Page 15 of Family First
“What happened?” Noah asked, his gaze flicking from Erik to me to the room, fear now replacing confusion. “Am I super sick? Am I going to die?”
“Absolutely not,” Erik rushed to say as he gave Noah’s hand a squeeze. I shook my head so hard that I made myself woozy. “You’re going to be fine. You have diabetes.” Noah’s blue eyes rounded. “That is something that is easily handled, Noah. With medication, exercise, and a healthy diet you’ll live a long, productive life.”
Noah glanced from Erik to me. “Will I be able to play hockey?”
“Yes, of course, you will be able to do whatever it is you wish for many hundreds of years.” I nodded then caught onto what I had said. “Okay, so maybe not hundreds of years, but for many long years. You do not have to fear for your future, my sweet one.”
“Okay, if you say so.” He asked for a drink of water, which we gave him, then we rang for the nurse. She arrived with smiles and cheer, chattering as she took his vitals. Erik and I stood in opposite corners, his attention on our child, mine on the cold tiles under my feet. I wished they would crack open and swallow me up whole.
ChapterEight
ERIK
We sat with Noah for a while longer, but he was tired, it was late, almost ten without us even realizing, and somehow we’d passed an entire day of Noah being here, of Noah being diabetic, of the entirety of his world shifting.
Margo and Eva had left, taking the car back home, but it would take bigger men than us to take us from Noah’s side. I didn’t know what to say to Stan, not when he was fighting his own demons as much as I was.
I should have been there.
I should have noticed.
And the sneaky whisper that slipped into my rational thinking, why hadn’t Stan noticed?
With Noah sleeping, Stan excused himself to find coffee, and this time I wasn’t letting the whispers win. I found him down by the coffee machine, watching as he waited in the dim light of the hospital corridor, his hands white-knuckled on his crutches, his brow furrowed with the weight of self-reproach.
“Stan,” I interrupted his erratic orbit.
He stopped and stared at me; his gray eyes shadowed with pain. “I’m sorry,” he blurted, his eyes brightening with emotion. “He had some flu, I thinked, I was… just flu…” he added as if he was trying to convince himself that maybe the doctors were wrong.
I reached out, placing my hands on his shoulders, grounding him, shoving blame aside, and what-ifs, and trusting he’d understand how much I loved him. Stan could spiral, I’d seen it before, and given I wanted his love and support and one of his big smiles right now, I was guessing he needed the same thing from me.
“Listen to me,” I urged, locking my gaze with his. “You couldn’t have known Noah was sick. None of us did.”
He shook his head, his voice barely a whisper, “But I’m not seeing dad things.” He added a sentence in Russian, and I didn’t know the words, but I felt the meaning in my soul. “I’m dad,” he repeated, and his voice cracked.
“And you’re a great dad,” I assured him with as much conviction as I could muster while my own heart hurt. “We both are, and we’ve done nothing but love and care for Noah. This illness crept up on all of us. And right now, Noah doesn’t need either of us drowning in guilt. He needs us to be a team, as we’ve always been.”
The flickering fluorescent light overhead cast a sterile glow on his face, and he closed his eyes, before tugging me in with one arm. Fuck. I wanted to cry, I wanted to shout and wail at whoever put our beautiful son in the hospital. Where was the fairness in this? He was a good kid.
But he’s alive.
He will live.
It might be hard, but the doctor assured us he’d do okay.
I had to believe him.
Stan held me so tight I couldn’t move, and I buried my face in his neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I added. “Did we do something wrong? Did we… did I… what if his birth mom was here? Would she have seen it?” Fuck, I was losing my shit now. Freja wasn’t Noah’s mom other than biologically, was happy and focused on her career as a journalist traveling the world, and hell, I didn’t even know where she was right now.
“No,” Stan interrupted and pushed me away a little so he could tip my chin. “We are the best for little rabbit.”
“I’m so scared.”
“Scared too,” Stan offered, and then it was my turn to pull him close, wrapping my arms around him in a firm embrace, sharing the strength between us that had always seemed to be enough to face the world.
