Then There Was You: A Single Parent Collection

by Gianna Gabriela

  I will myself not to show emotion, a copy of the judge’s order being crumpled in my hand from the effort. I fight the panic crawling up my throat as they hold the elevator doors open, but block me inside. My eyes aim over their heads to look for help.

  It comes in the form of a gray, potbellied security guard who comes to my rescue. He forces himself through the throng and grabs me by the arm. I follow behind him like a frightened child, as he drags me into a small room beside the security checkpoint at the door.

  “Breathe,” my Good Samaritan orders. “Where the hell is your lawyer?”

  “Another case,” I manage, trying to control my breathing.

  “Do you have a car or should I call someone to pick you up?”

  “Just a taxi, please.”

  I’d left my car at the hospital. Driving in Boston is a nightmare on the best of days. I had no desire to get stuck finding a parking spot, so I opted to cab it.

  Ten minutes later, the same kind guard leads me down the courthouse steps and into the cab waiting below.

  “Tufts, please.”

  “Which entrance?” the driver asks.

  “Emergency,” I quickly say, hoping to avoid the press likely to be hounding the main entrance, as they have the past few days, since Emmett made our battle a very public one.

  My job, not so long ago my passion, has turned on me these past weeks. Even after being out of the spotlight the past nine months, unfortunately I’m apparently still newsworthy. Of course, Emmett and his parents are mostly to blame for that, probably thinking I would cave under public pressure.

  I haven’t. Not when the only redeeming outcome in this nightmare was dependent on my strength.

  The emergency entrance to the otherwise busy hospital is blissfully quiet, and I send up a brief thank you to whatever power is up there. For one who’s not particularly religious, I’ve sure sent up my share of prayers these past nine months and even more so the past week. Pretty sure no one is listening, but even knowing intellectually there’s no avoiding what is coming, I’m not willing to leave any stone unturned.

  On the third floor, I force myself to grab a coffee and a sandwich, knowing I’ll need to keep up my strength. Besides, Emmett and his parents are probably with him already. They left the courthouse while I was waiting for a copy of the order.

  They have another hour before it’s my turn, time I need to set the wheels in motion. Lives may depend on it.

  “Are you ready?”

  Swallowing hard, I’m only able to nod.

  It’s probably been close to an hour since Emmett was escorted out by security. His parents were already gone, but he’d lingered, waiting for me to arrive. He didn’t hesitate making an ugly scene, flinging accusations I rationally know were without foundation in the truth, but he cut me nonetheless.

  Deep.

  His hurtful words teased the exposed nerve of guilt I couldn’t help but feel, and I needed some time to reflect. Staff kept a respectful distance for a while, but with the clock ticking, I couldn’t fault them for prodding me along.

  The sudden silence in the room is deafening as I’m given a few moments alone with him. I stroke my fingers over his impassive face. It used to be the only thing that would soothe him, make him fall asleep.

  I lean over the bed and kiss his face.

  “Sleep tight, my love.”

  Then I walk out of the room, leaving my world behind.

  JUDE

  “What?”

  I surge up from my chair and my heart stops in my throat at Cassie’s words.

  “They may have a heart,” she repeats.

  My body drops back down as I process what she’s saying. “For Kelty? Oh my God.”

  “I know.” Her voice is soft and I can hear her tears.

  “I’m taking her right now. They want her in as soon as possible, so they can start prepping, but it’ll probably be hours yet. How long will you be?”

  I look around my messy office, and for once I wish I’d picked Boston instead of Cape Cod to open my restaurant. “An hour,” I answer, much too optimistically.

  “Jude, please. You don’t do anyone favors if you get pulled over, hurt, or—God forbid—killed because you’re speeding. Maybe you should ask Steve to drive you.”

  Steve is one of the reasons I ended up in Orleans. I went to college with the guy and being a real estate agent on the Cape, when he got wind I was looking for a location, he started sending me prospective listings. I fell in love with a cove-side property just north of town right away and signed the papers just days after seeing it.

