A Family For Keeps

by Rheland Richmond

  They went on to say that there was a possibility that two of the baby girls born that day had been switched in the nursery. The board was asking that parents submit to blood tests to determine whether this was really what had happened.

  When Tristan's brain caught up to the horror that was unfolding and when he fully understood what this could mean for him and Sammy, fury and fear were battling for the top spot. Blood was boiling in his veins; tears were blurring his vision.

  Could life really hate him that much that this could be happening? Could such a mistake really happen in this day and age? Why the hell hadn’t she been tagged immediately she was born?

  Babies were supposed to be tagged immediately after birth so this kind of thing didn’t occur!

  Tristan suddenly fell to the ground and wrapped his hands around his knees and leaned his chin on them. He tried to take a breath, but it was like his body had forgotten how. His brain was screaming for him to breathe, but he couldn’t take in any oxygen at all. He couldn’t be having a panic attack now, Tristan thought, panic warring with anger for equal footing.

  Tristan tried to think logically for a second, and he realized they probably hadn’t followed procedure, due to the intense nature of the situation. He hadn’t been there; he didn’t know.

  As much as he tried to follow the logic, he couldn’t help the anger that thrummed through his veins. How could they screw up so epically?

  But the panic, the panic was much more dominant than the anger. If a mistake had been made that day, the possibility of his baby being part of it was likely. The doctors had been trying to save Shannon and the other victims in the accident. There was no one to hold her the moment she came into the world, no mother or father.

  The baby that his sister had carried in her womb, the one she had probably read to, talked to, and shared all her dreams for when she was in her belly. The baby his sister never got to hold, never got to see, and had wanted more than anything, might have accidentally been switched for another little girl.

  His brain was screaming so many things; he couldn’t pick one to focus on.

  He did the only thing he could think of, holding his phone so tight he thought he might snap it in half. Once he heard the familiar voice on the other end on the phone, all he could croak out was, “Teo! I need you now! It’s an emergency!”

  Tristan wasn’t sure how long he sat on that kitchen floor until Teo showed up. Or even how he stopped himself from screaming at the injustice of it all and waking Samantha and Layla. But the next time he looked up, his best friend was there. He knew some people would think him weak or childish calling his best friend, but he didn’t care. Teo had been his one constant as long as he could remember. Even before Shannon passed away but more so now.

  He looked up at Teo, but all that came out of his mouth was, “NO, NO! It’s not true! Tell me this is not happening, Teo.”

  “You’re scaring me, Tris. What’s wrong? What happened? What’s not true? Where’s Sammy?” he said, looking around. “What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Tris, you gotta talk to me, man.”

  He grabbed Teo and looked into his eyes. “Teo, don’t let them take my baby. Tell me it’s not true. Tell me this is some horrible dream?”

  “Calm down, honey. You’re not making any sense. I can’t help you if you don’t make any sense.”

  He opened his mouth and started forming words. He wasn’t sure if they made sense, but from Teo’s horrified look, he must be saying things that were understandable. Because Teo looked how Tristan probably felt, like someone had kicked him in the nuts.

  He heard Teo say, “Lain, call my dad. Please tell him to get to Tristan’s now. This is beyond my expertise. We need a lawyer. Now. We definitely need a lawyer.”

  “I need to see my daughter,” Tristan heard himself say. “I need to hold her. I just need to hold my baby.”

  He jumped up and ran towards the stairs, but Teo caught him before he could even make it to the stairs. Tristan sagged against Teo, feeling completely wrung out.

  “Hey! Careful. You’re going to fall in a heap,” Teo said, gripping him firmly and guiding him towards the sitting area and settling him into the nearest sofa. Teo pulled the coffee table from its spot and moved it closer to where Tristan sat. He sat down and cupped Tristan face gently, making sure he had his attention, before he said, “Tris, if you go in there all panicked, you’re going to scare her. The hospital is only saying you should get Sammy tested. We don’t know why. There must be other baby girls that could fit the profile. We don’t know. I’m sure there were more than two baby girls born that day.”

  He wasn’t sure who Teo was trying to convince. Tristan or himself, because the last part was murmured under his breath like if he said it out loud, then it would make it so.

  The part of him that hoped beyond hope that this was some horrible mistake wanted to hold on to that. He sighed inwardly, but his more logical side, the side that had been let down one too many times, just knew that if something had happened that day, then the likelihood of it being his Sammy was high. She had been all alone for the first few hours of her life. The doctors were trying to save Shannon and probably didn’t pay as much attention to her baby girl as they should have.

  From all accounts, that night had been chaos from what he’d been told. The accident that had taken his sister and made his niece motherless had affected a lot of people.

  How one man’s careless choice could ruin so many lives was all he could think of. The fact that said man was only going to serve fifteen years for vehicular manslaughter only served to anger him more, but after years in therapy, he was not going to let himself get worked up about things he could not change.

  But he needed someone to blame, and the hospital, the drunk driver, and everything that had led to this moment, was open to his rage.

