Monday, April 7, 2014

Chapter 14

Having been sent home by Richie to study in peace, Sarah did as he had asked and found a quiet place at the dining table. David had stayed at the hospital with Richie and even though it was Sarah's turn to stay with her son, she also gladly took the time to study a little more. She had until February to write her exam but she had finished the first part of the course quite quickly and was eager to receive her diploma in childhood development. Already she was thinking about expanding on the subject.

Back at the hospital, David and Richie were discussing the past month. How different it had been for the both of them.

"I'm telling you man, even with Daniel in the hospital for three, I've never spend this much time with my other kids."
"Kid." David corrected him.
"Kids, the other three."
David nodded, understanding him now. "You mean Sarah's children."
"They're my kids too. I adopted them, they're now officially Noah Sambora and Caleb Sambora."
"Really?" David asked amazed, he didn't know it worked like that.
Richie smiled, proud of his two oldest sons. "Yeah, my sons." He confirmed. "I never knew how obsessed Noah is with books, it's really cool actually. Any book you name, he's probably read it and he remembers them all. I didn't know til a month ago."
Frowning, David answered, "How don't you know he likes books, wouldn't he have a ton of books?"
Richie shook his head. "No, he buys them at this used bookstore and returns them there too, so they can - as he says - live a second life."
That made David laugh out loud.

The noise made Daniel wake up, startled, he started crying.

In return, Richie got up immediately and rushed over to the yellow painted crib to pick his son up. Settling Daniel in his arm, he picked up his Winnie the Pooh bear and walked back to the couch where he passed the stuffed bear to David.

"He loves that thing." Richie told him as he sat down on the couch, laying Daniel down next to him.
"He's supposed to. He loves his uncle Davey." David answered, leaning over to see Daniel, still holding the bear.

Daniel looked up, reaching for the bear.

"Can I hold him?" David asked, leaning back to sit again.
"Yeah sure, just be careful with the splint, it's his catheter." He picked up his son again and carefully moved him into David's arm.

To Richie's surprise, Daniel stayed quiet and didn't cry at all. He frowned.

"What's wrong?" David asked confused.
Richie shook his head in thought. "Nothing, I was just thinking. When Jon visited and wanted to hold him, all he did was cry. Same with my mom when she first came to live with us. So we ended up just holding him ourselves but he's not crying, that's great."
David looked up at him, a serious expression on his face. "Honestly, if Jon was this close to you, you'd start crying too."
Richie chuckled, "Maybe."

Steering their conversation back to where they were before Daniel had woken up, David brought up his own thoughts on being home instead of touring.

"I'm missing Tiger's play tomorrow night, she finally got the lead for it and now I'm gonna miss it." David sighed, looking down at Daniel in his arms, remembering when his own children had been that small.
Richie sighed too, knowing the feeling but there wasn't much to be done about it. "She'll get the lead again." He tried.
"I know she will, she's amazing but it won't be the first time again. That's what I'm missing."
Richie couldn't agree more. "We miss a lot. We need a break."
David frowned. "Are you gonna be back in May?"

Richie looked at Daniel, who was comfortable in David's arms, right now he seemed fine but he wasn't being discharged from the hospital just yet. Next week perhaps, they didn't know.

"Are you?" David urged.
Richie shrugged. "I don't know."

1 comment: