Breathe With Me By Becka Mack - 24

“D O YOU THINK I HAVE a grandpa kink?”

My narrowed gaze slides to my wife as I hand her a few bags from the back of the truck before loading up my own arms with the still-hot trays we prepped this morning.

Cara starts up the walkway in front of us, glancing over her shoulder to bat her lashes and flash me a grin that’s anything but innocent. She loves to take pleasure in my pain. “I mean, yeah, sure, I’ve always seemed to have a bit of a refined palate for an older man. They tend to be more mature, don’t waste time on games, communicate more effectively…” She waggles her brows. “ Rich. ”

I sigh loudly, and she shrugs.

“All signs point to a grandpa kink.”

“I’m thirty-one today, Cara,” I remind her, and I don’t know what for. She knows how old I am. Woke me up with her version of birthday bumps, which is to say she squeezed the base of my cock in her fist, engulfed the swollen head with her mouth, and then seemed to swallow it whole before dragging her mouth back up, in slow fucking motion, thirty-one times.

“Over halfway to sixty. Might as well be a hundred.”

“You’re lucky you’re hot.” That must be the only reason I let her get away with everything, right?

“Speak for yourself.” We climb the front steps of Second Chance Home, and Cara spins into me before I can reach for the door, the trays in my arms shaking, much like her composure, as her palm grazes my cock through my jeans. “You’re the reason I have a grandpa kink.”

The door flies open, and Emily stands there, grinning at us. “Oh, look who it is. Right on time too.” She cocks her head. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.”

“Not a thing.” Cara gives my cock a little pat-pat before she heads inside. “I was just telling Emmett, now that he’s over halfway to sixty, I think I have a grandpa kink.”

“Oh my God, Emmett. Happy birthday!” She squeezes my shoulder. “I didn’t realize you were so old. Cara, have you started looking into replacements? You know, for when your model fails?”

“I’m thirty-one!” I set the trays down on the large table in the dining room, throwing my arms over my head. “I’m young! I’m hip! I’ve got lots of life left in me!”

Cara lifts a brow. “Did you just call yourself hip?”

“Maybe he was saying his hip hurts.” Emily all but shouts the words at me, enunciating each one as if I can’t otherwise hear. “ Does your hip hurt, grandpa? ”

Cara cackles, and I roll my eyes as the two of them high-five.

“I’m just teasing you.” Emily nudges my arm, then bumps her hip off Cara’s. “How are you guys? Thank you so much for bringing lunch today. I think everyone’s done, you know? Christmas is exciting, but for a lot of these kids, it’s draining. Saying goodbye to their parents when their visit is over, or never getting to say hello in the first place if they don’t show up. For a lot of them, Christmas is a reminder of what they don’t have, and I’m not talking about gifts.” She smiles sadly, pulling plates and utensils from the cupboards as Cara and I set out the food. “They’re ready for the holiday to be over.”

So am I, honestly, and I know Cara is too. I think, mostly, we just wanted to say goodbye to last year. To feel like today was a fresh start, a new beginning we desperately need. It’s not like we’re leaving the pain of the last year—or the two years before that—in the past. Rather, we’re trying to figure out how to be a little kinder to ourselves right now when we need it most. To give ourselves some grace while we heal, and figure out what that healing looks like for us. So spending the first day of the New Year, and my birthday, with the kids at the home felt like the right choice.

“Oh, Emmett, that reminds me.” Emily tilts her head toward the living room, where it sounds like most of the kids are. “There’s a little boy in there who’s going to be so happy to see you again.”

My brows jump. “Me?” Without fail, Adam and Carter cause the most excitement around here. And normally, when it’s just Cara and I… well, I’m sure you can guess who their favorite is. I grin at my wife. “Did you hear that? Someone’s excited to see me.”

“Abel,” Emily tells me. “He’s been mostly quiet since he joined us earlier in December, but ever since he learned your name…” She smiles, shaking her head. “You should see the way his face lights up when there’s a close-up shot of you on TV. Won’t take your hat off either.”

“My hat?” My mind travels back to a little boy with a mop of auburn waves, red-tipped ears, pale green eyes, and the single tear that ran down each pink cheek when I dropped my beanie on his head just a few weeks ago.

I see the curiosity in Cara’s eyes, and I’m reminded that I didn’t tell her about the little boy who looked like he was having the worst day of his life. We both were, I think. Sharing my hat with him was the only good thing that happened that day.