  That was thirteen years ago and I’ve never regretted it until today.

  “Mandy!” I call out as I grab my coat. It’s fucking cold out, with a stiff wind blowing in off the water. Snow is expected after this weekend, but I suspect I’ll be holed up in Boston.

  I hope I’ll still be in Boston.

  “Yeah, Boss?”

  Amanda Ross is my restaurant manager. She’s a local who was the first to respond to my ad looking for staff thirteen years ago. Then a new high school graduate without a lot of prospects on the Cape. What she didn’t have in formal education, she made up for over the years, learning on the job and in a few courses I paid for her to follow. Now thirty-one, Mandy is married to a local commercial fisherman—a great guy who happens to supply the restaurant with fresh catch—and she runs the day-to-day of Cove Side Cooker. On top of that, she’s become a friend.

  “I’m off to Tufts.”

  Her eyes go wide. “Kelty?”

  “She’s good. It’s…” Suddenly my emotions get the better of me and I struggle to get my next words out. “They may have a heart for her.”

  The next instant, my manager throws herself in my arms and drenches me with her tears, chanting, “Ohmigod, ohmigod…”

  “Mandy, honey. I gotta go.” My own eyes wet, I pry her away from me and kiss her forehead. “I gotta know you’ve got this place.”

  “Right.” She wipes her sleeve over her wet face, fighting for composure as she starts shoving me out of the restaurant. “I’ve got it, Boss. Best get going. I’ll let everyone know.”

  That gives me pause and I stop in my tracks.

  “Maybe hold off on that? Until we know a bit more, okay?” I quickly add when her face shows immediate concern.

  Maybe I’m being overly cautious, but if I’ve learned anything this past year, it’s that nothing is guaranteed. Especially not good news.

  “Of course,” she immediately responds. “Keep me in the loop, though. I’ll be praying for you all.”

  I’m one of those non-practicing Catholics, who still believes in the power of prayer. Nothing wrong with sending that positive energy out into the universe.

  “Appreciated.”

  I give her a nervous smile and dart out to my Traverse in the parking lot.

  “Daddy!”

  My heart gives a jolt, seeing my nine-year-old, blue-eyed, blonde-haired princess back in a hospital bed. The only difference is, this time her smile is wide compared to the last time I walked into Tufts, finding a sickly girl hooked up to too many machines.

  Since being diagnosed with acute cardiomyopathy, she’s had a VAD—a ventricular assist device—surgically placed to give her failing heart a break. The last seven months, waiting on a viable heart, has been a lot better for her than the couple of months prior to that.

  “Hey, Pooh.” I close the distance to the bed and inhale her scent as I bend down, and she wraps her little arms around my neck.

  “I’m getting my new heart today.”

  I love the sound of her girly, Tinker Bell voice and smile down on her. “So I hear.”

  My eyes immediately dart up to Cassie, who has her arms wrapped around her husband, Mark, both showing the overwhelming emotions I feel in my chest. Hope, apprehension, relief, and stark fear for what might lie ahead.

  I kiss Kelty’s curls before I get up from the bed and walk over to her mom.

  Cassie lets go of
Mark and she hugs me back as hard as I’m hugging her. Mark does the same when I turn to him.

  We’ve been lucky.

  Cassie and I never intended to have a child together. Ours was an occasional, convenient, and purely physical connection, but a pregnancy was the result of our friends-with-benefits arrangement. We weren’t destined for anything more, and we both knew it. Agreeing to focus on co-parenting our child, and remain the friends we were—without the benefits part—was the best decision.

  It was a year after Kelty was born Cassie met Mark, and although I’d been hesitant at first sharing my daughter with him, he proved to be a good man, a good stepfather to my daughter. The fact Kelty has three parents firmly in her corner has proven to be invaluable. Especially since early March of this year.

  That’s when Kelty first became sick.

  “So it’s official?” I ask, after everyone sits down. I’m perched on the side of our daughter’s bed.

  “Yes,” Mark states firmly when Cassie only manages to nod.