  Tristan could feel the effects of the day and now this on his body. But he had to focus. He needed to know his options. He reminded himself that he wasn’t that scared twenty-two-year-old kid anymore. Now he was a grown man, a father, a successful business owner. He could handle it; he had to handle it because he would die for Sammy, so if he had to go to war for her, then so be it.

  Being a father had toughened him up. He’d had to grow up pretty quick to be responsible for Samantha. It wouldn’t be the first time he had to fight for his kid, and if he didn’t let his parents take her when they decided to contest Shannon’s guardianship arrangements, then it would be a cold day in hell before he gave her up.

  He remembered right after the custody hearing Sonya, Teo’s mom, said, “You don’t realize how strong you are till you become a parent. You’re a father and fathers do anything for their children. Anything! Remember that.”

  3

  Tristan

  Tristan had spent the past few days going out of his mind. After talking to Benjamin, Teo’s dad, who’d counseled him to use a private lab for Sammy’s test. He’d done exactly that. Researching and using a couple of different labs. Four to be exact. Excessive? Yes, but he wanted to be a hundred percent accurate.

  Luckily they hadn’t had to draw blood for the test, so Sammy didn’t get stuck with needles; a simple buccal swab had done it.

  The more Tristan thought about it, the more he worked up a head of steam, and instead of the hospital, he focused his anger on the father mentioned in the letter. Who the hell was he to initiate this chaos?

  Why couldn’t he leave well enough alone? What made him test his daughter? Was he not happy with Shannon’s child, which he now knew without a doubt the other child was?

  Did he want to trade? His anger kept building with every day that passed. Tristan went from being mad that he’d initiated this clusterfuck to indignation on his and Shannon’s behalf. Wasn’t his sister’s child good enough for the man; was he saying that their DNA was lacking in some way?

  Then it would hit him; somewhere out there, in some other home, there was a little girl who might have Shannon’s eyes and he
r stubborn chin, with her mischievous smile and ability to focus so intently on a single thing almost like she could bend it to her will if she tried hard enough. A child that had never heard her mother’s heartbeat outside her body.

  But then Tristan would look at his Sammy and swore that no matter what, no one was taking her from him. Because she was his. But then, Shay had entrusted him with her child, and he might have lost her, actually physically misplaced her albeit through no fault of his own. And wasn’t that just a hysterical thought. Tristan had a lot of those recently.

  He knew Sammy couldn’t understand why Daddy was being extra clingy the past few weeks. Why he hadn’t left her side. Tristan couldn’t bring himself to be separated from his daughter. He felt like if he didn’t have his eyes on her at all times, she would disappear from his life. Poof like magic. He would turn around, and she would be gone.

  He’d made his decision. Granted, not without some trepidation. Even more than he’d felt from receiving the phone call the day Shannon had been in an accident. He’d known then, and just like he knew now, that whatever happened next, his life would never be the same.

  When the day finally came to go to the meeting scheduled with the hospital, Tristan refused to take Sammy anywhere near there. It wasn’t logical, and obviously, they couldn’t switch his child again, but he didn’t trust them. Full stop. Point blank. Period.

  Tristan was prepared for this day, albeit filled with anger and condemnation. From the moment he walked into that hospital conference room, all he saw were officials trying to kiss his ass. Like it would change a thing, he thought scornfully.

  They looked at him with anxiety, and he didn’t care. Tristan had no plans of alleviating any of their worries. Everyone in the room knew Tristan held all the power. He could see their minds working hard trying to analyze every word he said to see if there were any hints about his decision. Sue or settle that was the million-dollar question now, wasn’t it?

  Would he sue or wouldn’t he? He wasn’t even sure. But every breath they took, every moment of uncertainty he was able to give them had given him a perverse sense of pleasure. Tristan could tell their main concern was if he would be taking them to the cleaners? He also knew from Benjamin that they were going to follow his lead, but try and initiate talks of a settlement, just to feel him out.

  But he wasn’t ready to talk settlements. They had invited chaos and heartache into his life. Why shouldn’t he keep them in a state of uncertainty? If it happened to be a source of amusement for him, well, that was just a happy coincidence.

  Unfortunately for them, years of living with parents who couldn’t hide how much of a disappointment they thought he was had taught him how not to show emotion. His poker face was flawless. He would not allay their fears; they deserved to sweat. And sweat they would until he was ready.

  Granted, he hadn’t made up his mind one way or another about a lawsuit. But they didn’t need to know that. With the way he was feeling and if he acted purely on emotion, they would pay until they bled. But he knew that no matter how much they paid, nothing would make up for throwing a bomb into the middle of his life.

  Terms like investigation and finding those responsible were thrown around. They assured him that they were interviewing nurses and everyone who was on duty on the night in question, but it would take time as not everyone who worked that night still worked in the hospital or even lived in the state anymore. They tried to assure him that somebody would be held responsible. Like that somehow made a difference to him.

  They went on and on spouting crap about hospital policies and shit he didn’t care about, telling him babies were always tagged at birth.

