“My insurance card? For what?”
“For your baby.”
“No, you don’t understand. Beth isn’t mine.”
“According to Caitlin Williams, she is,” the clerk said smugly.
Just then, Sandra and two other NICU nurses rounded the corner and walked past. “Hey, Irish,” Sandra said with a bright smile. “I’m glad I ran into you. My shift is over, but I’ll be back in the morning. Your daughter’s doing fine, but you need to leave us a phone number. We overlooked that detail in the rush of her admission.”
She started to leave, but stopped and turned. “Oh, I wrote out your mother’s blessing and taped it to Beth’s bed. Several other parents have asked for a copy of it. I hope you don’t mind.” She waved and followed her friends out the door.
“It seems a lot of people think she’s your baby,” the clerk said with a smirk.
It took a call to his attorney to convince the woman that unless Mick himself had signed the paternity papers, he had no legal responsibility for the child—something Mick suspected she knew already. After that, he called home to make sure his mother was all right. Surprisingly, his mother’s friend and part-time nurse Naomi answered the phone.
“It’s about time you called,” she scolded.
“I know. I had to take someone to the hospital. I’m glad you could stay. I hope it wasn’t an inconvenience.”
“I can watch my favorite TV shows here as well as at home. Besides, your mother is good company.”
“How is she today?”
“Determined to get up and clean house even with her arm in a cast. I knew it was a mistake for that doctor to take her ankle brace off. The woman has less sense than you.”
“Keep her down even if you have to sit on her. And tell her I’ll be home in a hour or so.”
Knowing that his mother wasn’t alone was a relief. After hanging up, he went in search of Caitlin. At the medical ICU, a nurse led him to Caitlin’s room. He paused in the doorway. A single bed occupied the small room. He stepped next to it and rested his hands on the cold metal rails.
She looked utterly helpless lying with the sheets neatly folded under her arms and her hands at her sides. A thick, white tube protruded from her mouth connecting her to a ventilator. The soft hiss it made as it delivered each breath made it sound as though the machine had a life of its own. Like a mechanical monster, it crouched there controlling her fate. One breath. She still lived. Another breath. She still lived.
Someone had combed her hair. It made her look younger, sweeter. The hard edges of streetwise homelessness didn’t show now, only the face of a lovely young woman.
He had promised her that everything would be all right, but he hadn’t been able to keep that promise.
The world wasn’t full of happy endings; his job, if not his personal life, had taught him that long ago. Only sometimes, like now, when God’s plan was hidden from view, he had trouble accepting things which seemed so unfair. Saddened beyond measure, he turned away knowing he could do nothing except keep her in his prayers.
After taking a cab home, he opened his front door and Nikki, his elderly golden retriever, met him with a wagging tail. Mick stooped to ruffle one silky ear. She licked his hand once then padded back to her bed in front of the fireplace, lay down and watched him across the room with calm, serious eyes. He sank onto the sofa and rubbed his hands over his weary face. The clock on the mantel began to chime midnight. He had to be on duty in less than seven hours. He considered pulling the throw over himself and just sleeping where he was, but decided against it. Instead, he rose to his feet and climbed the stairs with Nikki at his heels.
He glanced down the hall and saw that a light still shone from under his mother’s door. He walked to the end of the corridor and rapped lightly on the thick oak panel. At her muffled answer, he eased the door open.
Elizabeth O’Callaghan was sitting up in bed reading by the light of a lamp on the bedside stand. She was dressed in a simple cotton robe of pale blue that matched her sharp eyes behind her bifocals. Her long white hair hung over a thick plaster cast covering her left arm from elbow to wrist, the result of her auto accident. Around her neck she wore a small gold chain and simple gold cross that glinted in the light when she moved.
She once told him that the cross had come all the way from Ireland with her mother. Like her own mother, Elizabeth O’Callaghan had spent her life praying for the less fortunate. And she hadn’t stopped with simply praying for them.
After his father’s death, Mick’s mother had worked to raise her own children and then went on to help other young women who were alone in the world. Mercy House had been her idea. Her work, her heart and soul had started it. With the help of several women and the local pastor, her work still went on. Mick’s heart swelled with love and pride when he thought of all she had accomplished. The Lord gave her a strong will, and she used it to help serve Him.
“Hi, Mom. How’s the arm feeling?”
“Not too bad.” She wiggled her fingers for his benefit.
“Has Naomi gone?”
“She helped me with my bath then I sent her home. I’m better now. I don’t need a sitter around the clock. A few more weeks and I’ll be able to move back to my own apartment.”
“You can move back when your doctor gives you the okay and not before.”
“I’ve put you out long enough. A man your age shouldn’t be saddled with caring for a feeble old woman. You should be looking to get saddled with a pretty young woman.”
“Where am I going to find one prettier than you?”
