Page 53 of His Vivacious Angel
“You wish, BigDawg.” At that, she jogs off into the street, catching the basketball when Grayson throws it to her.
I bite back a curse when Autumn jumps, sending the ball flying toward the hoop, where it swishes through the net. Never have I ever been more interested in watching a game than I am when Autumn hoots and gives high fives to the kids whenever any of them score a point. At one point, she even scoops up Sebastian, lifting him onto her shoulders so he can toss the basketball toward the net. Of course, it doesn’t come anywhere close, but he’s having the time of his life trying.
I’m having the time of my life, too, as are Josephine and Benjamin. In all of my adult years, I can’t remember ever having a better day than this. It’s everything I’ve always wanted—a huge, happy family to gather with; a beautiful, firecracker of a wife I can’t keep my hands or eyes off of; and a mother figure for Josephine. With the way things are, though, it’s only a fantasy. These people aren’t really my family.Autumn isn’t my wife. Nor is she Josephine’s mother, no matter how much my little girl and I wish it were true.
But it doesn’t have to remain a fantasy.In fact, I’ll work to make sure of it. Because it doesn’t matter what the pregnancy test result may be.Autumn will be mine.
Chapter Seventeen
Autumn
As we wind down our basketball game, Isaiah begins filling the water balloons I’d brought for the kids to throw at each other. We all turn at the sound of sirens coming down the street, and I quickly motion the kids onto the grass so the ambulance and firetruck can pass. My breath stalls in my lungs when the EMS vehicles come to an abrupt halt in front of Bailey’s house, their lights flashing across everyone’s faces of worry or confusion.
Isaiah’s younger sister, Brianna, lights out through the front door in a red bathing suit cover-up and matching jersey hair wrap. Her flip-flops slap the pavement as she sprints down the walkway, waving her arm to get a first responder’s attention. “He’s in here!” she yells.
“What the—” Isaiah takes off, rushing toward her. “Who?” he barks at Brianna. “What happened?”
“Sherman!” Brianna yells, waving more frantically to the EMTs crossing the lawn. “We think he had a heart attack.”
Tears instantly spring to my eyes, and I jut Sebastian toward Forest before sprinting into the house with Shaylaright beside me, Bailey following us as fast as she can. I’m able to squeeze past the EMTs and follow the sound of Mom’s gut-wrenching sobs, finding her inside the muted teal and gold hall bathroom. I crash to my knees, the fall broken by the heap of Mom and Dad’s swimsuits on the tiled floor. Mom is kneeling over Dad’s prone body, clutching a towel tight around her body with white knuckles, tapping his cheek as she begs him to open his eyes. His face is ashen, his lower half covered by a towel Mom must have laid across his body.
I shake his arm, my insides carved out by fear. “Daddy! Daddy, no! Wake up!”
My sisters aren’t as fast, crowded back down the hallway by an EMT before they can reach us. Another EMT forces Mom and me to leave Dad’s side so she can crouch and assess him, her voice and demeanor calm as she keeps up a steady stream of questions for Mom to answer. My sisters and I circle Mom and, together, we hold her up when her knees weaken as she answers the EMT’s questions as best she can, her own breathing choppy. I’ve never seen her so terrified in all my life.
My sisters and I follow when Dad is placed on a stretcher, wheeled out of the house, and into the back of the ambulance. Isaiah wraps a quilt over Mom’s shoulders, then has to lift her into the ambulance, since she’s too shell-shocked to do so on her own, to ride with Dad to the hospital.
Josephine throws herself against my side, her face red and streaked with tears. “Is he gonna be okay?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, my voice breaking, my whole body starting to shake violently as I cling to her as much as she does to me.
“We’ll watch the kids,” Eden says to my sisters and me while Martin, Brianna, and Brianna’s husband, Carlos, usher the rest of our family inside. “Go.”
James is already jogging out of the house with Shayla’s purse, and he remotely starts her pink Suburban. Brady jumpsinside behind Shayla, and they speed off down the street with a squeal of tires.
Isaiah helps Bailey toward their SUV, and he tells me, “You can ride with us.”
I bend to kiss Josephine’s cheek before pushing her toward Forest, whose face is a mask of grief and shock, holding both boys in his arms.
“I’m coming with you,” Forest tells me, leaving me for the briefest moment to guide Josephine toward the house. He passes Benjamin and Sebastian to Mara and Ezra, dashes inside, and returns quickly with his car keys.
My hands are trembling so badly that he has to open the passenger door for me, boosting me up onto my seat. We catch up quickly with my sisters when we leave the neighborhood. The passing dark landscape is a blur through my tears as Forest turns onto the farm-to-market road, speeding toward the highway that will take us to the hospital, the ambulance long gone ahead of us.
Forest doesn’t say anything—none of the “he’s going to be okay” or “try to stay positive” platitudes. He’s been through this before with his own dad and likely knows firsthand that none of that would lessen my pain. But he does intermittently squeeze my left arm or thigh in between shifting gears, and that is enough.
In the pale blue waiting room at the hospital, Forest finds a green hoodie he’d left in his trunk, helping to pull it on over my head. It’s tight but thankfully falls to the tops of my thighs. He’s likely as cold as I am, since he’s shirtless, goosebumps peppering his arms, but he doesn’t say anything as he simply holds me sideways on his lap, sitting on the floor in front of Mom, while Shayla and Brady bracket her in their chairs. It kills me to see Mom so upset and afraid, waiting for any news, as Dad gets prepped and undergoes surgery, and I circle her legs, laying my head on her knees.
“I don’t understand. What happened?” Shayla asks Mom. “I thought he had his blood pressure under control.”
Mom hiccups, tearing apart a tissue in her hands, her French braid hanging limp and damp against her neck. “It was my fault.”
“How?” I ask, looking up.
Mom shakes her head. “You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, we do,” Bailey says, “so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Mom drops her face into her hands. “I can’t tell you.”
