CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Aiden was glad for a chance to get out of the house, and it was even better because he got the chance to spend some time with Skylar.
As they finished up their ice cream, they looped around to head back toward the house.
Though the circumstances that had brought them together that day weren’t great, he felt a measure of peace after watching the morning service livestream and then going on the walk. It was so encouraging to know that there were many people who were praying and offering support to the family through this difficult time with Shiloh.
“I wish we could go see Shiloh,” Skylar said.
“Me too,” Aiden agreed. “But unfortunately, they probably won’t let us visit her until they know for sure that her immune system is doing its job.”
“Do you think that we’re somehow responsible for her cancer?”
Aiden glanced over at her. “What?”
“Like maybe our genetics don’t mix well, and somehow that triggered her cancer.”
“I don’t think so,” Aiden said, though he honestly hadn’t given it any thought. “This isn’t like a genetic disease.”
“But there are some types of cancers that are genetic,” Skylar said. “Like breast cancer.”
“Some variations of that, perhaps, but there are plenty of cancers that aren’t tied to anything.”
“Anything but bad luck?”
Aiden shrugged. “Something like that, I suppose. I don’t think you should try to take the blame for Shiloh’s diagnosis when no one is looking to blame anyone for it. Sometimes these things just happen.”
“I guess I just want to know how or why she ended up with this.”
“You and a lot of people who have loved ones diagnosed with cancer,” Aiden said. “I remember reading on social media about a family who had a set of identical twin daughters and one was diagnosed with cancer as a pre-teen, but the other one wasn’t. If it was something present in their identical genetics, both of them would have been diagnosed.”
“It’s just not fair.”
“There’s so much in life that isn’t fair,” Aiden reminded her. “Heart attacks aren’t fair, and neither are boating accidents.”
Skylar looked up at him and nodded. “Yeah. Those aren’t fair either.”
“You need to just accept that this has happened to our Shiloh and focus forward on how we can help her and Charli and Blake through it.”
“You seem better able to cope with this than I am,” Skylar said. “I’m struggling.”
“If I’m coping better, it’s no doubt somewhat attributed to what I’ve already gone through. I’ve learned that if I can survive the loss of a loved one—two loved ones, actually—I can survive this difficult journey with Shiloh. I’m not going to grieve her loss while she’s still alive. I still have faith that, if her cancer has returned, God will use the transplant to heal her. Don’t lose hope, Sky.”
“I’m trying not to,” she said, crossing her arms as she stared straight ahead. “But I just feel so helpless. And then I see that Charli and Blake feel the same way, and I’m left wondering who doesn’t feel that way about this situation.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Aiden slipped his arm around Skylar’s shoulders. He waited for her to pull away, but she didn’t.
“God isn’t helpless in this situation, and I believe He is guiding the doctors and those involved in Shiloh’s care.”
“I never would have thought you’d be the one trusting God like this.”
Aiden chuckled but didn’t move his arm, and she didn’t move away from him either.
“I know, but you know you can also trust God. No one has a monopoly on Him.”
She nodded. “I’m trying, but it’s a real challenge. It’s not that I don’t have faith that God could heal Shiloh.”
“What is it then?” When Skylar didn’t answer right away, Aiden glanced down at her. “What is it you struggle with?”
“God could have saved your dad and Bethany. He could have prevented Shiloh from getting sick in the first place. So while I know that He can heal Shiloh, I also know that sometimes He chooses not to heal. Not to protect from death.”
Aiden gazed down at the sidewalk they were slowly walking along. “Yeah. It’s true that sometimes He chooses not to do what we think is best.”
“And it scares me to think that might happen with Shiloh,” she said, her voice tremulous. “I don’t want to lose her even more than I already have.”
Aiden rested his cheek briefly on the top of her head. “We’ll just make the most of every moment we have with her and pray that we’ll have a lifetime of moments ahead of us.”
“Everything okay?”
Aiden looked up to find Skylar’s parents standing on the sidewalk, watching them. Skylar stiffened and took a step away from him. Aiden let his arm drop from her shoulders.
“Just talking about whether God will heal Shiloh or not,” Skylar said.
“Definitely a weighty topic,” her dad replied. “We can discuss it more inside, if you’d like.”
Looking around, Aiden realized that they’d made it back to the house. He led them up the driveway to the side door, then used the code to unlock it.
“Is there something else you’d like to tell us?” Cathy asked as they filed into the kitchen.
Skylar went to the cupboard and got a glass. “What do you mean?”
“You two seem pretty close,” she said. “Have you decided to give things a second chance?”
Aiden caught Skylar’s wide-eyed glance. “We haven’t discussed that. We’ve just decided that having a friendship between us is probably a good thing, especially for Shiloh’s sake.”
“That is a good decision,” Dan said as he took the glass from Skylar and filled it from the water dispenser, then handed it back to her. “But there’s nothing to say God can’t restore what was broken in the past.”
Skylar wrapped both hands around her glass and took a sip, appearing to want to avoid responding to her dad’s suggestion.
“Charli and Blake have successfully put the past behind them and forged a good, strong relationship,” Cathy said.
“Their circumstances were different,” Skylar told her. “And Charli’s story isn’t necessarily going to be mine.”
“True. But it isn’t necessarily not going to be yours either.”
Aiden appreciated knowing that Cathy and Dan would apparently support them rekindling a relationship. However, it didn’t seem that Skylar felt the same way.
He’d never come out and asked her to consider it, though. Maybe they should have a conversation about it.
But did he want to present her with the opportunity to outright refuse to consider a relationship with him?
Aiden understood why she might not want that. He’d hurt her tremendously in the past. It would require forgiveness on her part, and while it was possible she might forgive him, she would never forget.
She owed him nothing.
He owed her everything.
“Well, I think I’m going to go lay down for a little while,” Cathy said. “Will you join me, darling?”
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Dan said, bending to kiss her temple. “I enjoyed that walk, but I’d like to put my feet up for a bit.”
Aiden watched them disappear down the hallway that led to the bedrooms, then turned his attention to Skylar. She was leaning back against the counter, her glass pressed to her lips. Her gaze was distant, and Aiden wished he could read her mind.
But since her parents had broached the subject, he thought that maybe he could see what she might be thinking. Although did they need the complication of trying to sort things out between them while the situation with Shiloh was up in the air?
Or would it be a good thing to face what was to come as a couple?
“Can I ask you a hypothetical question?”
Skylar’s brown gaze swung his way, her brow furrowed. “What?”
“So, if I were to…” Aiden’s voice trailed off, then he cleared his throat. “If I were to ask you out on a date, is there a chance you’d say yes?”
Her eyes widened, and she lowered the glass, reaching to the side to put it on the counter. “Why is that a hypothetical question? Are you not brave enough to just outright ask me?”
Her question stung because it was true. He’d stupidly thought that asking the way he had would make it easier to put it aside if she said that she wouldn’t consider saying yes.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He paused, then said, “Do you want to continue this discussion or not?”
She considered his question for what felt like an eternity. “You can ask.”
But there was no guarantee she’d say yes. He could tell that by her expression. Was she waiting for her chance to reject him like he’d rejected her?
If so, he could hardly blame her. Maybe she’d been waiting for this opportunity. And he’d give it to her, even if it meant getting hurt by her response.
He just hoped that once they opened this door that they’d be able to move forward without it negatively impacting things.
“Sky, would you go on a date with me?” He spread his arms. “I’m asking as the man I am now. The man who’s learned from his mistakes, and who values and cares for the person you are now.”
Her eyes narrowed, and Aiden braced himself for the ultimate rejection. His heart pulsed with pain, already anticipating what was to come.
But he held her gaze as he lowered his arms and waited for her response, whatever it might be.
“I need to think about it.”
Aiden felt a spark of hope in the midst of the pain in his heart. “Really?”
She tilted her head as she crossed her arms. “To be honest, there’s a part of me that wants to say yes. But there’s a whole load of hurtful memories that make me want to have nothing to do with you in that way.”