  If Tristan was in a charitable mood he would have conceded that it was just pure human error, a freak one-in-a-million accident. He could probably even acknowledge why it had occurred in Sammy’s case since they hadn’t even made it close to a birthing room with Shannon. But he wasn’t feeling quite so charitable, so instead, he asked, “Why wasn’t the other child tagged at birth?”

  He was told that the other woman, the woman that carried Sammy, had started hemorrhaging after the trauma from the accident had caused an otherwise normal labor to turn into a life-threatening situation for her and the baby. They’d had to get the baby out quickly and rush her into surgery to stop the bleeding. The doctors had feared for her life and with the baby being born in the ER and her having to be rushed to the OR, someone had missed a step somewhere.

  “The woman was actually a surrogate,” they informed him. They said her husband was more intent on his wife than a baby that was not biologically theirs. She had gone into early labor, and the biological father of the child couldn’t get to the hospital on time as he’d been out of the city.

  Damn these people were really covering their bases, Tristan thought. He didn’t care. It all sounded like a bunch of excuses to him. These were babies, they were defenseless, someone should have been more observant. “You should have done better,” he shot at them.

  No one said anything back to him. He hadn’t expected them to.

  Tristan should have gotten Teo and Lain to come with him, because he was losing his cool, and he shouldn’t be. He so could not lose it before he met Sammy’s biological parents. He was already a single parent. He shouldn’t give them more ammo to use against him if they tried to take her. They could even try and retain custody of Shannon’s child for some “fabricated” reason like him being “emotionally unstable.”

  Teo’s dad had said something that had shaken Tristan. “Play nice, Tristan. You want to make friends with these people; she’s not your child, not by law. Going to court to fight for custody of her won’t change that, and it won’t do anyone any good. The biological parents win custody. They usually do in cases like this, especially as neither one of you is at fault. In these situations, the courts send the children to their biological relatives and don’t necessarily give visitation. They really don’t have a legal obligation to.”

  Tristan was done talking to the suits. They weren’t saying anything he wanted to hear, so he interrupted the man speaking and said, “I want to meet with them, the other parents.” He got up, and as he reached the exit, he said, “Set it up immediately.”

  4

  Nathaniel

  Nathaniel would pay big money to be doing anything but this today. He would rather return home to Em and make sure her condition hadn’t worsened. He was sure he would much prefer sitting with her and reading her stories and hearing her giggle while she said, “One more, Daddy! One more.” She always wanted another story from him. He loved playing with her and holding her and seeing her learn, listening to her laugh. He loved the way her eyes lit up in wonder at new discoveries.

  Maybe he was being arrogant coming without an attorney, but he felt like he could handle Ethan Tristan Callahan, from the little he had read about him. The guy was a baker for God’s sake.

  Nathaniel had forgotten the meaning of sleep over the past three weeks. His life was a living hell, and his sleep wasn’t much better. As a man who had clawed his way to the top so that he could have control over his life, he felt like that eight-year-old child that got dumped into foster care because his druggie mother cared more about her next fix than taking care of him. He felt out of control.

  He remembered trying to keep things going. His mother wasn’t the type to bother. She sure as hell wasn’t going to cook for him. So Nathaniel had learned to live on sandwiches that were mostly just bread and whatever condiment was left in the fridge and cereal most of the time without milk. He’d loved going to school because he would get a cheese sandwich and a small milk. But at eight years old when your mother didn’t come home for three days and there was no more food and the dump of an apartment started getting cold, you ended up in foster care.

  He would never know who had called social services. It could have been his teacher at school after he told her he was only falling asleep because he was hungry. When she asked, he couldn’t help but admit that his m
om hadn’t been home in a few days. Or maybe it was the parents of the kids he sometimes went to school with who lived in the building they did.

  He remembered the damp, dark, and mostly cold apartment he lived in with his mom and the crowded group home he found himself in after they’d taken him away. It was always so loud. Kids screaming and crying, never a moment of silence or private thought to be had.

  He didn’t want to think about his time there; he wasn’t that kid anymore. He’d gotten himself out and was at the top of his field. He never had to go hungry or make himself small so that he wouldn’t be a target. He had control over his life, he reminded himself repeatedly.

  So why did it feel like he was losing control of everything? First, his child gets sick. Then they told him she’s not his biological child. Now he was going to meet the man that could take everything away from him.

  Game face, Nathaniel, game face. He’s a baker. You’ve faced down bigger men and won.

  He hadn’t told Emma about any of this. She didn’t know about this craziness and that she could be taken away from the only home she had ever known. He might be a single parent, but he was a good dad. He loved his babies, and he did his very best to give them everything he had never had.

  Nathaniel arrived at the hospital early. He felt like he hadn’t slept in weeks and was living on a caffeine IV. Not that it did him any good. His eyes still felt like there was sand in them. At this point, he didn’t have bags under his eyes; he had a full set of luggage.

  He wanted to see Tristan Callahan before the man saw him. He wanted to get a read on the man before they were officially introduced. It was a tactic he used in business meetings, always making them come to him.