She grinned at him, laid her book aside and patted the mattress beside her. “You can’t sidetrack me with flattery. I’ve been waiting up for you. What kept you? Naomi said you had to rush someone to the hospital. Come here and tell me everything.”
She sounded like a schoolgirl eager for gossip. He crossed the room in a few long strides and bent to kiss her cheek. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere and neither are you until you tell me the whole truth and nothing but the truth, young man.” She grasped his arm and tugged until he sat on the bed.
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
“Okay. I was on my way home from Mercy House when an old bum stopped me to help deliver a baby, but we got the mother to the hospital first, and since the baby weighed only two pounds she had to go to intensive care, and the mother asked me to go with the baby and I did, only while I was gone she told everyone I was the baby’s father before she lapsed into a coma. Any questions?”
His mother’s eyes were wide with stunned surprise. “About a million. Why don’t you start at the top and go more slowly.”
He grinned and repeated the story with as many of the details as he knew, stopping often to answer her questions. At the end of his tale, he met her sad, concerned gaze and wished he hadn’t shared quite so much.
“This woman really doesn’t have anyone we can notify?”
“Not as far as I know. It’s the only reason I can think of why she would say I’m the father.”
“That poor woman. And that poor little baby. Thank goodness you were there for them. Is there any chance the mother will recover?”
“The doctor didn’t think so. I’m not Beth’s father but I can’t stand thinking of someone so tiny being all alone in the world. Frankly, I’m not sure what to do.”
“Why, you do the right thing! And don’t be telling your mother that you don’t know what that is,” she declared. “I raised you better than that.”
Mick rose and wished her good-night. On the way back to his room he considered her words. This time I really don’t know what the right thing is. I need Your guidance, Lord. What is it that You want me to do?
He got ready for bed and lay down, but sleep wouldn’t come. Each time he
closed his eyes he saw Caitlin’s face. He saw her eyes wide with relief when he’d followed Eddy into her room, and he saw them filled with fear for her baby. Such beautiful eyes, closed perhaps forever, yet repeated in miniature, along with her fearsome scowl, in her daughter’s tiny face.
He barely knew the woman, but he kept hearing her voice. “Stay with Beth. Watch over her for me.” It was the last thing Caitlin had said to him.
Had she sensed that she was dying? Had she been asking him for something more? Was that why she told them he was the father? So her baby girl wouldn’t be left alone?
Mick threw back the quilt and sat up on the side of his bed. The light from a full moon cast a glow into the room. Rising, he crossed to the window. Nikki watched him from her spot at the foot of the bed, but she didn’t bother to get up.
Pulling the curtains aside, he looked out the second-story window of his home and stared at the shadows of the trees in the park behind his property. It was deserted now, but during the day it would be filled with neighborhood children playing on the swings and slides. On nearby benches, smiling young mothers would follow their play with watchful eyes.
Yet across that park and the railroad yards beyond it, there existed a world those happy children would only know in passing or see on TV. It was a world of intense poverty, where children played in filthy streets and lived in crowded, run-down apartments if they were lucky enough to have a home at all, and where mothers seldom smiled because they worried about where the next meal would come from.
Caitlin came from those streets. If she lived, she’d go back there and take little Beth with her. But if Caitlin died, where would her child go? Into foster care until she was old enough to run away and end up like her mother? Or would she be one of the lucky ones playing in a park like this?
He let the curtain fall back into place. None of the children in the park would ever be his. Facing that fact was more painful tonight than it had ever been. Perhaps because, for a moment, when Beth had grasped his finger and gazed up at him, he had known what it felt like to be a father.
He raked his fingers through his hair. He wasn’t responsible for Caitlin or her child, yet somehow the two of them had captured a piece of his heart. He felt connected to them. It wasn’t right that they were alone. They needed someone to care about them. They needed him. Before he could change his mind, he crossed the room to the closet where he pulled on a gray wool cable-knit sweater, a pair of jeans and his sneakers, then he headed out the door.
A fine mist fell as he drove down the dark streets. The swish-swish of his wiper blades was almost mesmerizing. Twenty minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. Wondering if he was being a fool, he hurried out of the rain and through the emergency room doors.
At the NICU he showed his wristband, and a nurse answered his questions. Beth was doing as well as could be expected. She invited him in, but he declined. He needed to see Caitlin.
When he entered the ICU and reached her room, he hesitated at the door. What did he hope to accomplish here? Maybe nothing. He pulled a chair up beside her bed. Reaching through the rail, he took hold of her hand.
“Caitlin, it’s Mick,” he said softly, and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. Glancing at the array of machines and blinking lights around her, he sighed. He didn’t know if she could hear him. But if she could, he wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone. He began to talk about her baby.
“We’re calling her Beth for now. She weighs only two pounds. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but she really is a cute, little thing. She looks like you, I think—except kind of scrawny. She has brown hair with a touch of red,” he added and smiled. “I don’t suppose you’re part Irish, are you?”