  I blow out an audible breath, hope and fear now dominating anything else I might feel.

  We distract ourselves with inane chatter about the weather, sports, our respective jobs, interspersed with visits from the lab, an administrator with paperwork to sign, the anesthesiologist, and an OR nurse prepping Kelty. Finally the surgeon makes an appearance, reminding us he’s done this surgery for many years to reassure us.

  Not that it does, since this is and hopefully will be our first and only time, no matter how many of these transplant surgeries he’s done over the years.

  Still, when my princess is taken to the OR, and a nurse suggests we wait in the small surgical waiting room, I feel more hopeful than fearful.

  “None of us have eaten. Why don’t I go grab us something?” I offer, needing to do something. I’ve never been a particularly restful or patient person, I do better being active in some way.

  “I don’t think I could eat,” Cassie voices.

  “Something,” I urge. “Even just some fruit or a yogurt. We’ll likely be up all night, watching over her. You don’t do her any favors if you collapse.”

  Throwing her own words back at her earns me an irritated glare. “Fine,” she bites off.

  “You stay,” Mark suggests, getting up. “I’ll grab us some sandwiches.”

  “It’s okay. I need something to do,” I assure him, resolutely walking out of the waiting room.

  Straight into the path of a distraught-looking woman.

  She looks vaguely familiar, although it’s difficult to tell with her messy blonde tresses covering half of her face. Her business-like attire doesn’t match the state of her face and hair.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbles, pressing a hand to her mouth to stifle the sob that is visibly wracking her body.

  Not sure why, but my hands immediately go to her shoulders to steady her. Her eyes shoot up and I see sheer torment in her pale gray, swollen eyes.

  “Is there something I can do? Someone I can call, maybe?” I offer, my chest constricting in the face of her pain.

  She abruptly shakes her head and turns away from my hold, and I just barely hear her response, before she hurries down the corridor.

  “There’s no one now.”

  1

  MIKA

  “I don’t understand why you need to do this?”

  It’s not the first time Sam has asked me this question, so I brush the hair out of my face and take in a deep breath before I try to explain again.

  “Because I need a fresh start, Sam. It’s been five months, and still two weeks ago I was blindsided by some gossip rag article that had pictures showing me visiting Jamie, and even one of me walking out of my therapist’s office. It’s ridiculous. Anywhere I look, every place I go; I’m reminded. How am I supposed to heal when every day rubs the wound raw, keeping it oozing?”

  “But you don’t know anyone there,” she says, her face over the stack of boxes in my kitchen crumpling.

  “Don’t get me started,” I warn her, but the next moment I’m engulfed in her embrace.

  I love this woman. She’s been my touchstone all our lives but literally became the rock I hung onto for dear life in the past year and change. Especially since right before Christmas, when Jamie died.

  “Besides,” I tell her, setting her back gently with my hands on her shoulders. “Not knowing anyone is kinda the point, Sam. I need to breathe instead of constantly gasping for the air that keeps getting knocked out of me.”

  “But who’s going to be there if…well, if…”

  I know what she’s struggling with to say out loud. I was free-falling for a while after we buried Jamie, tumbling down a dark hole. With everything that gave me purpose gone, life just became…unbearable. It was Sam who found me and had to call an ambulance.

  That was toward the end of January. I’d been so shocked at the stark pain in Sam’s face when I woke up in the hospital. I’d been so lost in my dark vortex of grief; I lost the ability to see anything else. All I wanted was to numb the pain, but I ended up causing hers.

  She felt betrayed—by me. That realization prompted me to agree to the six weeks of inpatient treatment I was offered. It gave me some parameters—and structure—things I needed until I could find my balance again.

  It’s disorienting when you no longer have responsibilities to carry or a schedule to keep. When the framework of your life is suddenly gone, and you no longer have any idea what to hold onto, or which direction to go.

