Catch Can – A smaller can with a spout held at the overfill port to catch the gas spilled over. This can also allow the air trapped in the tank to vent faster than normal, critical for faster pit stops.
“I want owc cleam!” the tiny vein in my soon-to-be four-year-old son’s neck was popping out as he said this.
“You want what?”
“Owc cleam!”
Laughing, I contemplated what that meant. “I’m guessing you mean ice cream?”
“That’s what I said.”
Oh, geez, now he sounded like Lane.
“No, you said owc cleam. I don’t even know what that is, and it doesn’t sound edible. It sounds like a kitchen cleaner or something.”
“Mama... I just need it,” Axel told me, his intense vibrant green eyes focused on the bowl I was holding full of his favorite peanut butter ice cream with chocolate syrup.
Apparently, all the Ben and Jerry ice cream I’d eaten while pregnant with him had rubbed off, and he was just as enthusiastic toward the fluffy, wonderful creation as me.
I remembered the first time we gave him ice cream. It was during a rain delay in Atlanta.
Atlanta, Georgia, during the summer was miserable, regardless if it was raining or not, so during that particular rain break we fed our six-month-old son ice cream. From that point on, every time someone had ice cream, it was like Axel knew and would do just about anything to get some of it, much like his mother.
Axel was similar to me in many ways, but he resembled Jameson. He had the same expressions, same attitude, and same quirky skin phobia (he barely let me put soap on him.). But what got most people was how much he looked like him in the face.
I once took him grocery shopping with me and this older woman, clearly a fan of NASCAR with her Tate Harris memorabilia plastered all over her, stopped us near the checkout counter.
“Wow,” she gasped, staring at a three-year-old Axel. “He looks just like Jameson Riley, the NASCAR driver.”
I smile politely at her.
“Yeah, well,” I began, “If you see him around the track, tell him his wife said hello.”
Because of her reaction, that was the last time I ever told someone I was married to the Jameson Riley. It was like I told her I was married to Brad Pitt for crying out loud. Took us forty-five minutes to get away from her and from that point on, Emma did my shopping for me.
This had its own drawbacks, but it was worth it not to run into fans at the grocery store.
“Mama?” Axel called out with a mouth full of ice cream. “Re-Re stole Mr. Wiggles.” Ice cream trickled down his chin and onto his gray JAR Racing t-shirt.
“Well get him back from her,” I replied, closing the dishwasher door and starting the final load of dishes from last night’s dinner. I should have done them last night, but Jameson got home around nine, and well, we got distracted once the kids were in bed.
“She not giving back. I need back!”
This was my life these days. My kids fought all the time, and if they weren’t fighting with each other... they were fighting us. The bad part of this was—they won. Most of the time, their arguments were worse in public or at the track. I always sensed when Jameson was getting stressed as they fed off him and then everyone was upset. To be fair, Jameson was working most of the time he was at the track and having the kids there shot his anxiety levels through the roof. Now he not only had himself to worry about, but what he said and did directly affected a family. A family that was there at the track with him and was subjected to the judging media.
In turn, there were times when Jameson had the occasional outburst at Axel’s tendency to run away at the most inopportune times. Like when cars were driving past in the paddock or garage area. The kids threw fits at the worst possible times, and when we were in a hurry, they decided at that moment to slow down.
“Mama!” Axel screamed, throwing himself on the floor. “Give it back!”
“Arie, give Axel back his Mr. Wiggles,” I told her, taking Mr. Wiggles from her chubby little hands.
Her response: “No!”
That was her standard answer for everything and was usually followed by a tremendous amount of wailing and tears.
Arie had just turned two in September, and if I thought Axel worked us over at times, Arie put him to shame. She could get absolutely anything from Jameson with just a flutter of her beautifully thick black lashes.
When she was born, Jameson was in awe at how much she resembled me, but I saw Jameson in her features as well as her attitude. She had his smirk for one, his lips, and, of course, his exact hair color with my emerald eyes. Axel had the lighter, grass green that Jameson had.
Life was changing as it always did. We were still living in Mooresville, but we kept the house on Summit Lake for the weekends we visited Elma. Another baby was on the way, yeah, quick I know. Imagine my surprise. Arie was only eighteen months old when I got pregnant with this new little spaz. I cried for nearly a month.
Jameson was on top of his career. He’d won four back-to-back championships and finished second this year.
As always, time brought changes to our hectic lifestyles.
Trying to raise two kids on the road was hell. Arie thought the motor coach was home for the first year of her life. When we were home, she cried. When in the motor coach, she was happy.
Axel wasn’t happy unless he was at the track with his dad. When he was at home, he was asking when he could go back to the track and when Daddy would be home—it was sometimes as though I didn’t exist to him.
Arie loved me, though. Or at least she pretended well.
All this led to one thing—the crazy irrational kids and I traveled with Jameson. There were times when we stayed home, depending on what track he was racing at, but most of the time, Thursday through Sunday, we were at the track.
One bad thing about staying in a motor coach with Jameson, me, Axel, and Arie... the kids were always around, which left little alone time for the Mama Wizard and her Dirty Heathen. We had to think of new inventive ways of getting alone time.
We made use of times like going out to dinner, and cars worked well for the occasional dyno testing. Leaving the kids with Tate and his wife Eva was also an option on race weekends. They loved the kids as though they were their own, and Axel thought Tate was pretty cool. Alley and Spencer were also options, but this always left the question of where to do it at, along with the harassment from Spencer.
Once, and I was ashamed to admit this, we made use of a bathroom in the pits. Embarrassing as hell, because Bobby picked that exact moment to walk into the men’s restroom when I was screaming like a hyena. It took me a while to realize why he kept smiling the rest of the weekend until Jameson confessed that Bobby felt bad for walking in and told him. I still can’t look at Bobby without my face turning a shade similar to the devil’s ass.
After I ruled out bathrooms, cars always seemed to be where we got it on. This was why I always requested an SUV when renting cars. I wasn’t stupid. All this dyno testing might have something to do with the fact that I was, once again, pregnant with a flailing spaz. I also put Mr. Jangles up for adoption. Damn thief.
Axel was now in school on Monday through Wednesday so this meant most of the time I had to fly out a day later with the kids. That was only if Axel didn’t get into trouble. Parent teacher conferences were my least favorite thing to do. Honestly, I’d rather set myself on fire than attend a parent teacher conference where the teacher went into detail about the time she met my husband or Axel’s lack of concern for anything that didn’t relate to racing.
We were hiring a private teacher for him next year.
“Sway, are you in here?” Emma called out as I heard her come in the front door. Then I heard a loud crash followed by, “Oh, shit.”
“You’re paying for that!” I yelled out to her, making my way into the living room to see her frantically cleaning up the glass from a picture frame she’d knocked over with her suitcase she carried around as a diaper bag for the twins.
Noah and Charlie began running around the house looking for Arie. They were turning three next week and their temperaments showed it. That was not to say my two didn’t throw fits because, Christ Almighty, at times it was as though the devil replaced my beautiful rusty-haired babies.
“I’m sorry... I’m running late,” Emma told me.
“For what?”
“Swim lessons—remember? We talked about this a few weeks ago.”
“Right.” I nodded. “I just don’t see why we should put them in swim lessons. I mean, they’re not salmon. Why do they need to learn to swim anyway?”
“Sway, what happens if they fall into the water? You live on a lake.”
“That’s what floaties are for. Besides, they’re too young for swim lessons. Arie wants nothing to do with the water. I have to bribe her to get her to take baths. And Axel, well if it doesn’t involve a race car—good luck getting him into the water.”
Emma sighed, knowing damn well she’d never get my kids to agree to this. Yet another trait they inherited from their father—extreme stubbornness.
For the first time in almost a year, the family and I were on our way to Elma for Macy, Andrea and Van’s little girl’s first birthday party.
Returning to the Northwest always made me laugh. I was offered a key to the City of Elma this last summer. Anyone who knew me found this entertaining. The sheriff was constantly sending me to traffic court for various speeding or reckless driving infractions when I lived here. I was hardly a model citizen.
Not long after this, while I was driving home to Elma, as I entered the city I saw a sign on the side of Highway 8 that read: Home of NASCAR Champion, Jameson Riley.