I move through the dining room, the kitchen, pausing at the edge of the grand living room. My gaze sweeps over the space, quieter than it’s ever been, kids curled up on couches with books, working on puzzles on the table, building on the floor. It stops on him, small and wearing a Vancouver Vipers beanie way too big for his head, a mini hockey stick in his hand, standing in front of the TV, though it’s not on. He looks around like he needs help, finding a social worker and tugging on her sleeve. He shows her his stick and points to the TV, eyes lit with a kind of eternal hope I know too well.

She cups his cheek. “No hockey tonight, Abel.”

The little boy hangs his head, and as he curls up in a big armchair all by himself, staring down at my hat scrunched up in his tiny hands, it’s that familiar fractured look in his eyes, all that crushed hope… that’s what does me in.

I rub my palm over my heart, trying to soothe the ache that pulls it taut before I finally manage to make my legs move, until I’m standing beside him, searching for the right words. Being some little kid’s hero isn’t new to me, even if I’ll never get all the way used to it. But this… this feels different somehow. He keeps his eyes downcast, pulling the hat into his stomach and folding a little further into himself as my looming shadow swallows him whole, like he’s trying to disappear, and I remember what it felt like, trying to make myself smaller for the people who towered over me.

Sinking to my knees beside his chair, I pull my beanie off, run my fingers through my hair, and tell him quietly, “I like your hat. I used to have one just like it.”

He hesitates. Unravels his fists, letting the hat fall to his lap. His head tilts, just a fraction, and slowly, his eyes rise to mine. A softer hue of green than I remember, one that reminds me, today, of new beginnings, of hope. They widen as he takes me in, looks from my face to the hat in his lap. The small hockey stick resting beside him on the windowsill, and the TV. He grips the stick in one shaking hand, the hat in the other, and there isn’t an ounce of me that’s prepared for the way those tears barrel unexpectedly down his cheeks, or the way he leaps from the chair straight into my fucking arms, wrapping his entire body around me and clinging to me like I gave him the whole world and not an old hat.

I’m not prepared for it, but I sink into it, absorbing the way I hear his little heart pounding in his chest, the way his fingers curl around my sweater, the way his tears warm my neck.

And then he whispers a single word, buries it against my shoulder, a sound so raw it feels like my heart cracks wide open.

“Emmett.”

Cara

We return to Second Chance Home two days later, and another two days after that too.

That first day, I was too stunned to do anything more than stand back, watch Emmett and Abel from across the room, the way they embraced, clung to one another like they’d known each other their whole lives, and had simply been waiting all this time to reunite. Emmett barely said anything about it on the way home, just called Abel a sweet kid who reminded him a little of himself. But later that night, when he curled his body around mine in the dark, he whispered a simple truth against my neck that had a single tear sneaking out of my eye, dropping to my pillowcase.

My heart feels happy today .

So when I suggested stopping by two days later with a Vipers teddy bear for Abel before Emmett’s home game, I wasn’t surprised he jumped at the opportunity. And two days after that, when we were picking up apple cider muffins from our favorite bakery and Emmett wondered if Abel liked liked apple cider muffins too, I still wasn’t surprised.

I am a little surprised, though, with Emmett three days into a five-day road trip, to find myself alone on the front steps of Second Chance Home.

“You gonna go inside, or just keep staring at the door?”

I glance over my shoulder as Emily heads up the walkway, winking at me. “Oh, I was just… I was…” I look at my feet, pulling my lower lip between my teeth. “I’m not sure if Abel will want to see me without Emmett.”

Emily cocks her head. “Why wouldn’t he? He talks about you all the time.”

My heart patters. “Really?” Because most of the time, I get the sense that he’s not sure of me. That he trusts Emmett, but he’s still deciding when it comes to me. “He doesn’t talk to me much. When I join them, he gets quiet, strategically positions himself so he’s halfway hiding behind Emmett. Is there something I could do to make him more comfortable around me?”

She opens the door, gesturing for me to go ahead of her. “I think what you’re doing is great. Hanging back and letting him have time with Emmett, but popping in every once in a while, talking to him with Emmett there so he knows you’re a safe person. And coming today, on your own. It lets him know you’re thinking about him. That you’re a friend too.

