A Broken Fate
Page 62
Chapter 29
One Last White Lie
Living with Max took some adjustment on our part, but Ari and I found that having him in our lives gave us a happiness we had not anticipated. He is wonderful and fun and I wouldn’t have made any changes in our family if I could have; I love our lives.
Okay, yes, we have to get up earlier; with Max around there is no longer such a thing as sleeping in … ever. Yes, we have had to turn our music way down and some of the rowdier songs on our playlists have been removed completely. And certainly our somewhat flirtatious and frisky behavior has had to be curbed ever so slightly.
Max never stopped calling Ari “Daddy” and every time I hear him use the word, my heart melts a tad. A couple of weeks after Max moved back into our house for good, he began to call me “Mom,” and when he said “Mama,” he almost always added “Baby.” It was his own little-guy rendition of “Ava Baby” and I found it adorable.
Before long, March trudged along and the iffy weather began to gnaw at my nerves. I was sick for the entire week before Ari’s birthday, so sick that I had a hard time even getting out of bed. Ari started dropping Max off with Aggie in the mornings. He was worried that I might be contagious and was trying to ensure that Max wouldn’t catch whatever bug was bothering me. I had a hard time keeping anything in my stomach and I was beyond the point of exhaustion. Just when I began to feel better and think about getting some work done, a new wave of nausea would hit me broadside and I would curl back up in bed.
One afternoon I caught, through the pillow wrapped around my head, the muffled words, “Ava, are you still feeling sick?”
I looked up and saw Julia’s head in the doorway.
“Mmm hmm.”
“I hope you get over this whatever-it-is in time for Ari’s birthday,” she said as she came in and took a seat at the foot of the bed. “Is there anything you need? Can I get you something, tea, crackers, Tylenol?”
“No, not right now, thank you, though.”
I looked over and pulled my phone off the bedside table. Ari would be home in less than twenty minutes.
“Will you ask Ari to come in here as soon as he gets home?”
Julia smiled fondly at me, “Okay, sure, Ava. You know, of course, that checking on you is always the first thing Ari does when he gets home, but I will remind him to come see you anyway.”
“Thanks.”
“Yep. Sorry. I’d stay and chat but I don’t want to get stuck with the bug you’ve got.”
“Sure, sure, see ya, Julia,” I rolled back over, snuggling deeper into the bedcovers. I closed my eyes and was back asleep again in a matter of seconds.