"Okay?" I looked at her quizzically.

"I've had a very emotional weekend," she said. "My voice problems probably came from that, not from a cold."

"How come?"

She cleared her throat. She looked down at her hands, then she looked back at me. "The hospice training was at Rayburn Correctional Center."

My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open. "You went to Dad's prison?"

"I did. Your father was supposed to be one of the hospice trainees, but they wouldn't let him take the class because I was there. There's a rule about volunteers not being on anyone's visitor's list. Since I've never actually visited Paul, they let me attend, but that meant he couldn't."

She shrugged. "It gave me a chance to see what the prison was like without the emotional entanglement of seeing Paul." She took a deep breath. "I talked to the Deputy Warden after the training. I explained to him about everything that's happened to keep me from visiting Paul. I told him that I wanted to visit Paul on Saturday. He said I was welcome to do that. They didn't take my name off of Paul's list. They just let me come in this one time as a hospice volunteer."

"You went to see Dad?" My voice sort of squeaked.

"I did. It was time. You and Uncle Clarence have been insisting that Paul's changed. I got a call from a One Day with God volunteer. She wants me to let you spend a day in prison with your Dad. They have these ODWG camps twice a year. Selected Dads get to invite their children, but the volunteers do all of the invitations by phone. I guess they think it's harder to say no when you're talking to someone than if they sent out paper invites with an RSVP. They probably have fewer that back out this way, too. Anyway, the next one is on March 18." She took a deep breath. "Before I could give them an answer, I needed to see your Dad for myself."

"Dad said those volunteers were persuasive, but geez. I never thought they'd get you to go see Dad."

"Yeah. I know, he told me. I didn't either, but with everything that's happened, God's kind of been getting on my case. How could I turn down a camp with God's name in it without even looking into it?"

"Did you check it out?"

"I did. They have a whole website. They do camps in multiple states. I was able to click on the RCC link and see pictures and testimonials."

"Duh." I hit my forehead with my palm." I didn't even think about looking for a website. And I thought you were the computer illiterate."

She laughed. "Well, I usually am. Anyway, I went on Saturday and spent two hours talking to your Dad. I'm not going to go into everything, but forgiveness was offered and accepted all around. There were tears, too" She held up the Kleenex she was using to dab her leaking eyes. "Aren't there always with me?"

I must have looked hopeful because she continued hurriedly. "That doesn't mean we're getting back together or anything. There's too much water under that bridge, but it does mean we're on speaking terms. I might even use the word friends."

"So does that mean I get to go to ODWG?"

"I don't know. That's another reason why I had to talk to the Deputy Warden. June, that's the volunteer I talked to, said that because of your conviction for joyriding, the administration will have to decide whether you can come. They don't let adults come in who have an active conviction, but this is the first time they've been faced with a juvenile who has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Since you haven't been sentenced yet, your conviction isn't actually active. I explained everything to him. I told him that you plan to testify against your partners in crime. I told him that it could only be a good thing for you to spend a day talking to your Dad and maybe getting a small taste of what it's like to be behind bars. He even agreed to pray about it." She smiled. "I never thought about there being a warden that prays, but I guess God has people everywhere. Anyway, he will make the recommendation, but the head warden will make the final decision."

"Is he in God's corner?"

She pointed to the Chainlink Chronicle. "I didn't ask, but based on what he said about the holidays in "The Warden's Word" in that publication, I think he might be."

I picked up the magazine and opened it to the short article written by the warden. I had skipped it the first time through. "Wow. It sure sounds like he's a Jesus man."

"It does."

"So more wait and see?"

"On that front, yes." She twisted her engagement ring. She did that a lot when she was nervous. "The other thing I needed to talk to you about is my marriage."

"Is it back on?"

"It was never off," she said. "Just postponed. Anyway, we decided to go ahead with a Valentine's wedding."

I grinned. "Way to go."

"I guess. It's going to be sort of rushed, but Aunt Glory said she was coming whether I got married or not. Mom and Dad said we'd make it a family reunion one way or the other. All of Seth's family could still make it. Anyway, all my BFFs said they'll help me pull things together. We're going to get married under the big oak tree in the back yard and have eats inside afterward, so there was no venue to worry about."

"Slow your roll and take a drink of water before your voice gives out again," I said.

She laughed and took a gulp of water. "That just leaves the wedding party." She sort of left the sentence hanging. It was my turn to grab a drink of water. I thought she was going to twist her finger off while I did.

"What's to worry about? Aunt Glory will be here to stand up for you. I can stand up long enough to be Seth's bestie, and ..."

