Chapter Twenty-One
GAVIN
“Hey, kid, are you alright in there?”
I heard Vinny in the bathroom early Saturday morning. I went to his room to check on him, but when I didn’t see him, I checked down the hallway. The door was cracked open when I showed up. As soon as I opened it completely, I saw him crouched over the toilet, hurling into it. He gagged again as he continued to vomit. It had been a couple days since he’d started feeling bad. The doctor said he had a stomach bug and it would take a few days for it to pass through. In the meantime, I had to keep a close eye on him and make sure he had lots of fluids to replenish what he was losing.
I put my hand on his back and kneeled beside him. He looked at me with tired, and weary eyes. “Are you finished, or do you still have some to go?” He shook his head, and with that, I helped him up from the ground, wiped his mouth, and escorted him back into his bedroom. His bedside table was covered with discarded applesauce containers and Gatorade bottles. I felt bad for him, and at any moment, I would trade places. After I tucked him back in bed, I took his trash from his desk and left the room.
“Dad?” he called out to me in a weakened voice.
“Yes, son?”
“You can still go out with Bethany today. I won’t mind.”
I chuckled. “No, son, I’m not going anywhere. Not with you feeling like this. Thanks for the offer, though. You just get some rest, and I’ll be back up here to check on you in a bit. Okay?”
He nodded his head; then I made my way back into the kitchen. I hated that I wasn’t going to be able to spend time with Bethany today, but Vinny came first. Ever since I started dating her, I realized how much more I needed to be in his life. I looked at my watch. It was 8am by the time I started the coffee machine. I figured that I’d better call Bethany and let her know that I wasn’t going to be able to make the date this afternoon just so she would know well ahead of time. I thought Vinny would be okay by now, but after seeing him hug the toilet, I knew he would need a couple more days.
I grabbed my cup of coffee, then walked to the couch and placed it on the table. With my phone in my hand, ready to dial her number, I leaned my head back against the cushion. Before I knew it, I had dozed off. I woke up a few hours later with my hand still in the same position, but my phone had fallen to the floor. The lukewarm coffee on the table made me cringe when I thought about the taste of it. I leaned forward and scooped my phone off the floor. It was nearly 12 pm when I noticed the time. I pulled myself up from the couch, then went to Vinny’s room to check on him. He was curled up in a ball underneath his blanket. “Vinny?” I called out to him softly, but he didn’t say a word. He seemed to be fast asleep, so I left him there and went back to the front room.
Before I could make a phone call, the front doorbell rang. Bethany stood on the other side, smiling, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. “Wow, you look like you just rolled out of bed.”
I looked down at my wrinkled t-shirt, then rubbed my hand over my face like it was a washcloth. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I did. I woke up early because Vinny was having a hard time, then I ended up falling back to sleep on the couch.”
Her facial expression turned sour. “Aw, is he still not feeling well?”
I sighed. “Unfortunately, he is not. He threw up once this morning, and he has been laying in the bed ever since. The doctor said it would take him a few days to get over the stomach bug, so it is just a waiting game now. I meant to call you earlier to let you know that we were going to have to cancel our date today, but as I said, I fell asleep.”
“Oh.” She looked to the right for a moment, then back at me, “Well, I guess we have to go to plan B.” She reached into her purse and pulled out some things for Vinny. More soup, Gatorade, and applesauce. “Stick around the house and take care of him until he gets better.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Mind? Not at all. I want to see Vinny get better, and I understand that your first priority is your son, so it is not a problem. I want to help him get better, and I want to spend time with you, so I guess I will be killing two birds with one stone.”
I stepped to the side and let her in, “Well, if you are okay with it, I am, too. I’m sure we can find something to do around here to keep each other entertained.”
“Yes, so am I.”
She smiled at me; then I closed the door as she made her way into the kitchen. I followed a few paces behind her as she placed the items on the shelf. “Is he still sleeping now?”
“Yeah. I just checked on him. He is back in his room, curled up like a potato bug.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll take care of it from here. Has he eaten anything this morning?”
“Just apple sauce. The regular.”
She popped open one of the cans of soup, then poured it into a small pot on the stove. The eye slowly heated the soup to a boil as she prepared toast on the side. I was glad she was there with me. It seemed as though she knew exactly what to do, and she could guide me through the process of taking care of a sick child. The more she helped me out, the more I realized that she would be a perfect addition to us. “So, I guess we can order some movies and just relax today. Maybe order a pizza?”
“Pizza. That sounds good to me. I mean,” she slid her hands down her sides, “I am trying to watch my figure, but I guess a few slices won’t hurt.”
“Well, from here, there doesn’t seem to be one thing wrong with your figure.”