“I understand. I don’t expect you to forget what I did to you,” Aiden told her. “I just want you to know that I’m different now. I know what I did was wrong, and I am so sorry for hurting you the way I did. The way I treated you. The breakup. The pregnancy. I approached it all in the worst way possible, and I’m sorry. So very sorry.”
Skylar looked into his eyes for a long moment, then dropped her gaze. “I believe you are, and I… forgive you. I know that’s what God wants me to do, and I’m trying to do that. But it’s hard to ignore the memory of how shattered I was after you broke up with me. And then later when…”
Aiden took a step toward her, then stopped, putting his hands in his pockets. He had to give her time. She didn’t totally trust that this time around, he would love and cherish her in the way he should have previously.
Was there a way to show her that?
“I need to…” She turned away from him. “I think I’m going to go to my room.”
With that, she left him alone in the kitchen, nursing a heart that hurt but still held a kernel of hope. Until she gave him a final no, he would cling to that hope.
Aiden went to the fridge and pulled out the package of chicken he’d bought at the store the previous day. He prepared a basic marinade for it, then returned it to the fridge for dinner later on that day.
With that taken care of, he went into the garage and picked up a couple of tools to do some weeding. Taking care of the flower beds had been his mom’s job. But since she was no longer living there, it now fell to him.
Aiden peeled off his shirt and left it on a chair on the deck, then headed for the large flower bed in the back corner of the yard. He had no idea what types of flowers were planted there, and he was sure he’d accidentally “weeded” a few of them in the time since she’d left.
He laid down the cushion his mom used to kneel on, then tackled the weeds that had sprung up in the past couple of weeks since he’d last worked on them.
With the sun beating down on his back and shoulders, Aiden prayed as he worked. For Shiloh. For Skylar. For Charli and Blake. For his mom and Willow. For anyone that came to mind.
It amazed him a bit how easy it had become to take the opportunity during these moments of solitude to pour out his heart to God. He knew there was a verse in the Bible about praying without ceasing, and it hadn’t made sense to him as a teen.
He’d thought he didn’t have the time to do that much praying. But now, he found that his day was filled with just one continual prayer from the moment he woke, when he started his day with a prayer of thanks to the Lord for giving him one more day. He didn’t finish his prayer until he lay in bed at the end of his day.
Though he hadn’t planned to do all the flower beds, once he started, it was easy to just keep going, working his way along the back fence. His mom loved flowers, so they were everywhere.
“You’re going to get a sunburn, son.”
Aiden sat back on his heels as he used the back of his gloved hand to wipe the perspiration from his brow. He looked up at Dan, who stood a short distance away, looking around the yard.
“You have a nice place here.”
“Mom did all the flowers,” Aiden said as he pushed up to his feet. He pulled off the gloves and dropped them on the cushion. “But now that she’s not here, I get to take care of them.”
“Looks like quite a job.”
“It can be,” Aiden agreed. “But I look at it as a way to get some sunshine, some fresh air and a bit of exercise.”
Dan smiled. “That’s a good outlook to have.”
“It’s one I haven’t always had,” Aiden confessed. “But lately, I’m trying to find the good in the difficult or the unwelcome things I don’t necessarily want to do.”
“Like weeding.”
Aiden nodded. “It’s not that I don’t like yard work. But I prefer to use things that have a motor. Like the mower or the weed whacker. This kneeling in the dirt trying not to grab the wrong plant isn’t so appealing.”
“Well, it looks like you’ve done a good job, even if it isn’t what you want to do.”
“I’m going to grab a soda,” Aiden said. “Did you want something cold to drink too?”
“Sure.” Dan fell into step beside him. “That sounds good.”
Dan veered off to sit in one of the chairs on the deck while Aiden went into the kitchen to get their drinks. He found Cathy and Skylar standing next to the counter, talking. Although their conversation died when they saw him, making Aiden a little self-conscious about the fact that he didn’t have a shirt on.
“Been playing in the dirt?” Cathy asked as she gestured to her own shoulder.
