Chapter 31 Worthy Emmett
“THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT!”
“I’m an adult! We’re all adults! You can’t do this to us!”
“I don’t need a babysitter!”
“Okay, so we fucked up, like, one time, and popped a bouncy castle. It’s not like we’re gonna do it again!”
“What could I possibly do in the petting zoo? Huh? Tell me!”
“The foam pit too? Why can’t I go in the foam pit? I wanna go in the foam pit!”
My gorgeous wife drags her gaze away from the shiny pink fingernails she’s been examining for the last five-ish minutes, roughly the same amount of time as the temper tantrum she’s been ignoring.
Sky-blue eyes flick up, doing a slow coast down the line of men in front of her.
“Are you done?” she asks, as if we didn’t just arrive at the grand opening of Adam’s camp to find out that not only are we explicitly not allowed on the bouncy castle, in the foam party pit, or in the petting zoo, but that she also assigned us babysitters to “keep us in check.” Pfft, keep us in check?
What does that even mean? Who needs to be kept in check? Certainly not us.
“I’m glad you asked,” Carter says, eyes ablaze.
“No, I’m not done. First, you tell me there’s no karaoke, even though I explicitly asked for there to be, and then—” His eyes widen theatrically as he gestures at the massive bouncy castle across the expansive property.
It’s three levels, complete with a maze, three climbing walls, six slides, all leading to a gigantic ball pit, and a tunnel that leads to a bubble balloon house.
When I asked Cara how much it cost, she pointed her nose to the sky and said, It would be inappropriate for me to disclose business expenses to outsiders.
“This! You tell me I can’t go on this!” He stomps a foot, as any sane, adult man would do in this scenario.
“If somebody doesn’t let me on that bouncy castle, I swear to God—”
“I’m the one who suggested the ball pit!” Garrett shouts, arms wide. “I should get to go in there!”
“It wasn’t me who popped it,” Carter insists. “It was my fork! Please, Care, I promise, I’ve learned my lesson. No forks on the bouncy castle!”
Jaxon steps in front of her, pointing at the humongous gated-off area, overflowing with mounds of foamy bubbles. “If I don’t get to do the Slip ’N Slide into that foam, Cara, I. Will. Cry. Do you hear me? Do you want to be responsible for that? For breaking a grown man’s heart?”
“Grown man?” she murmurs, eyes back on her nails. “Where?”
“Speaking of grown man.” I toss my arms over my head and huff before gesturing at myself. “Right here. I’m a grown man. It’s insulting that you think we need to be babysat at a party for children!”
Cara lets out one of those sighs, the kind where her eyes roll all the way to the sky and her whole body sags. “I knew Adam was the only one I could count on to react like an ad—”
“I… can’t… get in!” Adam pulls at the wooden gate housing the rescued farm animals.
He grunts, heaving at the gate with all his might.
When it doesn’t budge, he turns back to us, sweat beading on his forehead, face twisted in distress.
“Care, I can’t get into the petting area.
I can’t get in. How am I gonna pet the animals?
” He takes her by the shoulders, eyes wide. “How am I gonna pet the animals?”
All hell breaks loose, arms flying in the air, loud, whiny protests, and Carter screeching for help from Olivia, until a whistle cuts through the noise, silencing us immediately.
“Enough!” Cara shouts. She snaps her fingers, then points aggressively at her wild, terrifying gaze. “Eyes up here. Now. I love you. Each and every one of you, I love you, but do I trust you? At an event this big, this important?” She shakes her head, patronizing smile in place.
Adam opens his mouth, but Cara silences him with a single finger pressed to his shocked lips.
“Yes, Adam, even you, at your own event. I’m sorry, but these boys hold too much power over you. Your willpower is weak and pliable.”
His expression falls, his shoulders slumped.
“You are free to walk around the grounds and explore—”
“Can we at least do cat yoga?” Jaxon begs. “Please, don’t take that from me.”
“Yes, of course.” Cara nods, smiling as Jaxon whoops a fist through the air. “But it’s goat yoga, not cat yoga.”
“Aw, man. Guess that explains why you said no when I asked if I could bring Mitts.”
“Yes… that explains it…” Cara shifts her wide-eyed gaze back to us.
“Anyway. This event is for the kids. We’re here to celebrate the addition of a wonderful camp program to this community, one that helps kids who can’t otherwise afford to get involved with sports, to give them a sense of belonging, and help out some animals who need a new place to call home.
