with him.”
“I had the same questions when I got to be your age. Still don’t have the answer.”
“Did she get knocked up or something? I always thought they were married a couple years before you came along.”
“They were. Maybe he was different back then.”
We stamp along. June is slowing down again.
This much alone time with my sister is a rare opportunity. I want to make absolutely sure Dad isn’t getting physical with her.
“June, has Dad ever hit you?”
“He spanked me once. Not long after you left. It made me laugh for some reason. He didn’t do it again.”
“You laughed?”
She cracks a smile. “I know, weird, right? He just looked so silly, trying to catch me and swat my butt. He’s slow, you know.”
“But he’s still mean.”
“He’s never anything but mean.”
We reach the trailhead and walk along the road to Corabelle’s car.
“Gavin?” June says, peering at me through the glare.
“Yeah?”
“Are you and Corabelle going to have another baby?”
At first I think she’s asking if Corabelle is pregnant, but then I realize it’s a general question.
“Sure,” I say.
“I sure would like to be an aunt,” June says.
“You’ll be a good one.”
“I want to be an aunt like Uncle Ben is an uncle. Funny and silly.”
“He’s a great example.”
June gets serious. “You think I’ll be a good parent? I don’t think we had good examples for that.”
Her question strikes right at my heart. I reach out and tweak her ponytail. “They just taught us what not to do. Now we’ll be perfect at it.”
She laughs and ducks away from me. “No, I will be perfect. You’ll just be my stinky big brother!”
June takes off running for the car, and despite my own exhaustion, I speed after her. I miss her. Maybe we can take her back with us for a while. It’s summer.
Except Corabelle is in school. And I work. Damn.
I’ll just have to take this moment and hold on.