Laughing at the irony of it all, I snapped a picture and sent it to Sway with a text that read: We used to steal this sign back in high school.
Her response: You better bring that shit home so we can hang it on the wall!
Every time we stole the sign, they replaced it with another and added the last date I stole it. Eventually we lost interest in stealing the sign, but it was still entertaining that my hometown cared enough about me to have a sign made.
When we entered the city today, the sign was still there. Sway chuckled beside me when she saw it had been replaced yet again.
“Pretty soon they’ll have to add Axel’s name to it.”
I laughed. “Probably.”
I had just started Axel in the USAC quarter midget Division. He turned four last week and was granted his USAC license, so naturally he got a brand new quarter midget all ready to go for his birthday. Justin and Tyler helped me get everything set up in time for him to race in the “Duel in the Desert” in Phoenix this coming March.
To say he was excited was an understatement. Axel had been showing interest in racing since birth, but now it was similar to the way I felt about racing. We started him out with a go-kart at one, and now he’d outgrown it. I should rephrase that—the yard outgrew him.
Just like when I was younger, he had a track in our backyard at the Mooresville house—quarter-mile clay oval track. And just like me, he threw a fit when it was time to come in at night. I made a point every Tuesday morning, to go out there with him and race. It became hard once winter came around so what did I do? I installed a covered roof over the track. I couldn’t have a crying little boy, could I?
ONCE WE ARRIVED at the house on Summit Lake, I snuck over to the track to test out the car we got for him. Sway knew it was only a matter of time before I took him to the track. I had to make sure everything turned out, right?
So Axel, Van, Tommy, and I made our way over to the track before heading out to the birthday party. Van and Tommy wouldn’t have missed this either. Over the past few years, Axel had become like a son to Van and for good reason. He spent more time around my kids than I got to these days, but I also knew they were protected.
I would never regret the decisions and sacrifices I’d made, because financially it had secured our future, but those decisions and sacrifices had drawbacks. I had missed Arie’s birth, which was extremely hard on me, and I’d missed Sway’s birthday twice now.
It was strange, but something happened when you became a NASCAR Champion and people stopped seeing you for you, and instead as some sort of a rock star who wasn’t bothered by fame. That wasn’t entirely true. I hated fame, and more importantly, I hated that fame for my family. Growing up, Axel would constantly be considered Jameson Riley’s son, just as I was always Jimi Riley’s son. It was an endless cycle in the racing community. Knowing all this, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see fans waiting outside the gates at Grays Harbor Raceway when we pulled in.
I had no problem with fans. They were the reason my career had really taken off, but when I was with my family, I wanted to be with them and give them the attention they deserved. Yeah, that one fan only wanted a few seconds of my time, but what happened when I gave just that one fan a few seconds? Well, then the next fan wanted a few seconds, and then the next, before you knew it, you’d spent the last thirty minutes giving each fan just a few seconds while my four-year-old son patiently waited inside his race car for his dad to show him how to drive it.
“I’m sorry, but my son is waiting for me,” I told the last fan who wanted an autograph.
“Just one second of your time,” he pleaded, handing me the die cast car.
“I really am sorry, but I need to get going.” I began to walk away when I heard the guy lean over to his friend and mutter, “What a jerk.”
That type of snide comment irritated me to no end. I wanted to turn around and say, “Fuck you!” I had just stood signing autograph after autograph for these fans, and when I finally needed to draw a line to the madness, they acted as though I blew them off. You couldn’t win, and I began to realize I shouldn’t care.
These fans blew us up to be these heroes. We were people, racers where nothing else mattered but the noise, and I thought at times, they forgot we were actual people with lives outside of the tracks, too. Some fell victim to the fame and became the image created for them, no longer knowing themselves, because, God forbid, they should be disappointingly normal.
“Daddy, what I do?” Axel asked me, putting his helmet over his untidy mess of rusty curls.
I smiled, watching his excited eyes.
I still remembered the first time I sat in one of those cars and my first race, which was at this very track. I was so amped up I hardly listened to my dad’s advice, but thought I should give Axel the same.