  “Honey,” I whisper, lifting a hand to her cheek. “I’ll be an hour and a half away. I’m keeping up with the weekly appointments at the clinic for now and will come to see you every time I’m in town. I’m not disappearing from the face of the earth.” I dip my head to peek under her eyelashes. “I’m doing it to get out of this spiral that seems to want to pull me down. Don’t you see? I’m not leaving you, I’m trying to find me.”

  “Mika, are you sure you…” Jason’s voice trails off when he sees his wife in my arms and looks at me stunned. “What did I miss?”

  “Mika’s leaving, you big oaf,” Sam snaps, swinging around on her husband, who already has his hands up defensively.

  “Yeah, I got that part, since I’ve been hauling her furniture over to that storage place in Quincy all weekend.”

  “Exactly!” Sam throws her arms in the air and promptly starts crying again. Poor Jason looks at me with his eyes bugging, but luckily has the sense to pull her into a hug.

  After a few moments, she mutters something about cleaning up and disappears into the bathroom.

  “Is she on the rag?” Jason stage-whispers, cocking his thumb at the bathroom door.

  “Dude, whatever you do, don’t ever ask her that question.”

  “I know, Mika. I have the scars to remind me. Why do you think I’m asking you?”

  “She’s afraid for me, Jason, and she doesn’t trust me anymore. I get it. I screwed that up, and I can’t blame her. If the roles were reversed, I’d be scared too.”

  “Not like you’re moving to fucking Alaska,” he mumbles, and I grin. He’s a good man, a great father, and a loving husband, who would do anything for his wife. He just doesn’t handle emotion well, which is kind of funny, since he has twin daughters barreling toward puberty. He’ll be drowning in emotions soon.

  “Thanks for giving up your book club to come with me.”

  Sam turns to smile at me. “I hated this week’s pick anyway. The main character rubs me the wrong way, and I struggled through seven chapters before I tossed it aside. Not a shred of common sense in the woman.”

  I chuckle. Despite her meltdown in my kitchen a few days ago, Sam is generally a strictly no-nonsense, straightforward type. Almost abrasive at times, but her directness is what I love about her. What you see is what you get.

  “Did you know they would be here?” she asks, tilting her head at a group converged in a corner of the large hospital atrium, partially repurposed for tonight’s fundraising event.
/>   “I figured.” I shrug, casting a glance at the small clique of reporters fortunately focused on the current speaker. “This place is a genuine who’s who of Boston, all in one location.”

  I wasn’t going to come when I heard about the fund-raiser for the hospital’s new transplant program. The program is geared toward improved post-transplant support both for the recipients and their families, as well as the families of the donors. I was actually approached to speak to the need for a more comprehensive aftercare program.

  I get why I was asked. To have someone, who has been in the public eye, speak often carries—not necessarily justly—a little more weight. May loosen the purse strings. It’s too raw for me still, and I politely declined.

  Something made me want to come anyway. Maybe to challenge myself, I’m not sure. The hospital doesn’t exactly hold good memories for me, but avoiding it would be cutting out the last nine months of Jamie’s life. He spent a lot of time here at Tufts.

  “Whoa,” Sam whispers beside me. “Who’s the giant bearded hottie?”

  I follow her gaze. “Oh, that’s Rick Porcello. He’s a pitcher for the Red Sox.” I give him a wave when he tilts his chin in my direction.

  “Seriously?” Sam gasps. “You know him?”

  “Well, yeah. I interviewed him a few times.”

  “How can you even form words around a guy like that?”

  I laugh. The sensation still feels a little strange—rusty—but freeing as well. I used to laugh a lot. “Honey,” I whisper in her ear. “He was half-naked at the time.”

  “Bullshit,” she exclaims a little too loud, and a few heads swing in our direction.

  “Hush. It’s probably on YouTube somewhere. That was my job, Sam. I was in the locker room at most of their home games and some of the out-of-town ones. Trust me, when you’re a sports journalist, you quickly get used to a roomful of very fit, naked men.”

  “Hell, I’d never get used to seeing that—” She nods at Porcello. “—in a towel.”