She blushed. The steam rose from the pot on the stove as she grabbed a spoon and stirred it, then shut the eye off. I handed her a bowl so she could transfer the contents and prepare it for Vinny. I watched her in admiration, wondering how she made it this far in life without having any children of her own. It seemed as though she should’ve had at least one by now, especially with the way that the children at her school were drawn to her. “So, sweetheart, I am completely surprised that you don’t have any kids by now. I mean, it just seems like you are ready for some of your own.”
She sighed as she grabbed the toast from the toaster. “Yeah, I thought that I would by now as well. But, we have a way that we believe things should go, and then there is a way that things go on their own. I am waiting, though. I want some, for sure, but I am not going to rush it. I figure that it will happen whenever it is supposed to happen, and in the meantime, I’ll just treat every child like they are my own. It has been working for me thus far.”
I stood up and my put my arms around her waist. “Be careful,” she warned, “I don’t want the soup to burn you.”
“That’s nothing. I will withstand a little pain if it means that I can get closer to you.” I leaned in and kissed her on the neck. “So, why don’t you go in there and take that to Vinny? Then you can come back out here and join me on the couch. I’ll have a few movies for you to choose from.”
She grabbed the bowl, “Okay, that sounds good. Just make sure that you don’t pick all action movies. You know how I am about that.”
I laughed, “Yeah, yeah. I don’t want you falling asleep on me, so I’ll be sure to pick something that we both would sort of enjoy.”
“Good.”
She kissed me on the lips, then carried the food into Vinny’s room as I watched her with eyes full of admiration. As soon as she was out of sight, I walked to the couch and grabbed the remote to search for something to watch on television until she was ready to watch the movies. As I flipped through the channels, my phone buzzed. Karen’s name popped up on the screen. Immediately, I was taken back. With curiosity in my voice, I answered. “Hello?”
“Hey, Gavin. How are you?”
I looked down the hallway to make sure Bethany wasn’t on her way back in. “Um. I am good. Yeah, I’m good. What’s up? You want to talk to Vinny?”
“Um, no. That’s not why I called.”
I got up and walked outside to my patio in the back, then closed the door behind me. The birds chirped in trees above as a slight breeze rustled the leaves. “Okay, what’s up?”
She took a deep breath. “I have been thinking about a few things lately. A few things involving you and me. And Vinny.” I looked inside my home to make sure Bethany hadn’t showed up. I was eager to hear what Karen had to say. “When I came to visit him, we were talking, and I realized something.” I hope that he kept his word and didn’t tell her about Bethany. A part of me still held on to the chance that we could be something when it was all said and done. “I wanted to know what you thought about giving ‘us’ another chance. Now, I know that this is sudden, and I don’t expect you to answer right now because I don’t even have an answer myself. But, I was just thinking about it, and I wanted to see where you stood on the matter. I think that we are both older, and we may be able to handle things better than we did before.”
I removed my ear from the phone to make sure I was talking to Karen. I couldn’t believe the words that were coming from her mouth. A part of me felt like she was testing me because Vinny told her about Bethany. That was the first thing that came to my mind, but Vinny wasn’t a kid who would lie. He told me that he didn’t tell her anything, so I took his word. “Um, wow. I um–” just then, Bethany entered the front room and sat down on the couch. She smiled at me, then folded her legs beneath her and got comfortable on the couch. I thought about how close we had gotten since she came into my life, and suddenly I felt torn. I was torn between the woman that had a place in my heart and the woman who was making an attempt to remove her from it.
“Yeah, Karen. I um, I think I need some time to think about that. I mean, I haven’t given it much thought because I figured that we were both beyond it. But I would be lying if I said it never crossed my mind.”
“Okay. Well, no rush or anything. I just wanted to know where you stood with that. Is Vinny busy?”
“He is sick right now. Stomach bug. He has a stomach bug, so he is laying in the bed trying to recover.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, I won’t bother him then. Can you let him know to call me when he feels better?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”
“Okay. It was good talking to you, Gavin. Hopefully, we can speak again later.”
“Yeah. We will.”
“Okay.”
I hung up the phone, then took a deep breath. Bethany sat on the couch in the front room with a smile on her face as I came back inside. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah. Yeah, everything is good.” I sat next to her on the couch as she snuggled next to me. “How is Vinny?”
“He wanted me to stay in there with him for a little bit. He was happy to see me and said that you messed up his soup last night when you were trying to cook it.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I kind of left it in the pot too long. I lost track of it and the juice evaporated and the meat burned a little bit. Yeah. Leave it to me to burn a can of soup.”
She laughed and put her hand on my leg, “Well, don’t worry about that. I am here to save the day, as usual. I’ve got it under control.”
She kissed me on the cheek, then snuggled back into her spot beneath my arm. As she sat next to me, I couldn’t help but think about Karen for a brief moment. As of right now, I had no idea what I was going to do next. Bethany turned out to be everything I wanted her to be, but Karen had a special connection to me that I couldn’t shake right away. I didn’t know how it would end, but I hoped that nobody would get hurt in the process.