Chapter 29
Remington
A Holiday of Our Own
I was excited.
I was also trying not to think about how I was excited, which in turn was amping up my excitement.
Funny how that worked.
And by funny, I meant really fucking annoying.
“Daddy, if you don’t chill, you’re gonna give it away,” Addy chided from the back seat, watching me through the rearview mirror.
“I know, I know,” I murmured as I turned onto Jeannie and Max’s street. “Believe me, girls, I’m trying.”
“Why are you so nervous? It’s not like you’re gonna popose!”
“Propose, Eva,” Addy murmured. “But that was very close. Good job.”
“Thank you.”
I was glad that I didn’t have to answer that, because I did have a master plan for proposing to Jeannie, and this was the first step in a six-month scheme.
In the six weeks since Jeannie and I had cleared up our miscommunication, it really had felt like being on a honeymoon.
I could tell Jeannie was really trying to express both her emotional needs and successes outside of being a mother, and I was making efforts not to assume everyone magically knew what I was thinking and feeling.
It was actually working out great for all of us—it even improved how my team was doing now that the landscaping season was hitting a fever pitch.
Unfortunately, summer was peak season for us and that could lead to a lot of stress, especially with the extreme heat.
And man, every year it just kept getting hotter and drier. While my body had the ability to protect itself from the dangers of heatstroke and sunburn, that didn’t mean I wasn’t constantly hot, sweaty, and chugging some form of electrolyte drink.
But my thoughts of work were all banished from my head as we pulled up to Jeannie’s townhouse and the door immediately opened. Always punctual, those two.
“Hey there,” I called, rolling down the passenger’s window. “Y’all ready to go splash around?”
“Am I?” Max exclaimed, racing to the car.
Jeannie started to reprimand him, but she cut herself off and shook her head in exasperation.
Max was about back to the weight and strength he was before he’d gotten sick again, but his stamina had improved quite a bit.
So while he wasn’t going to be winning any strength competitions soon, he didn’t get winded nearly as often or need to nap as much.
The doctor’s theory was that the infection had acted as a system reset, so now his body was spending a lot less energy trying to survive and was able to put those extra calories and whatnot into filling out his frame.
“Hey there, handsome,” Jeannie said as she opened the passenger-side door. “Come here often?”
“Not often enough,” I said, leaning over to kiss her cheek.
“Ew!” the kids chorused. Even though they were probably the most supportive little ones a blended relationship could ask for, they never missed an opportunity to act like kissing was gross.
I didn’t mind it. Let them be kids for longer. If things kept going well, I’d have to deal with three teenagers at the same time, three teenagers who would be into kissing, but I really tried not to think about it.
“You only have yourself to blame,” I taunted the kids. “It was your guys’ plotting that made this happen.”
“And we don’t regret a thing!” Max answered from his seat between Addy and Eva.
Once we started riding around more regularly, I had offered to set up his booster in the very back seat so he could have the entire bench to himself, but he’d politely told me he preferred the way it was now.
It still tickled me pretty pink how well our kids got on.
Eva and Addy’s teachers had commented that in the months since they’ve gotten to know Max, their socialization had drastically improved in school. Granted, none of their teachers knew about Max. But three separate ones had stated a marked difference since the holiday break.
“It is just our duty as your children to be repulsed every time you suck face,” Addy said with conviction.
Now it was Jeannie and my turn to make disgusted sounds.
“Suck face? Really? Is that what we’re calling a tender peck on the cheek now?” I asked.
“Well, what else would you like? Snogging? Necking? Tonsil hockey? Swapping spit?”
“Macking? Canoodling?” Eva supplied.
It was my fault. I’d played with fire, and now we were all suffering the consequences. “All right, ya bunch of thesauruses, I get it! I get it!”
Jeannie patted my hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll always give you a hello kiss no matter how many synonyms our kids come up with.”
“And that’s why you’re the best,” I said, giving her another quick peck on the lips. Naturally, that caused another chorus of objections from the back. I laughed and pulled into the road.
Thankfully, we weren’t going far. Our destination was none other than the ice rink where we had all met.
It almost felt like another life. A time before Jeannie and Max but also after Zara.
A gap where I had been quite lost and unintentionally cruel to myself.
