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“The doctor is in with him now,” Austin told her. “Not that there’s much they’re going to be able to do.”
She nodded.
“I think they’re just going to try to make him comfortable,” Garrett said.
Again, she nodded.
“When I went in to see him, he barely opened his eyes, but…he said your name,” Austin said softly. “Once the doctor is done, I think you should go down to see him first.”
Amy stood. “If you’d like, I can go down to the nurse’s station and get an update.”
“That would be great, Amy. Thank you,” Austin said.
And then it was quiet again and Savannah knew she would go crazy if it stayed like this. “How’s Mia?” she asked Austin.
“She’s upset,” he replied, “but I didn’t want her to be here like this. Her best friend Sydney is at the house with her. We’re so close to our due date. I want her to try to stay as calm as possible.”
“That makes sense.” Then she looked at Garrett. “And Emma? Is she okay?”
He cleared his throat. “Um…yeah. She’s with our mom right now. We all talked about it and didn’t want to have too many people here until we knew what was going on.”
Biting her lip, Savannah couldn’t help but wonder if they had asked Amy to call her or if they would have preferred for it to just be the three of them.
“If it would be better for all of you, I can go and come back later…”
All three of them looked at her like she was insane.
“What is wrong with you?” Jackson demanded, finally looking up. “Why would you even say something like that?”
“Um…”
“You have just as much right to be here as we do!” he snapped. “Maybe even more so. God knows he’s closer to you than he is to any of us.”
“Jackson,” Austin warned.
“No, it’s okay,” Savannah said, hating how her voice was shaking. “We’ve…we’ve had this conversation before.”
“It doesn’t make it right,” Garrett said wearily. “And now isn’t the time to rehash the past, Jack. No matter what happened in our lives, the fact remains that our father is in the other room and he’s dying. We shouldn’t be out here keeping a scorecard over who he spent more time with or why.”
“We don’t need to. We all know the answer to that. It was easier for him to love someone else’s kid than his own.” Jumping to his feet, Jackson stormed off and Savannah wished a hole would open up in the floor and swallow her.
“Savannah,” Austin began carefully. “Don’t listen to him. He’s just lashing out.”
“And he’s wrong,” Garrett added.
Now it was her turn to look up like someone was crazy.
“I think we can all agree that Cash made some…mistakes. Specifically with his parenting,” Austin began. “But you have to believe us, Savannah, when we tell you that over the last month, we have had a ton of conversations with him about this. He’s apologized and while it doesn’t change the past, it helped to know that he was sorry.”
Nodding, Garrett gave her a sad smile. “He looked at us as not needing him. Our mom was amazing and we had the entire Coleman family to help raise us. There was never a shortage of uncles to step in for the father-son stuff, and even though we would have preferred it to be Dad, we had people.” He paused and shook his head. “He knew you didn’t. It was just you and your dad. I think in his own way, he was trying to make things right.”
Yeah, she and Cash had talked about this exact thing and while she didn’t quite agree with his logic, his heart had always been in the right place.
At least where she was concerned.
“We don’t hold any of this against you,” Austin told her, his voice low and gruff. “The fact that he stepped up and helped take care of you redeemed him a little. At least in my eyes.”
“Mine too,” Garrett agreed. “Knowing what he did and the role he played in your life showed that he wasn’t completely heartless. And maybe sometime…when all of this is over, you can share some stories about him…something to help us know more about him that isn’t laced with our own disappointment.”