“The thing about kids is that they have no other choice than to trust the adults in their lives, even when those adults don’t deserve it. Kids quite literally rely on their adults to keep them alive. Eventually, though, they begin to learn that keeping them alive doesn’t necessarily mean keeping them safe. Abel found a sense of safety in Emmett, and he’s chosen to cling to that. Isn’t it wild what a gesture as simple as sharing your hat with someone in the dead of winter can do?” Emily squeezes my shoulder. “Give him a moment, some time to find that sense of safety. I think you’ll find he opens up to you the same way he does with Emmett.”

I hope so, but I can’t pretend there isn’t a pang in my chest when that little boy looks up from his puzzle, face lighting when he spies me, only for that excitement to be wiped clean off his face when he realizes Emmett isn’t with me. Still, when I walk by him, my hand led by a couple of girls who want me to play nail salon with them, I smile at him.

“Hi, Abel.”

He clutches his Vipers teddy to his chest, Emmett’s hat dipping below one eye. “Emmett?” he whispers.

“Not today, sweetheart. He’s in Chicago for a hockey game.”

His face falls. “Oh.”

“He did tell me to tell you that he’d wave to the camera tonight, just for you.”

Abel grins. “Really?”

“Mhmm. Since he couldn’t say hi in person.”

Pink heat pools in his cheeks, and he looks up at me for a moment, like he wants to say something. Instead, he tucks his puzzle away, even though it’s not finished, and finds a spot to curl up in the cozy armchair I first spotted him in.

And he watches me. Subtly, at first, stolen glances he tries to hide behind his teddy, and then flushed cheeks when I catch him and he whips his head the other way. Until, finally, the sweet boy is sprawled over the arm of the chair, giggling at me every time I put on an Academy Award–winning performance of utter shock every ten seconds when I catch him watching me.

When I’m done playing nail salon, I busy myself with cleaning up someone else’s mess left at the bookshelf, because I have no idea what to do next. Can I go over there? Ask to sit with him, to talk with him? Am I going to scare him off? Should I let him come to me?

I glance around the room, locating Emily. She’ll know what to do.

But just as I turn around, prepared to climb to my feet and chase after her, I come face-to-face with mussed copper waves, a hat that’s barely hanging on, jade eyes, and a bashful grin.

“Hi, Abel,” I say with a smile.

He twists back and forth, playing with his teddy, gaze bouncing between me and the bookshelves.

“I was just picking a book to read,” I tell him. “Do you think you could help me?”

He nods, inching by me, fingers drifting over the books before he selects Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

“One of my favorites.” I stand, looking at the couch. “Do you want to read it with me?”

Another nod, and then he steps forward and… tucks his hand into mine.

It’s silly, how such a small thing, his tiny fingers wrapped around mine, has my head… quieting. The voices are there still, the ones I’m committed to silencing, but they’re not… roaring. For the first time in so long, my thoughts feel… manageable. And I can’t find the words to explain what that means to me.

As I head for the couch, Abel tugs on my hand, pulling me in another direction, toward his chair. Hugging the book to his chest, he looks at the old, comfy seat, then back to me. I sink down to it, hoping I’m not misunderstanding, and when Abel carefully climbs up onto my lap, settling himself against my chest, I truly cannot explain the sudden urge to cry. I just feel… I don’t know. Lucky, maybe. Worthy. Abel’s choosing me. What have I done to deserve that?

Looking down at the cover, I smile. It’s my favorite illustration of this nursery rhyme, and I trace the little girl sitting on the crescent moon, surrounded by glittering constellations. I open the book, ready to start, but a quiet voice stops me.

“You is Emmett’s Cara.”

“That’s right,” I tell Abel. “My name is Cara. Emmett is my husband.”

He pats the beanie on his head, sending it down over his eyes. “Emmett gived me this hat.”

I snicker, shifting the beanie back up. “Oh, there you are! I thought I lost you for a second.”

He giggles, and when his nose scrunches, I die on the inside. “I’m ’dis many,” he tells me, holding up three fingers. “Do you know how many ’dis is?”

“Hmm, let’s see. Could you help me count?”

He nods, and I tap one tiny finger, then the other, counting slowly. On the third finger, he calls out, “ Twee! I’m twee years old, but—” He shrugs, palms up. “—I is gonna be four soon, did you know?”

“ Four? No way!”

“Yep, and guess what?” He twists on his knees to face me, crossing his arms over his chest, brows high. “It’s something really cool.”

“What is it?”

He leans closer, until our foreheads are nearly touching. “When I is four, I won’t be twee no more. Because—because… because when I was a baby, I was twee, but when I’m a big, biiig adult, I will be four. ”

“You’re growing so fast. Do you know how old I’ll be this year?”

He nods, eyes wide. With all the certainty in the world, he tells me, “ Seven. ”

Taking his face in my hands, I match his wide eyes with my own and say, “ Twenty-nine .”

Abel gasps. “Is you a gwandma?”

Emily snickers from across the room. “Grandpa’s gonna love that,” she murmurs, winking at me, and I know she’s talking about Emmett.

“I’m not a grandma,” I tell him.

“Oh. That’s good.” He settles back against my chest, laying his cheek over my heart. “I hab a gwandma, but I hab to call her Elizabef. She is not very nice to me or to m-m-my Catharine.” He smiles up at me then, bleary green eyes that don’t show an ounce of the dislike I feel for a woman I’ve never met. “Can you read to me now, Cara? Please?”

I do, of course. I read it once, then twice, Abel’s finger tracing the stars on each page. I start a third time, per his request, but this time he keeps his eyes on me while I read, watching me with a sleepy, dazed smile I can barely tear my eyes from. And when I close the book for the third time, I’m grateful I have nowhere to be—I couldn’t bear to wake the sweet boy sleeping peacefully on my chest.

Emily stops on her way by us, doing a double take. “Oh my God.”

“What? Is this not allowed? Is this not okay?” Panic bubbles in my chest. “I’m sorry. We were reading, and he just—”

“Abel’s refused a nap every single day he’s been here. We’ve all tried, so hard, but no matter what…” She trails off, blue gaze coming to mine, and she smiles. “See? I told you. Give him a minute; he’ll find safety with you.”

Is that what this is? Does Abel feel… safe with me? The thought alone is staggering, that somebody so innocent could find safety and comfort with me, when I haven’t been able to find it in myself for so long.

Maybe that’s why I tell her, “I think you’re giving me credit where credit isn’t due.”

Emily blinks at me. Juts her hip. Raises a brow. “So, hey.” She takes a seat across from me, propping her chin on her hip, grinning. “Why don’t we chat?”

I chuckle, dropping my head. “Uh-oh. I’ve activated shrink mode.” Emily’s a child psychologist, and she runs her own center dedicated to helping children and teens overcome trauma. She also spends several hours a week working with the kids at Second Chance Home at no charge. “I thought I was safe. I’m an adult.”

“A grandma, according to some.” She smiles when I laugh. “Do you wanna do this the hard way or the easy way?”

“Hard for me or for you?”

“Truthfully, all ways are easy for me.”

“The easy way, then. For me. I… I don’t know. It’s just not been that easy, admitting how defeating the fertility stuff has been.”

She nods, thinks for a moment, and then says, “Hey, I didn’t know you and Emmett were foster parents.”

“I—” I blink at her, not sure what to say. “We’re… not.”

“You did the training. About a year ago now, according to the records I saw. So, technically, you are, whether you have kids in your care or not.”

“Yeah, but we’re not… Are you suggesting… Because we wouldn’t… We’d be shit at it.”

Emily cocks her head. “Would you? Why did you do the training?”

“Because there are people in our lives who are important to us who have spent time in the foster system and whose lives have been impacted by it.” Like Adam, when he was five. And Rosie, from the time her parents died when she was twelve, all the way to when she aged out of the system. And Lily, their daughter, who they adopted last spring. It almost felt irresponsible of us not to, knowing what we know.

“I’m not sure I have it in me,” I admit on a whisper. “I know how important a foster parent is. A safe adult to talk to, a safe place to call home during the time a child needs it most. But…” I look at the sleeping boy in my lap, and without thinking, my hand goes to his head, fingers sifting through his waves as I try to swallow the tightness in my throat. “I’d fall in love. And then I’d have to say goodbye.” Eyes on the ceiling, I blink back the tears stinging my eyes. “I am… so tired of saying goodbye.”

A single tear works its way out, rolling down my cheek. I swat it away, furious with myself for losing control again.

“Hey.” Emily catches my gaze, holding it. “Choosing to go after something you want and putting all of yourself into it, even when you’re not getting the results you want… there isn’t a word in existence to describe exactly how difficult that is. You are brave and strong for trying. You are brave and strong for recognizing when you need to take a break. And if one day you decide to walk away, you’ll be brave and strong then too. You spend all your time being brave and strong, even when you don’t want to be, and certainly shouldn’t need to be. I admire you, Cara. I hope one day you are able to look back on this time in your life and admire yourself too.”