That's as far as I got. She jumped out of the chair and started to throw her arms around me but then settled for grabbing my face and giving me a smack on the lips.

"Oh, CW, you've made my day."

I laughed. "Well, Seth's not my Dad, but he's not a bad guy, and he makes you happy. I think we'll do okay under the same roof. Might as well start at the wedding."

She dabbed at her eyes with her Kleenex again. "Oh, yeah. We went ahead with the renovations. We already had the contractor lined up and everything. We figured we'd go ahead with it, even if Seth didn't move his office. Now that the wedding is back on, so is the move. Seth's new office will open on March 1, when his lease is up where he's at now."

"So I won't be home alone. Da—rat," I changed the expletive in midstream, but I grinned when I said it.

Mom insisted on sleeping in the recliner that night. "I know you don't need me," she said. "But I need to be here, and this way I won't have to rush to get here to talk to Dr. Patel."

"Will they let me go home that early?"

"He'll write the orders then. Discharge takes a while. There are myriad papers to sign and stuff like that. You'll probably get out of here around 9 or 10."

She turned off the lights and settled in her chair with her Kindle. She never went straight to sleep. We heard laughter and clapping outside. There was a soft knock on the door. Mom went over and opened the door a crack, just enough for me to see Nurse Jeannie standing outside grinning.

"I'll be right back," Mom said.

I wondered what all the commotion was about. "Probably somebody's birthday," I thought. I drifted off but jerked back awake when Mom came back in, letting light stream in through the door.

"Geez, Mom, can't a guy get some shuteye around this place?"

"It's hard. But I woke you up on purpose. I thought you'd want to hear this." She was smiling like there was no tomorrow.

"Aunt Glory got here early," I guessed.

"Hardly. It's way better. BJ woke up." She danced a jig over to my bed. "He didn't just open his eyes, either. He is talking and making sense and everything."

"Did you hear him?"

"Well, no. I didn't horn in on it, but the nurse who is assigned to BJ let the nurses here know. Jeannie and I sneaked over and took a peak down the hall, but there was so much activity, we couldn't really see anything."

"Wow," I said "Wow!" I reached out and took Mom's hand. "I prayed for him, you know. I told God he didn't deserve to die, but I didn't know if God was listening. I mean everyone seemed to think BJ was done in."

"I know what you mean. They're calling it a miracle, but we human medical professionals often get it wrong. It's hard for man to realize that God is in control, no matter how dire the medical prognosis."

I had sort of been where BJ was, maybe not in as bad a shape but in a coma. I knew he had a long ways to go to get well, but now I knew he would. That night I slept more soundly than any night since I'd been in the hospital.

There was just a week between my discharge and the wedding. Mom spent a lot time on the phone with caterers and florists. She had someone come over and clean the house from top to bottom. A landscaper came in to make the yard presentable for a wedding. I thought it looked fine to start with, but I had to admit it really looked good with the makeover.

The weather evidently planned to cooperate with an outside wedding in February. I'd envisioned us all standing around with coats over our wedding finery, but it was unseasonably warm and was supposed to stay that way until the weekend after the wedding.

While Mom was busy finalizing the wedding, she made sure that I had a strict schedule for my rehab and my studies. I had school every morning, all morning, whether I had a tutor or not. It's unbelievable how much faster you can get stuff done without a class full of dweebs to put up with. My therapist came in the afternoon twice a week, but I was expected to do an hour of exercise on my own the other days. The rest of the afternoons were mine. I spent most of my free time in F2. I sometimes hooked my tablet up to the TV, but I no longer logged into the forbidden sites. It wasn't just because I was using the tablet that was under my name and the history would show up for Mom to see, though. My appetite for war games seemed to have waned now that I was no longer hanging out with Jake and Marlow. Instead, I found places on line where I could play things with only my left hand. I found some Sherlock Holmes type mystery sites that were cool, and I could do on-line bowling.

Aunt Glory came in on the 11th. She had gotten the school to give her some personal time because of my injury. She was going to stay with me from the 15th to the 19th so Mom and Seth could have a short honeymoon on the coast. She wasn't flying back out until the 24th. I was down with that. Aunt Glory was cool. I remembered her beating me unmercifully at Monopoly the last time she was here. She liked hiking and stuff, too. I figured that even though I couldn't do strenuous things, we'd find ways to pass the time.

On the 12th Mom got a call from the school. The school board had agreed that it was best for me to remain homebound for the remainder of the school year.

"It looks like all the hurdles are falling into place," Mom said.

"Now if we'd just hear from the prison," I added.

"Why do you need to hear from the prison?" Aunt Glory asked.

"It's a long story," Mom said, "and I don't have time to go into it."