If you’re good, I’ll let you play after the event is done. ”
My eyes light, and I think everyone else’s do too. “Really?” We look at each other, breaking out into cheers, high-fiving. “Yeah! Fuck yeah!”
“And in the meantime, Dozer and Jaws here will be keeping a watchful eye on you.”
Carter pins his arms over his chest, scuffing at the dirt. “Pfft. Whatever.”
Garrett looks up at the two security guards flanking Cara’s side. They tower over all six-foot-three of him, and he gulps. “So, uh… why do they call you Dozer and Jaws?”
Dozer cracks his knuckles, muscles popping in his too-small T-shirt. “I can put anyone to sleep in thirteen seconds or less.”
“O-oh.” Garrett slowly steps behind Jaxon, who slowly disappears behind Adam. He peeks at Jaws. “A-and you?”
Jaws doesn’t answer. Not with words, anyway. Instead, he grins, so broad, so proud, so fucking menacing, revealing a mouthful of silver teeth.
Garrett definitely doesn’t squeak, and Jaxon does not look like he might vomit. Adam doesn’t sweep his arms out and back, as if protecting the men cowering behind him. Carter isn’t slowly backing away, and I certainly do not grip Cara’s elbow, sliding behind her to use her as a human shield.
No, of course we don’t do any of that. We’re adults.
Jaws leans toward us without a word. The silence crackles in the air between us, like the threat of a looming thunderstorm when you hear a rumble far off in the distance.
He seems to sniff the air, like he can smell the fear, and his grin broadens.
“Boo,” he whispers, and one shriek melts into another as all five of us leap into the air, spin around, and dash away, Cara’s cackles trailing behind us.
Two hours later, long after the girls arrived with the kids and the event began, I finally manage to escape my sitters while they’re preoccupied with Carter’s third attempt to sneak into the bouncy castle.
It’s a gorgeous, early June day, and all five acres of this glorious camp are filled with laughter and smiling faces.
I’m proud of Adam, of all the ways he continuously devotes himself to helping kids who aren’t so fortunate, and this camp is just the latest in all his endeavors.
But I’m proud of Cara too. For stepping back from work to focus on herself, taking the time she needed and not rushing back until she was truly ready.
As I find her in the sprawling modern barn, helping a group of laughing kids and adults navigate goat yoga, I’m sure there isn’t a sight more beautiful than her smile, the confidence that she exudes only when she’s sure of herself.
There’s no doubt that this period of our lives has been the most challenging, even more so for her. But Cara is still herself. The woman I fell in love with. My best friend. She’s changed, transformed, but it’s a privilege to know every version of her—to love them.
I watch as her eyes move over the crowd, and I know before they stop that she’s looking for Abel.
I know she’s found him the second that smile turns into a cheek-splitting, detonating grin.
Every version of Cara shines in its own way, but there’s no doubt about it: She glows from the inside out as a mother.
I follow her gaze to Abel, and my heart does that thing it does every time I see him: floods with warmth, thuds a fast, happy beat, and I wonder if I glow too. I feel like I do.
As I watch him, though, trying to balance upside down on a yoga mat with Catharine, the two of them nothing more than a pile of giggles, my heart does something else.
It stutters, trips over itself before picking up speed, racing faster and faster, and I struggle to keep up.
Grief creeps in, wrapping itself around my heart, squeezing like an angry fist until I have no choice but to turn away from the reminder that Abel won’t be with us forever, that any day now could be the day we have to say goodbye.
I don’t want to say goodbye to him.
“Emmett!”
I pause in the doorway of the opened barn, glancing back at him over my shoulder. His palms flat on the mat, butt in the air, his sweet face grins up at me upside down and from between his legs.
“Look! I’m doin’ down dog! Do you see me? I’m doin’ it!”
“I see you, buddy.” I always do. I see the way his eyes follow Cara everywhere we go, so bright and full of love, like he can’t believe she exists.
I see the way he looks to us when he meets new people or tries new things, how he places all his trust in us to keep him safe.
I see how he’s grown into himself, found his passions and given himself permission to explore them without fear of making mistakes.
I see the grace he’s learned to give himself when mistakes happen, the kind and encouraging words he uses to speak to himself, the way he’s begun to forgive himself for the messes, the accidents, and how he’s no longer frozen with fear.
I see him, nearly four years old and working every single day to be who he wants to be, growing unapologetically.
And I’m so damn proud of him. I smile at him, giving him a thumbs-up that he returns eagerly, falling to the mat in the process. “You’re doing it.”