I blink away my tears, the anger at myself melting away. “Oh my God,” I mutter, realizing where we’d wound up in no time at all. “How did you do that? We were talking about fostering, and then…” I shake my head. “You wanna be my psychologist? I could use one.”

She laughs, quiet and tired. “You know, I always wonder who I would be if I’d had the help I needed when I was a kid. I didn’t, though. Didn’t get it ’til I was in college.” She rubs her temple. “Sometimes I have trouble convincing myself it wasn’t too late.”

“It’s never too late.”

“Late is always better than never. But it’s easier to dig yourself out of a hole you don’t want to be in when you’ve spent less time there. I might be different if I’d only sat by myself in that hole for a couple years, not twelve.”

“You’re a beautiful person, Emily. Exactly as you are now.”

Though her smile is genuine and soft, there’s a haunted look in her deep blue eyes. “I like myself. And I think my inner child is proud of me. But I’ll always wish for more for the little girl who needed it.” Emily clears her throat, blinking until her gaze clears. “Anyway, that’s why I work with kids. I want them to have the best shot at life, and this is where I can make the most impact. Especially with Second Chance. It’s such an incredible place, so wonderfully staffed and supported, but one of the last group homes still standing.”

I nod, thinking back on our foster training, the focus on stable, family-like environments. “And yet Second Chance is almost always at capacity.”

“There’s a severe shortage of foster homes, and I think that’s why Second Chance will always be a staple in our community. They’re lucky to have so much support from the Vipers.”

My gaze falls to Abel, and I stroke his pink cheek. “How’s he doing?” I ask before I can stop myself. “In a group setting?”

“He would benefit greatly from a typical family dynamic. Even when he was living at home with his family, he didn’t really have that. We did have hope that the group setting might be beneficial in the sense that he’d get more interaction, socialization with peers… but, ultimately, he needs stability, the sense of belonging that comes with a family environment. He needs a community that welcomes him with open arms.” She swings a smile my way, her tone lightening. “We all do, though, don’t we?”

“What’s that saying? It takes a village?”

“A whole-ass village,” she confirms. “Do you mind if I overstep for a second?”

“I love overstepping.”

“I’m going to send you my friend’s info. She’s a therapist who specializes in PTSD associated with infertility.”

“PTSD? But—”

“Yes, PTSD. It’s not just for veterans, and we really need to shift that stigma, because PTSD is so wonderfully inclusive of all.” She taps away on her phone, and I feel mine vibrate in my back pocket before she tucks hers away, giving me her full attention. I’m not sure I want it, not based on how she seems to see right through me. “My mom remarried when I was eight. She and my stepdad tried for four years to have a baby.”

“Secondary infertility?”

She nods. “She couldn’t understand why she’d been able to get pregnant with me without issue but couldn’t get a single positive pregnancy test this time. The fourth year, she had three positives. Three pregnancies; two from IUIs, one from an embryo transfer. She miscarried the first two early in the first trimester. The third she lost at sixteen weeks. They told her that her uterus wasn’t a suitable home for a baby.”

Fuck. “Why do they always have to word things like that?”

“I don’t know. But my mom fixated on those words. Let them define who she was, dictate her worth. Her uterus wasn’t suitable, or worthy, so neither was she.” Emily glances at the ceiling, pulling in a deep breath. It doesn’t stop the two tears that slide down her cheeks. “Please, Cara, take care of yourself. Give yourself grace. Look this fight right in its face and tell it, with everything you are, that you aren’t going to let it win. That you’re willing to bend, but under no circumstances are you willing to break. Tell it to fuck right off. You hear me?”

It’s weird, because I’ve wanted to do that for so long. Tried, even. And I’m not sure if it’s Emily’s story, her ferocity, or the little boy curled up and dozing soundlessly in my lap. Maybe both.

All I know is when I leave two hours later, after Abel wakes up, it’s with a determination I haven’t known in so long, it feels foreign.

And still, even later, when I’m standing in front of my bathroom mirror before bed, naked and with the latest of Emmett’s messages scrawled on the glass, I mean every word that I give myself.

“I’m going to love you, even on our hardest days.”

And I feel my body warm from the inside out, like my heart is smiling.