“All right, this is similar to what you see Grandpa and Daddy do in sprint cars. Tommy is going to push start you, okay?”
Axel nodded with enthusiasm, his helmet visor flipping shut. He knew race talk.
I had to chuckle. “Get comfortable with the speed before you go throwing it into the corners, okay?” He nodded again. It wasn’t that these cars exceeded twenty, but still, he was four. “This weighs slightly more than the go-kart you had so get used to that first. Once you’re in that spinning drift, that’s not the time to second-guess the speed. You drive it in too hard and you’ll end up in the wall. What happens then?”
“Momma yells at you,” he grinned.
“Exactly.” I patted his helmet and pulled on his belts before Tommy pushed him off. As I expected, he knew exactly what do to, and the little red Honda fired to life.
“It’s hard to believe he’s big enough to be doing this,” Van said, linking his fingers in the chain link fence we leaned against.
“I know. It’s seems like just yesterday Sway gave birth to him.”
Van laughed when Axel, who’d been pushing up the track with each lap, bounced the right rear off the outside cushions like I always did, as did my dad. It’s a feeling every dirt-tracker knows and is comfortable with, but once that right rear hits the outside cushions, it jolts your car forward, giving you that added boost needed to pass when slower cars get bunched down on the rails.
Axel made another five laps before I walked back down onto the front stretch where he stopped when he saw me. Like I told him, he pulled it out of gear before flipping his visor up. I watched him rub his eyes like I always did. I was still amazed at how much he picked up from me just by watching.
“I do good?” his eyes held hesitation.
“You did great, little man,” I told him. “That last lap was faster than mine when I was your age.
The hesitation vanished. “Mama will be proud of me.”
He tried so hard to make everyone proud of him, when really, just having him around was enough for us. I didn’t know where he ever got that he needed to make us proud of him, but it didn’t stop him from trying.
“Can I go again?”
“Sure, buddy. This is for you. Let me know when you’re done.” I leaned in closer. “Do you want me to track your lap times?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
I kept track of everything I could for him—from lap times to tire pressure and technique. It wasn’t like I needed to do that with a quarter midget, but it made him feel special and that was what today was about.
Growing up around the track, Axel already knew the basics in dirt track racing. He spent countless hours asking questions of me, Justin, Tyler, and my dad on how to race on dirt.
I managed to get him buckled in the car on the way to the birthday party before he started with his questions.
“How come …” This was how all his questions began. “When I hit toes holey things... I not steer very good.” His adorable voice had me smiling. He reminded me of Lane at this age when he frequently missed words.
“Those are called ruts, buddy.” I started telling him more about the ruts and didn’t leave anything out. I also talked to him like I would another adult. My dad always did that to me, and I knew it helped my career more than the opportunities he provided me. “The ruts are caused from wheelspin. You’d think the track would be nice and smooth, but it’s rough, huh?” He nodded, listening closely as we pulled out of the pits. “Tracks with a lot of moisture, like Elma, can form ruts, and if your car isn’t set up to roll over the ruts, the consequence is often a crash. Normally, when your car hits the ruts you want it to ride over it, but if the tire catches the rut, all the car’s weight is then transferred to the right rear causing the car to roll over. It’s worse in sprint cars because of the staggered tires.”
“Why are they stammered?”
“Staggered,” I corrected him. “They’re staggered for a number of reasons. For one, it helps the car turn left. Essentially, this will work in your favor, but sometimes it won’t. The rear tires are the only ones staggered, meaning the left rear is smaller than the right rear.”
“Why?”
He never waited for your answer before he dove into the next question, much like me. “Sprint cars have a one-piece rear axle connecting the left and right rear wheels and don’t have differentials. So if you have both tires, the same size, and with the high compression ratios, the car would end up in the fence as soon as you hit turn one.” He seemed to understand so I continued. “Do you remember when we went to Knoxville Nationals this last summer and Grandpa Jimi was adjusting the stagger on his car?”
“Yeah,” his brow furrowed together while he listened intently. His head tipped to one side, slightly contemplating everything I’d just told him.
“At Knoxville they’re known for a drier slick track, meaning you don’t need as much stagger as you’d need at Elma or Cottage Grove where the clay is thicker with an almost mud consistency.”