While I wasn’t going to pretend that I was a completely healed person, I took solace in the fact that I was a whole lot better now than I had been then.
“Man, I can’t wait for this,” Max said, practically doubled over as he leaned across Eva’s lap to glue his face to the window. “Water places ‘n’ stuff weren’t really allowed before because the doctor said it’s a huge vector for germs, so I’ve been wanting to do this for ages!”
Was that true? Despite being involved in Max’s life and his recovery, I was still finding out new facts that made me realize just how incredible kids who survived cancer were.
“What does that mean?” Eva asked, and I grinned. Not too long ago, she would have stayed quiet and waited until she was alone with Addy to ask. Now, she was much better at asking in front of other people. Sure, those people were mostly Max and Jeannie, but still, it was progress.
And, as usual, Max was always happy to reply.
I really cherished that about him. He was really a great kid in many ways, but his sheer exuberance to interact and talk to my girls was unparalleled.
“Water parks and places with a lot of water and a lot of people—especially us kids—have a ton of germs to make someone with a compromised immune system really sick. Plus, a lot of chances to get hurt.”
“Ah, I see.”
Eva didn’t have to ask what a compromised immune system was.
She knew that well enough from her mother’s condition.
That was an unfortunate reality of having a loving relationship with someone who was chronically ill: sometimes kids had to learn things a little early because that was just their circumstances.
“It’s nice that they changed the rink into a kid-friendly wading pool,” Addy mused from between the pages of the book she was reading.
Max had somehow gotten two Sherlock Holmes paperbacks on one of his dollar-haul days, and he’d given them to Addy as soon as he’d finished, claiming she had to read them so they could talk about it.
“Having low-cost ways to escape heat is vital to a community.”
Addy always talked like, well, Addy, but even that sounded a bit unlike her. “Where did you learn that from?” I asked
“It’s kinda a long answer.”
“That’s okay. I’d like to hear it.”
“Me too,” Max added, straightening in his booster. Jeannie and I were hoping that in the next year, he would weigh enough not to need it.
“I would also like to know, if you’re keen to share,” Jeannie said.
“Me too! Me too!” Eva was always Addy’s biggest cheerleader.
“Well, if you insist. There’s this YouTube series…”
Addy took point on the conversation, and honestly, I was grateful for the distraction. Because that fizzing excitement was back in full force, simmering under my skin and wanting me to speed a bit.
I managed to keep myself steady, and we arrived at the community center right on time.
“Oh, why’d you park on this side of the building?” Jeannie asked as I parked the mommy-mobile.
“Just figured the bigger parking lot right in front is going to be real crowded,” I fibbed, bracing for one of my kids to call me on it.
But I should have known better, because even though a lot had changed since Christmas, what hadn’t was that my daughters were excellent co-conspirators.
“Plus, this way, we miss the big jam of people trying to exit all at once.”
“It’ll be nice to stretch our legs, anyway,” Addy said as she opened the side door. I’d recently turned off the child locks, but I still wasn’t sold on the idea.
“Huh, okay, then.” Fortunately, Jeannie didn’t question it, if only because she was just as excited as Max to get into the water. It was already building up to be a scorcher of a summer, and she didn’t use the AC in her townhouse because of the cost.
“Hey, Jeannie,” I said as we all made our way into the community center, which was fairly quiet. We hadn’t come on a weekend, which was the busiest time. Besides, who wanted to hang inside when there was a splash zone to play in.
“What’s up?”
“Did you know you can actually reserve a chunk of the wading pool and splash area for private parties?”
“Oh, really?” she asked, and I saw the ideas bloom across her features. Sometimes it was so fun watching her creative mind pick up a thought and run with it.
“Yeah.” I wondered if this was how our kids felt when they were putting together their scheme to get us together.
“Do you think that maybe we could do something like that? None of us have summer birthdays, but I don’t know, there’s got to be some reason to celebrate.”
I definitely got why our devious little trio had so much fun hatching up a plan to get us lost on the trail. Jeannie was playing right into my hand, and it was ever so satisfying.
“Uh, I don’t know. Is that really something we want to do?”
“Sure! Why not? Everyone here loves playing in the water except for you, but if the seating is anything like it was with the ice rink, you have lots of places where you can lounge around or hang out and just chill.”