“Yep.” He belches and grins at me, still without opening his eyes.
“Why are they with Eli?” Eli doesn’t know anything about kids. He’s never spent any time at all with them and God knows we never had any.
“I asked him to watch them. Gabby’s helping him.”
“Are they up at the big house with Katie and Jake?”
He shakes his head, wincing in discomfort as he does it. “They’re at your cabin. Gabby said she was going to make fairy wings with them today.” He grins again. “I can’t wait to see Eli in wings.”
I snort out a laugh. “I can assure you that Eli is not going to wear wings.”
“I can assure you that Kerry-Anne will talk him into it.” He settles more deeply into the sofa. “She’s very persuasive.”
“She looks more like you than Lynda. Sam, on the other hand, looks like Lynda spit her right out of her mouth.”
“Your North Carolina is showing,” he teases. He finishes his juice pouch and holds it up for me to take it. “Thanks,” he grunts out when I get up to throw it away.
“Is chemo always this hard on you?” I ask.
“Oh, this is nothing compared to the last round. I only threw up once, and I’m pretty sure that was because of your sucky driving.” He picks up a scatter pillow and throws it in my direction.
“Hey!” I complain, but the pillow falls a few feet short of me, proof that he’s feeling worse than he’s letting on.
“You need to learn what a turn signal is for.” He sticks his tongue out at me and I return the gesture.
I throw the pillow back at him. “How old are you? Twelve?”
“At twelve, I didn’t have hair on my balls.”
Heat creeps up my cheeks. “Oh, jeez,” I breathe out, but I’m laughing too. Aaron always did have a way of shocking me into laughing. I’ve missed it, those random moments of gleeful embarrassment.
A knock sounds on the door and it opens up. Eli sticks his head in. He looks from me to Aaron and back. “I just wanted to be sure you guys were okay,” he says.
Aaron sits up and asks, “How were the kids today?”
“Miles took a two-hour nap, Kerry-Anne played with Trixie most of the morning, and Sam kicked my ass at fishing.”
“That’s my girl,” Aaron croons, with a fist pump.
“I told her that I’d find her a fishing hat,” Eli says. “The sun was in her eyes all morning.”
“I have one,” Aaron says. He gets slowly to his feet and walks to the tiny closet in the corner of the room. From the top shelf, he takes out a dusty pink cap. He knocks it against his leg and dust floats in the air.
“That was Lynda’s,” I say q
uietly.
Aaron stares at the cap. “Yeah. She’d be happy knowing Sam has it.” He knocks it against his leg again.
Eli jerks his thumb toward the door. “I’m going to get back to the kids.” He looks at Aaron’s hands, still holding the cap. “Do you want me to take that?”
Aaron shakes his head. “Nah. I want to give it to her.”
“I don’t know if this is the right time or not…” Eli lets his voice trail off, and he stares at the floor.
“It’s always the right time if it’s about my kids,” Aaron replies.
“Sam wants to talk to you about her mom, but she says it makes you sad,” Eli suddenly blurts out, and then he looks like he wishes he could take it back. The wince on his face says it all.