“But it wasn’t.”
“No. After about a month, they got back together. Dylan… was pregnant.” He tossed up his hands. “We found out shortly after their reunion, and there wasn’t a doubt it was my child because their reunion hadn’t become physical yet.”
“What did you do?” Lars asked.
“I wanted the baby. I wanted the chance. It was my chance to have Dylan. To have a family. To finally have it all. Chris was just starting Little League then. And I remember thinking how great it was gonna be that I would be more than just ‘Mick’ at those games. I went to every one of those games, you know. Dustin’s, too.” Mick winked softly as he nodded his head. “I never missed a moment in these boys’ lives. Dylan was my best friend, and they were the closest thing I had to my own kids.”
“Then came Tigger.”
“Then came Tigger,” Mick said. “Sam knew. And it kicked my ass that he was so understanding about it. Sam’s attitude was he just wanted to get past it, move on, put the incident behind us. We were all friends. But it wasn’t Sam’s attitude that dictated this situation. Not at all. He called another one of his little meetings.” Mick chuckled. “I was determined, I wanted my kid. But what changed me was Dustin and Chris. I looked at them that night. They had their mom, their dad… their family. And all the good I have ever done, all the looking up to me that they did, would be…” Mick snapped his fingers, “gone, the second I stepped into the picture in a different role. So we decided that no one would know Tigger was my kid. Sam would raise him, treat him as his own, Tigger would call him… Dad. I was allowed to see him as much as I wanted, spend time with him alone. But it never happened, that alone time I mean. It felt unfair to do that. So I ended taking all the boys for overnights and trips.”
“You didn’t lose, Mick,” Lars stated. “Listening now, hearing it, you made the right unselfish decision. These boys love you. They really love you. Your relationship with them is exceptional, so exceptional that any biological father would be envious. You didn’t give up one son. You gained three.”
“I know.” Mick nodded. “And now I’m losing one.” Mick finally opened the paper and looked down. He gave a soft emotional chuckle. “I better get inside. Mind if I show this to Dylan?”
“No. That’s why I brought it.” Lars reached out and laid his hand on Mick’s arm. “You’re in my prayers, Mick.”
Mick was unable to speak his thanks, giving only a grateful nod of his head. Then after a soft, painful “See ya tomorrow”, Mick slipped back into the house.
Mick cleared a spot on what he called Dylan’s “mess table” that sat in the upstairs hallway, a little round stand that she always put papers and cups on with intentions to take them downstairs, but they never made it. On that table he put two cups of coffee. Something told him they might be sleeping, so he tried quietly to make his entrance into Dustin’s room. He would have done so had he not almost fallen over Chris who was lying on the floor.
“Sorry.” Chris looked up.
“Chris,” Mick said, crouching down, “you still aren’t better yet. How about sleeping in a bed one more night?”
“No.” Chris shook his head. “I don’t want to leave my brother.”
Understanding that, Mick kissed him and stood up. He looked at Dustin who had fallen asleep. He made sure he touched him as he walked to Dylan. “Hey,” he whispered in her ear. “Can I steal you for a minute?”
After nodding, Dylan quietly followed Mick into the hall. She pulled the door closed. “What’s up?”
“I just needed a minute with you. I got us coffee…” He pointed. “Can we sit out here in the hall? If you don’t want to…”
“No. That’s fine.” She reached up and laid her hand on his face. “Dustin’s asleep. Mick? Are you okay?”
Mick grabbed her hand and kissed it, then led her away from the door a few feet. He handed her the coffee and at the same time they both sank to the floor. “No.”
Dylan looked at him.
“No, I’m not okay. And I want to apologize to you for that.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you apologizing?”
“For not being as strong as I should be.”
“You’re my strength, Mick,” she blurted out. “I don’t know what I would do without you right now. You’re keeping me together.”
A single chuckle came from Mick. “I say the same thing about you.”
“I kind of think…” Dylan played with the cup in her hand, “that right now, we’re overwhelmed with shock and sadness. But I think we both have more strength than we realize. I look at you, I’m screaming inside, and you’re so calm.”
“You think?” Mick smiled. “I’m not calm. You… Dylan, I admire you so much for how brave you’re being right now.”
Scooting closer to him, Dylan leaned her head against Mick’s arm. “I wish God gave us, as parents, one chance. Just one chance, on a tiny slip of paper. A chance to switch places with your child. For anything. And when that moment is needed, we as parents could turn that slip of paper in and trade places.”
“One slip?” Mick asked. “One chance.”
“Yes, why?”
“Dylan, sweetheart. If God did that, you of all people wouldn’t have a chance to turn in right now. Not you. You would have turned that chance in years ago. When Dustin used to get picked on in school, you wanted to trade places. How about when Chris got that case of chicken pox and was in the hospital? A few days ago when Chris had the flu? The time Dustin got the lead in the school play and he opened his mouth to sing and nothing came out?”
Dylan smiled slightly. “Poor Dustin.”
“You would have done it many times. That’s why God doesn’t give us those chances, he knows how we can’t, with the love of parents, ever choose which moment is deserving enough. They all are deserving.” Mick exhaled heavily. “I want to talk to you about something.”
Dylan sat up and looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Dustin asked to see Tigger. He needs to see him, and I think Tigger should spend some time with his brother before… well, I just think he should.”
“I do, too, Mick, but I can’t take a chance on…” Dylan was silent when Mick handed her a sheet of paper. “What’s this?”
“Let Tigger in the room. Lars did some testing. Like father like son, Tigger is immune.”
Dylan hadn’t cried in hours, but at that second her entire face spasmed emotionally and a single tear ran down her face. She set down her coffee, and with the results still in her hand, Dylan embraced Mick. The moment in the hall ended up being just what she needed, a break from the heartache, and a little shining light of good.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
October 5th
Dustin didn’t awaken often. When a brief bout of consciousness allowed him to open his eyes, he’d shift them around the room to linger on Dylan, Chris, and Tigger. Even though they were tired and glazed, Dylan could look into his eyes and see Dustin’s life force, his soul. She painfully saw that he understood everything that was going on. He may have been ill, his body ravaged and swollen, but Dustin tried to smile because he enjoyed the happy stories they told. Over the course of the next twelve hours, he was aware of them for brief periods of time, then he’d fade into sleep brought on by the illness and the increasingly larger doses of pain medication.
However, even when he was unconscious, Dylan, Tigger, Chris, and Mick, whoever was in the room, kept talking. Dustin loved to talk, he loved to be a part of every conversation, adult or not, and they gave him that.
Although the event taking place was somber and solemn, Dylan didn’t want the mood to be somber; she strived to keep the atmosphere as normal as possible. She watched Chris and admired her middle son’s stamina and good sense. Although suffering through what he was witnessing with his older brother, Chris kept up a good front, upbeat, high spirited and energetic. The wrestling videos played constantly, and Chris, even when Dustin was asleep, rewound the parts that they always rewound, shouted out as always when matches were “awesome” and Chris would ask Dustin if he saw this or that.