“I think I should avoid you in case I have it too not that we all weren’t exposed yesterday.”
“Honey, you need to be with Hannah helping her with Joshua. What other symptoms does he have?”
“Just a cough.”
“I hope it isn’t the flu.”
“We’re taking him to the doctor this morning. We already have an appointment.”
“Let me know how he is. I better call Dad, so he can come back. Grandpa can’t handle me with his shoulder like it is.”
“We’ve already worked it out.”
“Oh really.” Sophie was running her finger across the smooth surface of her dining room table while she listened to her son explain about today. Her father-in-law was joining her father in taking her to treatment.
“Okay.” This should be interesting.
She told Heath goodbye and went to the bedroom to finish getting dressed. Her dad announced himself when he arrived. She met him in the hall with her warm, blanket draped over her arm.
> “You need a blanket?” He asked frowning at her.
She nodded and handed it to him. “I get the chills when I get chemo.”
Her father had never once seen her after chemotherapy.
“Okay.”
He took it from her and Sophie followed him to the car. Her dad kept looking over his shoulder at her. Brad Russack was sitting in the back seat. A tight spot for a large man of Brad’s size in her dad’s four door sedan. Brad was used to his large Ford truck, like his son’s vehicle.
“Why isn’t Brad sitting in the front?”
“Because he wants you to be comfortable,” her dad explained.
“Right now, I am comfortable, and the back is just fine. I’m much smaller than him for your rinky, dinky car.” She opened the back door and told him to get out.
“What is the matter with you?” He was grumbling at her struggling to get his long legs out of the car.
Snow was falling around them. Pelting her in the face while she waited for Brad to get out. “Get in the front. What is the matter with you,” she teased him. “You’d be so cramped up by the time we got to the cancer center you’d be no good to me.”
He frowned at her and got in the front seat. Sophie climbed in back. Her dad shut the door and flinched because he had used his right arm. Right handed, automatic reaction to use the dominate hand.
“I hope Joshua is okay?” She said to no one in particular.
“I hope you’re okay. You were kissing on that baby, all day yesterday,” Brad replied.
She was. Nothing she could do about it now. “Worth every minute of it too,” she informed Brad.
He laughed glancing in the back seat at her. They were quiet, and she knew why. This was how she and Josh were their first time going to chemo. They were afraid of the unknown. At the center, her dad parked in the closest spot. He was always doing that to her. She rolled her eyes at him.
The two large fathers followed her to the door. Brad held the door while she and her dad walked through it. They were right behind her to the elevator. She pushed the button and glanced over her shoulder at them.
“You two are pretty quiet this morning.”
The two men were good friends. The same age. Both had gone to Cooper schools together. They weren’t disappointed when Josh and Sophie began dating in high school but would have preferred they hadn’t had to struggle so hard. That’s why they made it as easy on them when they got pregnant or as easy as they could.
“Just concerned for you,” her father replied for them both.
She nodded. The elevator doors opened, and nobody said anything else. They leaned against the back wall while Sophie stood in front of them.