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“No! Absolutely not!”
“But it’ll loosen her up. You’ll thank me later.”
She took one step toward the family room, but Jarrett caught her arm and jerked her back, speaking into her ear in what he hoped was a convincing tone.
“I’m not kidding, Mother.”
“You’re so uptight. What happened to my laid-back son?”
“I became a husband and a father. And I’ll do anything to protect my wife and my son,” he said, “even from well-meaning parents with no social filters.”
She patted his arm, wearing a benign smile. “Okay. You win. I’ll be on my best behavior.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
She was still laughing as he followed her into the family room, where his father was on the floor showing Gabe how to use the new set of building blocks they’d brought him.
Rylie stood up when his mother came close. “Can I get you something to drink, Mrs. Alvarez?”
“Please, call me Maggie,” she said. “Maggie and Isaac. And yes, I’d love a glass of water.”
As Rylie hurried into the kitchen, Maggie perched on the edge of the couch, watching Isaac interact with Gabe. “He’s so cute, Jarrett. He reminds me a lot of you when you were his age.”
“He’s a sweet kid,” Jarrett said, feeling a strange sense of pride, considering he had nothing to do with how sweet or cute Gabe was.
“And the chemo is going well?”
“Yes. He doesn’t have to go back to the hospital, unless he gets an infection, but we’ll keep giving him oral chemo and he’ll go in regularly to have chemo injected through the PICC line and sometimes he’ll have spinal injections. For those, he’ll go in day surgery and be sedated. If all goes as planned, he should go into remission about four weeks in, and then we switch regimens and complete treatment in about a year.”
“He’ll lose his hair, right?” she asked.
Jarrett sank into a leather side chair. “Afraid so.”
“This brings back tough memories, Jarrett.” Her eyes were misty. “It was hard watching you go through that—chemo, losing your hair, losing your leg—knowing there was nothing I could do. But at least you were old enough to understand what was going on. It must be confusing for Gabe. He’s so young, and he doesn’t speak English.”
“He’s learning fast, though,” Jarrett said. “He understands a lot of what we say.”
Rylie returned with a glass of water and handed it to Maggie. “And he calls me Mama.”
“Mama,” Gabe said, right on cue, abandoning his blocks and running to wrap his arms around Rylie’s legs.
Jarrett’s chest went tight. It was so obvious that Gabe loved Rylie. If Jarrett had followed through with his original plan, would Gabe have learned to love Carlie? More importantly, would Carlie have learned to love Gabe? He was fairly certain he knew the answer.
Not the way Rylie does.
Something had happened to Jarrett when he’d found Rylie curled up and shivering beside Gabe’s bed. He’d finally realized how strong Rylie’s feelings were for Gabe, and he’d grown to admire her even more. And that admiration made him feel oddly protective.
“Mama. Mama…” Gabe tugged on her hand, urging her toward the kitchen as he babbled in Spanish with only one other recognizable English word… chips.
Jarrett’s mother laughed. “At least he’s hungry. We had a hard time getting you to eat during your chemo, Jarrett.”
“His appetite comes and goes,” Jarrett said. “He’ll get an injection on Wednesday, so that’ll knock him down again. But we’re trying to pump him full of calories while he’s got his appetite back.”
Gabe returned, digging something out of the plastic cup in his hand.
“I talked him into eating these peanut-butter-filled pretzels,” said Rylie, as she selected a chair on the opposite side of the room from Jarrett.
His mother raised an eyebrow. “Don’t mind us, Rylie. You can squeeze into that chair with Jarrett. We know how you newlyweds are.”