Once we made it back to the house for the birthday party, Axel had asked every question he could think of when it came to stagger and ruts.
I remembered being the exact same way. At his age, I dreamed of racing non-stop so I understood.
“How’d it go?” Sway asked once she found me in the family room of our Summit Lake home.
We offered to hold the party here since Charlie’s old house that Andrea and Van were living in was nowhere near big enough for our expanding families.
Wrapping my arms around her swollen belly, I breathed in a deep breath. I enjoyed the time away from racing during the winter months for moments just like this, knowing I’d be able to wake up beside my wife and not have to leave for another track. Instead, tomorrow we’d be going on a small vacation, just the two of us.
“It went good,” I finally answered when she slapped my hand away, which I had placed on her ass.
“Behave,” she told me, tapping her index finger to my nose. “We have kids and people everywhere.”
“There are kids and people everywhere,” I had to remind her before pulling her into the bathroom just off our kitchen. “That’s never stopped us before.”
“At some point, I’d like to have my body back from having your kids.”
Smirking, I took a firm grasp on her ass. “You’re really to blame for that.”
Her right hand rose quickly and punched my left shoulder, the one I’d just had surgery on a few weeks back when I separated it in a crash at Talladega early in the year.
My brutal glare stopped her before she gave in and muttered a “Sorry.” It was still very sore.
“You were saying?”
“Nothing... I wasn’t saying anything. What did you want?”
“You.” I tipped my head toward her.
“No, not happening.” Her eyes widened when I cornered her against the wall. “We have a party going on out there.”
“Like I give a shit about that.” I kissed along her jaw before I slowly swept my tongue along her bare collarbone. Her arms tightened around my neck, and I knew I’d won.
Having sex while your wife was eight months pregnant was difficult, but in a tiny bathroom it was damn near impossible, and Sway was not helping by moaning wildly.
I was just about to start moaning when Aiden knocked on the door.
“Hey, Jameson, are you in there?”
Shit, do I lie?
“Uh, yeah dude.” Sway’s horrified eyes met mine frantically. “I’ll be out in just a minute.”
He laughed. I’m sure he knew exactly what was going down in here.
“We need to stop this.” Her attempts at pushing me away ended when my fingers grazed her ignition switch.
“You were saying?” I leaned in to capture her lips with my own.
Her whimper when my tongue entered her mouth confirmed she didn’t want this to end.
“Shut up,” she told me with a scowl. “I was telling you to shut up.”
I reached down to widen her stance against the countertop she had hunched over so I had room to maneuver around the engine I knew so well. My lips moved from hers to graze across her shoulder blades and the nape of her neck where I gently bit. It worked.
“Oh God, Jameson!” she screamed.
Hearing the chuckles outside the door from Spencer and Aiden was the last thing I cared about when I let out a groan that could have shaken the entire goddamn house.
“Holy shit,” Sway gasped, bracing against the edge of the sink.
“That’s right,” I nodded haughtily, pulling my jeans up.
“Such a jackass.”
“You weren’t saying that a moment ago,” I reached forward, drawing her against my chest. “It was something along the lines of ‘Oh Jameson, you fuck so good!’ Yeah, that was exactly what you said.”
“Jesus,” she shook her head, one eyebrow quirked at me. “I didn’t think your head could get any bigger. I was wrong.”
Once outside the bathroom, I had some explaining to do.
“Where’d you go, Daddy?” Axel asked, dragging his little friend, Lily, around with him.
Lily West was Justin’s daughter who was just a few months shy of Axel. Those two were just like Sway and me growing up—pretty much inseparable.
Still buttoning my jeans since Sway left the goddamn door open before I was fully dressed, I answered him, “I had to shower.”
“There no shower in there.”
Shit.
“I just splashed some water over my face.”
He glared in my direction before looking over at Sway. He was more perceptive than I give him credit for.
“Sure, Dad.”
Dumbfounded that my four-year-old son realized what his mom and I were doing in the bathroom, I slipped back into the kitchen to give Sway shit for leaving the door open to find her crying in the kitchen.