"I've got lots of time," Aunt Glory said.

"Not today, you don't," Mom said. "We've got to find you a dress. Tonight all my BFFs are taking my bridal attendant and me out on the town. Tomorrow we've got a spa day to get all prettied up for the wedding. You'll have to get CW to fill you in while I'm honeymooning."

"Well, since you didn't call me the old maid of honor, I guess I'll fall in with your plan. But you can fill me in at the spa. We'll have some time just laying around waiting for the face masks and cucumbers to do their things."

"That's not a conversation I care to have in public."

I grinned. "It'll wait, Aunt Glory. Don't even try to get her talking about anything except wedding stuff. She's been all frazzled because she had to pull everything together in a week. She's been Hurricane Patty all week. I think she's reached a category 4 and if you try to get her to talk, she'll definitely move into 5 territory. You don't want to deal with that."

"Alrighty. Nothing but wedding. Got it."

Seth and I were told to coordinate our wedding attire. He said he planned to wear a pair of khakis and a pale blue, button-down shirt with a striped tie.

"Nah, man, you can't wear those threads," I said.

"Why not? We're not going formal so I don't need a tux."

"You'd look like an advertisement for Psychology Today. Mom isn't marrying her shrink. She's marrying her man." I sort of exaggerated the word and wiggled my eyebrows.

"What do you suggest?"

"Something casual cool."

"And what might that be?"

"You know, turtle neck, jacket with a turned up collar, jeans."

We settled on black jeans, boots, and black jean jackets. Seth wouldn't give up his button down shirt, but at least I got him to wear one that was a vivid blue, not the pale washed-out variety he preferred. He agreed to lose the tie.

I turned up my collar and the cuffs of my sleeves on the jacket to get the right vibe. Under it I wore a long sleeved, royal blue t-shirt with a couple of red hearts on the front pierced by a single arrow. I bought it as a joke, but Aunt Glory and Mom thought it was the bomb. They insisted that it was the perfect touch for a teen bestie. I think they had one too many glasses of wine on their night out with the girls.

Seth and his brothers went out to celebrate his last night as a free man. They took me out for pizza and bowling first. Not that I could bowl very well with my left hand. That part of the evening was their concession to an underage bestie. They didn't even have a cute scantily clad waitress bring out a cake, much less pop out of one. I guess those kinds of carryings on were x-rated and not for my consumption.

The wedding went off pretty much without a hitch. No birds dirtied the party with droppings, but with the warm weather, a squirrel did venture out of hiding and onto a limb to stare solemnly down at the gathering. The only blip was when Seth's brother played a song called Celebrate when he was supposed to be playing a modern rendition of the Lord's Prayer. He let it play to a natural stopping place after two phrases that included the word celebrate four times. Everyone was grinning from ear to ear. I preferred the upbeat accident to the slow prayer that sounded like it was a dirge.

The preacher was a cool dude who didn't believe in dragging things out. Mom and Seth said their I do's twenty minutes after they reached their places under the tree. When he introduced them to us as Seth and Patsy Collinsworth, I realized for the first time that Mom and I would no longer have the same last name. That kinda weirded me out for a minute, and I almost missed my cue to escort Aunt Glory across the yard to the reception area.

The wedding cake was pineapple upside down. The tiny bride and groom looked like they were walking through a field of dung, but it sure was tasty. The table with eats was piled high with fried catfish, hushpuppies and coleslaw. This was my kind of spread.

Mom's friends had prepared bottles of bubbles to be blown over the bride and groom as they left on their honeymoon. I cheated and brought a bubble bottle with a battery-powered blower just to make sure that Mom and Seth would be properly sent off. Of course Seth's brothers made certain that the car was appropriately decked out. They even put sardines on the motor. Yuk. One of them stole all of the underwear out of the bride and groom's suitcase, too.

An hour after the sendoff, Aunt Glory and I were finishing up the cleanup when her phone rang. She picked it up and looked at the screen.

She hit the answer button and said, "My word, Patty; he's 14 not 4 months old. Can't you even take a night off from the Mom vigil."

She listened for a minute and then handed me the phone. "It's for you."

"What's up Mom? You forget something, underwear maybe?"

"No! I've already been shopping for some thongs."

"TMI."

"I missed a call from June during the festivities. She said the committee for One Day With God is meeting tomorrow at 4pm. You're on the agenda. They want to have a Skype conversation with you. I called her and gave her your number. Keep your phone or computer close. This is one call you don't want to miss. And honeymoon or no, I want you to call me after it's over and let me know what happened, capiche?"

"Aye, Aye, Captain."