Chapter 32
Tucker
I never imagined the first road trip I took with a girl would involve Gram driving the car, but here we were.
Ava had never been outside of Austin, at least not in her current memory, so she was fascinated by all the scenes we took for granted. She sat in the front passenger seat, pointing out everything from billboards to pump jacks.
Her chatter filled the car. “How many miles have we gone? How long would it take if we were walking?”
Gram and I kept catching each other’s gaze in the rearview mirror. It was amusing.
Then Ava gasped and spread her hands on her side window. “Are those cows?”
“It’s a rule!” Gram said. “If you see cows, you must announce that you see cows.”
“We’re going to be talking a lot about cows,” I said.
Ava’s nose pressed to the glass, her pinwheel hair making her look twelve years old. “Why are some white and others brown?”
Gram grabbed the favorite line before I got a chance. “The brown ones are for chocolate milk.”
Ava turned to me in the back seat, her eyes wide. “I had no idea!” She resumed looking out the window. “But what if they’re half and half?”
Gram busted out in a snort-laugh, and I had to hold my shaking belly.
Ava crossed her arms over her chest. “You two are pulling my leg, aren’t you?”
Gram smacked the steering wheel, the air conditioning blowing her fine gray hair from her face. “My father told me the same story when I was a girl.”
“And Gram told me,” I said.
“All right. If it’s an old family joke.” She grinned back at me, but her eyes told me her real thoughts. She hadn’t had family jokes. She had a father who took off, and a mother who’d tried to prevent her from ever leaving home.
I leaned forward and squeezed her shoulder. “This trip is going to be great.”
“For me, maybe,” she said. “You’re getting cut open.”
I shook my head. “You keep reminding me.”
“This is going to be a whole new beginning for Tucker,” Gram said. “I can feel it.”
I hoped she was right.
The surgery part was a blur. Check-in, meeting the surgeon, the smiles of the nurses. I could only take one person back with me for prep, but I couldn’t choose between Gram and Ava.
Ava insisted they could take turns. She sent Gram for the pre-surgery shift while she retouched images on her laptop in the waiting area. She’d come for post-op.
The installation would take less than two hours, but then there was recovery. If all went well, I would be at the hotel by evening, and we’d spend the night to make sure I was ready for the ride back. Gram had insisted.
Ava would have to meet her dad without me, but she said that was for the best. Having another person there might stifle the conversation.
When they told me to count backwards from ten, the last thing I pictured before everything went black was Ava.
“Everything went great.” The voice was disembodied at first, a sound in the white haze, then my vision cleared. I recognized the surgeon. “I’m going to fetch you some company. She can be with you now.”
I tried to nod, but my head wouldn’t move.
“You’re still coming out of it,” a nurse said. “You’ll be sleepy.”
If she said anything else, I didn’t know it. The next thing I knew, I was in the curtained area where I’d been prepped, and Ava sat on a chair beside me.
“I see peepers,” she said. “You’ve been out a while.”
I couldn’t think of anything clever to say. My head felt full of cobwebs.
“I have water and crackers here for you if you’re starving,” she said. “The nurse left them. Five-star food if I ever saw it.” She held up a cup and a package of Goldfish.
“Maybe in a minute.” The words sounded like a frog croaking.
“Sounds like you could use the water.” She moved in close, angling the straw at my mouth. The cool, wet drink was like sipping from a mountain stream.
And Ava was here. I didn’t care what I’d been through. This was heaven.
Ava set the cup down. “They said everything is all hooked up. They won’t turn it on until you get back to your doctor in Austin, though.”
A nurse slid back the curtain. “You’re awake! Let’s look you over and see when you might be ready to roll out of here.”
She inflated a cuff on my arm, but I kept my eyes on Ava. This was almost certainly the first day of the next, best part of my life.