Chapter 21
It’s five days later when Christopher cracks a molar on a piece of butterscotch.
It’s not the end of the world, but getting Chrisopher to the dentist should be a job for six psychologists and a team of Navy SEALs.
I drop Gus at camp where they’re traveling by bus to Point Judith for the day to practice ocean rescues in the big waves.
This is what I think about as I drive with Christopher fuming in the passenger seat—Gus running into the waves with a huge smile on his face.
He looks over his shoulder and smiles at a friend and then dives under a wave, coming up and shaking his head like a dog because he forgot about the buzzcut.
I use all my tricks to calm Christopher in the waiting room, including surprising him with Vic the fox.
I pull out a deck of cards and we play Go Fish.
By the time Christopher’s name is called, he is hungry and agitated.
He flat-out refuses to go into the examining room until I promise to try out the chair and get my teeth checked first. When Christopher is finally in the chair, I check my phone.
I have three missed calls from camp and a text from Gus: I’m fine, but I hit my head on a rock and I’m bleeding. Can you get me?
My already shaky nervous system kicks into gear. I call him. “Are you okay? How much blood? Is there a doctor?”
“I don’t know how to say how much blood,” Gus says. “But they said they’d give me a new T-shirt. I’m fine, but I feel kind of weird, like wavy.”
“Wavy?” I say. “What is wavy? Can I talk to a counselor?”
“This is Matt,” is the next thing I hear. “We’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Yes, hi. Does he need to see a doctor?”
“Probably. Can you come get him?”
Christopher lets out a groan that sounds like he’s having all his teeth ripped out rather than just sitting still while a single tooth is scraped clean.
What he doesn’t know is that he’s going to have to sit there while an impression of his tooth is taken and then suffer through the placement of the temporary crown.
He actually deserves to groan all he wants.
Point Judith is thirty-five minutes away, and we won’t be out of here for at least an hour.
This is a system failure. I can do every single thing to parent my son and also meet my other responsibilities, until I can’t.
Just one loose screw and the whole thing falls apart.
A crack in a tooth, a crack in the system.
My heart races as I call Naomi. She doesn’t answer. My dad can’t leave Rikki in charge of the store, so I don’t text him. I’m about to call Sully at work when Stewart calls.
“Hey, hi,” I say. “Little crisis here, can I call you back?”
“Sure,” he says. “What kind of crisis?” I look up and Christopher has gone red with fury.
“Christopher cracked a tooth, we’re at the dentist. Gus hit his head on a rock in Point Judith and needs to see a doctor.”
“Oh God. How can I help?” he asks. And of course. This is what money is for, it’s better than the roof.
“Are you back from New York?” I ask.
“Yes. What can I do?”
“I hate to ask but any chance your driver is free? To get him and bring him back to my house?” I take in a little breath. It’s a lot to ask, but it’s the perfect solution.
“No, I’ll go.” I hear him push back a chair and start walking. “You can’t have a thirteen-year-old bleeding in the back of a stranger’s car. At least he knows me. Text me the address and tell them I’m coming.”
That’s actually the perfect solution. The tightness in my chest subsides. “Thank you” is all I can say.
“No problem. And I’ll bring him back here to see my mom, so you don’t have to deal with another doctor’s office.” A door opens, closes. “Mom, don’t go anywhere. I’ll call you from the car.” Then to me, “Don’t worry, we’ve got this.”
When I’ve hung up, I let my head fall into my hands. I picture Stewart coming back to my rock when I was unsteady at Ruddy Duck Cove. That took my breath away, but this. This is a man walking out of his workday to tend to my crisis. I feel as if he’s taken part of my heart. We’ve got this.
Christopher puts up an impressive fight over the impression being made of his tooth but has given up by the time he gets the temporary crown. I hold him in the parking lot before we get in the car. “I know that was awful, buddy. It’s over.”
I bring him home and set him up on the couch with some crackers and The Wizard of Oz, before heading to Eight Oaks.
I park right by the front door and ring the bell.
I am anxious to see Gus and wrap him in my arms. Alarmingly, I am also anxious to see Stewart and wrap him in my arms. Gladys answers and smiles when she sees me. “What a doll your boy is,” she says.
I smile. “Thank you. And thank Stewart. This is really above and beyond.”
“They’re in the kitchen,” she says. “Follow me.”
We walk through the grand foyer and the cutting room into the kitchen.
Gus is eating a sandwich at the stainless-steel counter, catty-corner to Stewart.
Between them is a backgammon board. Gus has a white bandage on the side of his forehead, attached with surgical tape.
Stewart looks up and smiles at me. He’s completely relaxed, like he had nothing to do today but take care of us. Gus turns and sees me and smiles too.
“Pretty nice here,” he says, holding up half a sandwich.
I cross the room to him and hug him from behind. I spin him around and check him for cracks. His shoulders, his arms, his hands. “Are you okay?” Then to Stewart, “Is he okay?”
Victoria is in the doorway. “He’s good,” she says. “He didn’t need stitches, but I did a butterfly bandage under there. No signs of a concussion.”
“His appetite seems fine,” Gladys says, bringing him a second bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.
Gus thanks her and tells me, “She puts cheese in it instead of mayonnaise.”
“Stewart doesn’t like mayonnaise,” Gladys says. “I’ve been reworking recipes for years.”
Gus is fine and we’re talking about mayonnaise in Eight Oaks’ kitchen.
I thank Victoria and then Gladys, and when my eyes land on Stewart, in a dress shirt because he’d been working, in front of a backgammon board that suggests he has no intention of letting my kid win, I tear up.
I go to him and hug him, right on his barstool.
I stand between his legs with my face in his neck and all the stress rolls off me.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For the backup.” I breathe him in and feel him do the same, nose in my hair.
When I step away, all eyes are on us. Gladys might be amused by the PDA, Victoria is intrigued. We’ve outdone ourselves today, looking like people who care about one another, who would drop anything to be there. Gus has questions, I can tell.
On the drive home, he talks a mile a minute about hitting the rock and Clay getting him out of the water. Stewart found him in the shade with one of the counselors and went back to move his car so Gus wouldn’t have to cross the parking lot.
“He’s a very nice man,” I say.
“We talked about sailing,” Gus says. “He says it’s best to learn on a small boat, just for one person.”
“That makes sense,” I say.
“And he said he could teach me. At the yacht club.”
I look at him. “Would you like that?” I don’t see where sailing is going to be a big part of his future, but it’s good to learn new things.
“Yes,” he says.
“Okay, then, I’ll text him about it.”
“I can,” he says. “He gave me his number.”
“Oh,” I say.
When we pull in to our driveway, I open my door but Gus doesn’t open his. “Is it still just a pretend thing for his image or whatever?”
I turn to him and take in his totally open expression. I am his only parent; I am his main person. And I do not lie to Gus. “We are pretending to be a couple, yes. But it’s been nice getting to know him and seeing that he’s the kind of person who would stop his workday to go rescue my kid.”
“So you like him.”
I smile. “I like him very much, actually. But it’s not like that. Like, I don’t like him, like him.” I feel my cheeks go hot when I say it.
“You do!” he says.
We both laugh and it breaks the tension. “Okay, what’s not to like, right? But he’s Stewart Whitfield, heir to all that.”
“And you’re Dolly Brick, heir to all this,” he says. We look up at the tarped house just as Christopher walks out onto the porch in his underwear.
“Are you saying he’s too good for you?” Gus asks. “Because I don’t think you’d say anyone was too good for me.” He smiles at me in a gotcha kind of way and gets out of the car. How strange it would be to want all the things I want for him for myself.