Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Hospital
“How’s the pain?” I asked Lenni. “On a scale from one to ten.”
She grimaced. “About a five.”
“That’s not good, but it’s not the worst.”
“Where’s Archer?” she asked.
“He’ll be here any minute,” I assured her. “I called him right after I got off the phone with the school nurse.”
“How’s he getting here? You have the truck.”
“Brooks is driving him.”
Her arm was in a sling, and we were waiting for the doctor to come back with the X-Ray films. The door to the exam room opened and Archer tore inside. His eyes were wide.
He touched Lenni’s head. “You’re in one piece.”
Lenni’s smile was full of pain as she tried to look reassuring. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“What happened?” he demanded. “Did that boy who got you suspended start shit with you again?”
“No, it wasn’t Robby. It was just snow on the grass. It was packed down, so it was all slippery like ice. I stepped on it and my legs went out from under me. It’s not even a cool story. Can we tell people I battled a super villain or something?”
Archer let out a deep sigh. “Okay, Batman.”
“No capes,” Lenni and I said at the same time, causing us both to laugh.
The doctor in his white coat came into the room. “Well, you’re in good spirits.” He looked at Archer. “You must be her father.”
Archer held his hand out to the doctor for a handshake. “How bad is it?”
“Hairline fracture. She’ll need to be in a cast for six weeks.”
“Six weeks!” Lenni cried. “But it’s my writing hand!”
“I’m sorry, Lenni,” the doctor said in commiseration.
“Oh man,” Lenni muttered.
“What color cast do you want?” he asked.
“Purple,” she said with a sigh. “This is so lame.”
Archer and I sat with Lenni while the tech cast her arm, and I was desperately wanting to distract her. I looked at Archer. “You ever break any bones?”
He nodded and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a scar about four inches in length on his forearm. “I broke my arm when I was seventeen. Motorcycle accident. I needed surgery. It was bad.” He pointed at Lenni. “No motorcycles.”
“No motorcycles,” she repeated.
“That means no getting on boys’ motorcycles either,” Archer stated.
“I don’t know any boys,” she said with an eye roll. “But what about a scooter? Can I get a scooter?”
“No.”
“Why not? You have a motorcycle. Why can’t I have a scooter?”
Archer looked at the ceiling as if praying to keep calm. “Because a scooter is the gateway to a motorcycle. So, no.”
Lenni’s sigh was deep. “Wyn? Have you broken any bones?”
“A bench fell on my foot when I was five. I was in a cast up to here.” I touched my thigh.
There was a knock on the exam room door and then it opened. Brooks stood in the doorway.
“There are easier ways of getting out of school, Half-Pint,” Brooks said.
“Yeah?” she asked. “How?”
Archer pointed at his brother. “Don’t you tell her a thing.”
“Why? Was he the one who cut school all the time?” I asked in amusement.
“No. That was Archer,” Brooks said. “He was always getting into trouble. And guess who had to bail him out? His big brother, that’s who. But I guess karma’s a bitch, huh?”
“Why is that?” I asked.
Brooks let out one of his rare smiles. “Archer made our parents worry nonstop. Now he’s got a kid doing the same thing to him. Karma.”
Lenni grinned. “Karma.”
I was smushed into the couch, my sock-clad feet on Archer’s lap. Lenni was upstairs asleep, and Mildred hadn’t left her side since we’d gotten home from the hospital.
“I don’t think we should go to Montana for our trip,” I said.
He let out a breath. “Thank God you said something. I didn’t want to back out, but—God, Wyn. My heart really did stop when you called me.”
“I know. Mine too. I’m so glad it wasn’t worse.” I frowned. “They gave me some grief at the hospital.”
“They did?”
I nodded. “The school called me because you put me down as her emergency contact. But I don’t have medical authority over Lenni. I thought for sure they wouldn’t see her until you got there.”
“How did you work around it?”
“I dropped Muddy’s name.” I smiled. “She’s a legend around here, you know.”
“So I’ve heard. We should talk about that stuff.”
“What stuff?”
He swallowed. “Medical emergency type stuff. There are forms to sign and notarize. I don’t ever want you to have to worry about red tape. This time it wasn’t a life-threatening situation. But what if it was? What if she’d needed surgery?”
Archer took my hand and brought it to his mouth. “I want you to have as much authority as I do when it comes to Lenni.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” He rubbed my knuckles with his thumb. “There’s something else we need to talk about.”
“What’s that?”
“If something were to happen . . . to me.”
My heart dropped into my belly.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I whispered.
“I know. But we have to.”
I nodded through glassy eyes as they filled with tears.
“I want you to have custody of Lenni. Should anything ever happen to me, God forbid, I want her with you.”
“Not Brooks?” I asked. “He’s your brother.”
“Yes.” Archer nodded. “If there was no you, then I’d want Lenni to be with Brooks and Poet. But there is a you. And we’re a family now, aren’t we? I mean, even though we haven’t gotten married yet, we’re a family. We became a family the moment the three of us moved in here.”
I scooted closer to him and swiveled my legs off his lap so I could curl against his side. “I don’t want to think about a life without you in it.”
“I’m not planning on going anywhere,” he said, his hand sliding beneath my hair and resting at my nape. “But as we know, we don’t have a crystal ball.”
“No. We don’t.” I raised my head and gently brushed my lips against his before getting up.
“Where you going?” he asked.
“I just need to look in on her. I know she’s fine, but I . . .”
Archer stood immediately. “Let’s go.”
We padded up the stairs and I pushed her door open. The mini night light from the hallway illuminated a path just enough so that we wouldn’t hit our knees on furniture.
Lenni was asleep on her back, Mildred smushed up against her side.
Archer walked over to the bed and bent down and swept Lenni’s hair off her forehead. After a few deep breaths, we slowly retreated.
We headed down to his—our—bedroom and got ready for bed.
“You know what I was thinking about just now?” Archer asked.
“What?”
“I was thinking about how one day in the future, we’ll be looking down at a baby in a crib. And I’ll be so fucking happy, but also so fucking sad. Because I missed all that with Lenni, and I can never get it back.”
“No. You can’t.”
I crawled beneath the covers and waited for him to slide in next to me. He took me into his arms, and I rested my head against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart.
He’d missed the beginning of Lenni’s life, but he was here for her now.
We both were.