Aiden checked one shoulder, then the other and saw what she was indicating. He didn’t bother to brush it off since he was going to take a shower soon, anyway.
“Yeah.” He opened the fridge and bent to pull out a couple of the cans of soda he’d put there the previous day. “Mom’s flowerbeds seem to contain as many weeds as they do flowers these days.” Straightening, he lifted one of the cans. “Did either of you want soda too?”
Both women shook their heads, but Cathy said, “I’m going to get a glass of water and join you men outside in a bit.”
“Sounds good.”
Back outside, Aiden handed Dan one can, then set the other near the chair he planned to sit in. He went to where he’d dropped his shirt earlier and took a minute to pull it on before returning to where Dan sat.
“Did you and Skylar talk?” Dan asked.
Aiden cracked the tab of his soda, then lifted a brow at Dan. “Is that why the two of you disappeared earlier?”
Dan shrugged. “We figured it couldn’t hurt for you two to have some time to yourselves.”
“Well, we talked a little, but I’m not sure if it helped,” he said. “In fact, it might have made things worse.”
“I doubt that,” Dan said. “Just have some patience with her. She isn’t as apt to jump into things like she might have been as a teen.”
Aiden had already come to the conclusion that he’d have to be patient. He had to let Skylar work out things at her speed, but at least now she knew that he had a strong desire to rekindle their relationship.
And he needed her to know that he wasn’t looking for just some casual dating. He wanted that future they’d once talked about. The one with love, marriage, and kids. More kids. Ones that they could raise themselves this time.
The back door swung open, and the women appeared. Cathy had just sat down beside Dan when her phone rang. She glanced at the screen and murmured, “Charli.”
She answered it, but rather than putting it on speakerphone, she lifted it to her ear.
“Hello, darling.”
It was terribly hard to only hear half the conversation, especially since Cathy’s side was limited to hums and one-word responses. They were left to have to decipher what she was hearing from her expression. She didn’t look thrilled by what she was hearing, but she also didn’t seem too upset.
Aiden’s leg bounced as he lifted his can of soda to take a sip. Skylar was tapping her fingernails on the edge of her glass of water. Only Dan seemed calm and patient as he waited for his wife to finish the conversation.
When Cathy finally hung up, Skylar said, “Well?”
“Hang on.” Cathy set aside her phone and picked up her glass to take a sip. “Okay. So Charli said that Shiloh seems to be responding to the new antibiotic, which is good news. Unfortunately, the doctors have seen some things that apparently concern them. Shiloh will be having a full workup to see if there’s a chance the treatment didn’t work as well as they’d hoped.”
“It’s too soon,” Skylar murmured.
“Unfortunately, there are times that treatments don’t do what we hope they will,” Dan said. “But that’s why we wanted to be prepared for the next step if this first one didn’t work.”
Skylar bowed her head, but not before Aiden caught a glimpse of the pain on her face. He understood the pain, but he wasn’t surprised by the news the way Skylar seemed to be.
“Listen, darling,” Cathy said as she leaned to put her hand on Skylar’s arm. “We are not without hope. God has provided a match for Shiloh, right in our own family, and I believe that there is a reason for that. So don’t give up hope. We’re not.”
“I know. I had just hoped that her problem was something easily solved and not related to her cancer.”
“And it might still be that. We just have to wait for the test results.”
“Will we be able to see her soon?” Skylar asked.
“Charli thought you and Aiden could probably see her tomorrow, but she’ll know for sure in the morning.”
Aiden suddenly felt exhausted. The mental ups and downs and all arounds were wearing on him.
And if it was this bad for him, he could only imagine how bad it must be for Charli and Blake. He also hated to see Skylar so upset. It felt like he could do nothing to help anyone, and that was hard to accept.
The rest of the day passed quietly, with no more discussion about Shiloh’s situation aside from praying for her at dinner.
When Aiden went to bed, he wished that he didn’t have to go to work the next day. But if they needed him to come home during the day, he would. However, until they knew exactly what was going on, he needed to save his days off.
He could only pray that it wouldn’t be necessary to use them.