“Honey, what’s wrong.”
She turned to face me, smashing her face in my chest. Her hands grasped at my shirt.
“I’m sorry... I don’t want this baby to be born yet.”
“It won’t.” We still didn’t know the sex of the baby. Just as Arie had done, this new little one refused to cooperate during ultrasounds so it was a mystery as to what the addition to the brood would be. “You still have another month to go.”
The baby wasn’t due until the beginning of February. We had time to get Sway used to the idea of giving birth again. It was then that I noticed what I was standing in. Her water had broken.
Sway looked down and started crying harder.
“I can’t! I don’t want to do this again.”
She hated giving birth, but once it was over, she was ready for more.
“It’s all right, honey. We’ve done this two other times,” I soothed gently, stroking her back. “You’ll do fine.”
“No, I won’t,” she shook her head. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not shooting kids out your crankcase!”
“Well, I should hope not.”
Her expression turned furious. “Jameson?”
“Yes.” I smiled, trying to coax her into laughing.
“Shut the fuck up and take me to the hospital!”
A few things happened in the matter of four hours. Sway screamed loud enough that I was sure my eardrum had ruptured. Axel and Arie were awarded Blizzards for helping me control their hysterical mother, and I got a speeding ticket.
Much to Sway’s surprise, and the cop who tried to pull me over, I didn’t stop and now had three local police cars and a county sheriff following me to Saint Peter’s Hospital in Olympia.
“Daddy tobble,” Arie giggled when I pulled her out of her seat to give the kids to my mom before I was arrested for resisting arrest.
Another four hours later, and I was heading back to the hospital when Aiden caught me in the hall.
“Dude, get in there,” he motioned toward the door to Sway’s room. “She’s having the baby right now!”
When I entered the room, Sway was doubled-over, screaming in pain.
“What’s wrong? Should she be in this much pain?” I panicked when I looked into her eyes and saw fear. This was beyond the normal childbirth pain—something else was wrong with her.
Dr. Sears stepped in front of me before I could reach her. His hands came up in capitulation when he took in my impious glare.
“Everything is fine, Jameson,” his voice was urgent. “We just need to take Sway for a caesarean. The cord is wrapped around the baby, and I can’t get it out naturally.”
I nodded and reached for Sway, who was limp against the bed, exhausted by hours of pushing.
“Honey, are you okay?”
“The baby ...” was all she managed to say before crying out again. I felt the punch to my gut hearing her cry out in pain—pain I couldn’t take away.
The doctors worked quickly—not as quickly as I would have liked them to, but eventually she was wheeled into an operating room where I was forced to stand in the hall until I barreled through the doors with two security guards on either side of me.
Dr. Sears shook his head. “I’m amazed you stayed out this long.”
Disregarding his comment, I headed straight for Sway. “Jameson?” She looked over toward the door and our eyes met. Hers were laced with tears, confusion, and concern, as were mine. “Is he okay?”
My eyes darted around the room looking for the baby. They focused on the small infant struggling to breathe on his own while doctors assisted him. He was blue and motionless.
Immediately I was beside Sway, reassuring her everything was fine and praying I was right.
“He’ll be fine, honey,” I choked out when I didn’t hear any sounds coming from him.
“Jameson, don’t lie to me... I don’t’ hear anything.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. It was the longest moments of my life. “I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s okay,” I finally told her.
How could I tell my wife, who had carried our child for the last nine months that he wasn’t breathing and might not make it?
I couldn’t.
It was only another few seconds before we heard the scream.
“Oh, thank God,” Sway breathed into my cheek I had resting against hers. “Go check on him. Please... tell me if he’s okay.”
I could still hear his faint cries when the nurse appeared beside me.
“See for yourself, Sway,” she said, showing him to Sway.
Looking at him, it was as though we were looking at a newborn version of Axel again.
“He looks just like Axel did,” Sway said, peeking over at him in amazement.
“He does,” I agreed, taking him gently from the nurse. “He’s beautiful.” My eyes focused on Sway. I smiled when she smiled at me. “We made some cute kids.”
“I was wrong. Your head can get bigger.”
LATER THAT EVENING, the kids returned to see the new addition.
