Page 21 of The Fix-Up

“I’m still alive and kicking.” His grin cracked his face open, creating more wrinkles and creases.

Gently, I placed a band-aid on his cheek. “A true miracle.”

“So, the grandson, what’s he like?”

“He’s… okay?”

He nodded, looking more troubled than anything else. “He’s not a bad sort, right?”

Gilbert Dalton’s scowling, stern face flashed in my mind. “The jury is still out on that.”

“Well, I’ll keep my eye on him.” Teddy stood, pulling his pants up. I made a mental note to find him some suspenders and maybe a new pair of pants. “Ollie would have wanted me to.”

“You do that, Teddy.” I handed him the box of things. “Come see me Saturday, okay?”

He winked, or tried to, and left out the back door. I watched him amble down the alley until he disappeared around the corner.

SEVEN

[Love is…] Being kind. Giving people hugs. That’s all I know about it.

—JEFFERSON, AGE 7

“Mommy?” Oliver asked, his big blue eyes sleepy. “Can you read two chapters tonight?”

I ruffled his hair and snuggled him closer to my side. This was my favorite moment of every day. If there was one slice of time I could cut and save to relive years from now, it would be one of these moments—Oliver, sleepy and freshly washed and curled into my side. It never failed to remind me that although I’d made a lot of mistakes in my life, Oliver was the good thing that came out of it. I might struggle with my previous decisions—Sunny said I needed to give myself more grace—but I could never regret how all those things had given me my son.

The day I found out I was pregnant, I’d been terrified. I was a twenty-one-year-old wannabe actress with four dollars in the bank and a loser boyfriend whose idea of a job was playing with the band for tips on open mic night. I wasn’t in any place to have a kid.

But when I heard his heartbeat at my first doctor’s appointment, I was a goner. Ironically, the baby daddy was also a goner. As in gone, far, far away. It had been Oliver and me, just the two of us, from the beginning.

“I think we can do that, but we need to talk first,” I said.

Oliver sat up, his little face serious as he looked down at me. “Is this a cookie talk or an ice cream talk?”

This was code. An ice cream talk was a celebration, but a cookie talk…

“Cookie. Definitely cookie.” I patted his arm. “Why don’t you go grab a couple?”

“Cookies in the bed?” His eyes widened. “But we aren’t supposed to eat in bed.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Without another word, he scrambled off the bed and darted out of the room. I stared up at the ceiling. With the lights still on, the glow-in-the-dark dinosaur footprints were just faint green blobs but it had taken a whole day to get them arranged the way Oliver had wanted them. I smiled thinking of how he had bossed Chris around until they were placed perfectly.

“Here’s one for you.” He held out a cookie and climbed on the bed after I took it. “What do you need to talk about?”

“Yeah, that.” I picked at the dust jacket of the book resting on my stomach. “Do you remember when I told you about Ollie’s grandson when Uncle Chris brought you home last Friday?”

“I ’member.”

“Good. Good. Well…”

“Will I get to see him?”

I knew Oliver would handle this better than me. “Actually, yes. You’ll be seeing him a lot. He’s going to be living in a tent in the backyard.”

His little face screwed up in confusion. “Like camping? Why?”

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