“What his name?” Axel asked, holding his newborn brother. “He cute.”
Sway and I exchanged a quick glance before I nodded and winked at her. “What should we name him, buddy? Mom and I thought you and Arie could help us.”
Arie, who’d been squirming around in my arms, finally relaxed enough that she’d fallen asleep. I shifted her weight to adjust my hold on her prone sleeping position.
“Re-re sleeping,” he told me. “How we name him then?”
“How about you name him?” Sway suggested. “Arie would call him no if she got to name him.”
It was true. My little rusty-haired angel replied to most everything with “no” or “Daddy.” She thought I was the best thing in the world, besides apple juice, of course.
Axel, still holding his baby brother, stared at him for a good three minutes before looking up at us.
“How about Stagger?”
Sway looked over at me for assistance. She has a hard time telling the kids no. She once brought home a monkey from the zoo because the kids pressured her enough that she caved and purchased it. I didn’t even know you could purchase a monkey from the zoo, but apparently with enough persuasion from a four-year-old and a frantic mother, they offered up the monkey.
The monkey Axel named “Mr. Pooter” was adopted by Spencer and Alley a week later when he felt the need to wear Sway’s underwear around our house.
“I don’t think Stagger would be a good one. What about something a little more modern?”
“Modern?” He looked down at the baby again. “How ‘bout Casten?”
I smiled, and so did Sway.
My grandpa Casten had passed away this past summer from a stroke. It was hard on our entire family, which I knew didn’t go unnoticed by Axel.
“I think Casten is a great name for him,” Sway said, reaching for the baby Axel handed her. The baby whimpered the way Axel and Arie both did when they were newborns. “Casten Anthony?” Sway smiled over at me.
Nodding in approval, I laid Arie beside Sway and then picked up Axel.
“Why don’t we go get Mama some ice cream?”
“You read my mind,” he said, nodding readily. “I was just thinking that she need owc cleam.”
Once in the cafeteria, he confessed what I expected he would.
“Daddy,” he began with the serious intense stare he had when he wanted to get his point across. I had the same look so I knew this was important to him. “Are you... I still your little buddy?”
I stopped walking.
“Of course you are,” I knelt down to his level, forcing him to look at me. “What would make you think you’re not?”
He was silent for a moment before his nervous expression met mine. “You have another boy now.”
Instantly, I scooped him into my arms.
“You’re always going to be my little buddy, no matter what. Even if Mama and I had another ten boys... you,” I pointed to him, “are always going to be my little buddy. Do you know why?”
“Because I race?” he offered.
“No,” I smiled softly. “You and I share something, just us. We understand each other.” I tapped the side of my head. “And we have a special bond, buddy.” I wasn’t sure what else to say to him to convince him that I had a special bond with him. I loved all my kids the same, but you had different bonds with each one. Axel and I, well we thought the same, acted the same, and looked identical. I’d always relate better to him for those reasons. Axel also held a special place in my heart that reminded me of Sway and how we got together in the first place. Something that was complicated as hell resulted in something beautiful—Axel Charles.
Eventually we made our way back to Sway’s room where Axel climbed into the hospital bed with Sway. She wrapped her arms around all three of our kids.
Later that night, after Aiden and Emma had taken Arie and Axel, Sway and I laid in bed with our newest addition.
“I can’t believe how much he resembles Axel,” Sway said softly, her head rested against my chest.
“I know, it’s really weird.”
It was weird. They could have been twins. Arie looked a lot like Axel and now Casten, as well, but she resembled Sway more with her wide green eyes and heart-shaped face, whereas the boys were a mirror image of me.
“I love you,” I told her, pulling her closer to my chest without hurting her.
“You better, but I think I’m done popping out your kids for a while.”
“I think three is enough.”
She was quiet for another few moments before she said the words I expected to hear.
“I wish Charlie could have been here.”
“I know, honey, I’m very sorry,” I murmured, kissing her forehead and then Casten’s.
Losing Charlie never got easier for Sway, and it was part of the reason we now lived in North Carolina. Being in Elma reminded her of Charlie too much. But the thing about Elma was, it always brought us back to where we truly felt like a family.