His words died away in the dimness of the room, and only the sound of the ventilator continued. One breath. One breath.
What should he say? What would a young mother clinging to life want to know about her child? What would he want to know if it were him? His grip on her hand tightened.
“Your baby is doing fine. The nurses are great. They really seem to care about her. One of them called her a fighter. I guess that means she’s going to take after you.”
He studied the small hand he held in his large one. Her fingers were long and delicate, but some of her nails were short and ragged. Did she chew them? He knew so little about her, yet she had entrusted him with her baby.
“Girl, do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused me? I don’t know why you told them I was the baby’s father, unless you thought you weren’t going to make it. But I’m not her father, although—well, although I wish I were. She needs her mother—she needs you. You’ve got to hold on.”
He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He bowed his head and sought comfort for himself and for her in the words he knew so well. “Our Father, Who art in heaven...”
* * *
Lost in a strange darkness, Caitlin searched for a way out. She had to find her baby. She didn’t want her daughter to know the terrible, gut-wrenching fear of being left alone—of wondering what she had done that was so bad her own mother would leave her. That was the one promise Caitlin meant to keep. No, she wouldn’t leave her baby—not ever.
Pain came again, deep inside her chest. She cried out, but no sound formed in her mouth. Perhaps it was her heart breaking because she missed her baby so. She tried to move her arms but she couldn’t. Something or someone held her eyes closed.
A faint voice called her name, and Caitlin struggled to listen. Her baby was fine, the voice said. Had she really heard those words? Joy filled her.
She listened closely. She knew this voice. It was a man’s voice. He was praying. The sound of his deep, caring voice saying those simple words brought a sense of comfort unlike anything she had never known.
Then the pain struck again and she began to choke. Somewhere, a shrill alarm sounded.
Chapter Three
Mick paced the confines of the small waiting room outside the intensive care unit where he’d been ushered, and prayed as the minutes ticked by. Was Caitlin’s life slipping away beyond those doors? What would become of Beth? Why didn’t anyone come and tell him what was going on? Finally, twenty agonizing minutes later, a young doctor appeared. He didn’t look encouraging. Mick prepared himself to hear the worst.
“How is she?”
“Stabilized at the moment. She had some bleeding from her lungs. We’ve managed to control it for now.”
“Thank God.” Relief caused Mick’s tired muscles to betray him, and he sank into one of the blue tweed chairs in the room.
“If it doesn’t reoccur—she has a chance.”
Mick looked up. “You don’t sound very sure of that.”
“Her condition is critical. It’s best not to hold out false hopes.”
“Can I see her?”
“For a few minutes,” the young doctor conceded.
In the unit, Mick paused outside Caitlin’s door. What was he doing here? Why was he getting involved?
Because she didn’t have anyone else.
Stepping up to her bed, he leaned down and whispered, “Don’t worry, Sleeping Beauty. I’ll see that they take good care of you, and of Beth. You aren’t alone. God is with you.”
He pressed her hand but got no response. He studied her quiet, pale face. He had called her Sleeping Beauty, and the name seemed to fit. Her heart-shaped face with its prominent cheekbones and expressive flyaway eyebrows coupled with her short hair gave her an almost elfin appearance. What was it about her that drew him so? Was it only because she was alone that he felt this intense desire to take care of her? Somehow, he knew it was more than that.
Crossing to the door, he glanced back. Caitlin’s chest rose and fell slightly in time with the soft hiss of the ventilator. One breath. One breath.
“Rest eas
y. I’ll watch over little Beth for you.”
As soon as he said the words a deep sense of satisfaction filled him. This was right. This was what he was meant to do.
After leaving Caitlin, he went to see her baby. Beth lay on her side snuggled in a soft cloth nest covered with tiny red and blue hearts. The ventilator tubing and IV lines were neatly organized now, but a daunting array of machines surrounded her bed. Glancing around the unit he saw a number of other parents who like himself had been drawn here in the middle of the night. Most of them stood by beds looking uncertain, their faces a curious mixture of hope and fear, pride and pity.
He pulled up a stool and sat beside Beth. His heart went out to her. She was so little and so alone in the world.
One of her hands moved up to curl around the tube in her mouth, and her brow furrowed in a frown. Gently, he uncurled her fingers and gave her his thumb to grip instead. “You’re not really alone,” he whispered. “You’ve got the good Lord and me on your side.”
For the longest time, he stared at her tiny face. Each feature so perfect and so new. That she lived at all was nothing short of amazing.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
The words mirrored his own thoughts so closely that he wasn’t sure he’d really heard them. He glanced up and saw a woman seated in a rocker holding a baby on the other side of Beth’s bed. She looked old to be a new mother. Her short, dark hair was streaked with gray at the temples and crow’s-feet gathered at the corners of her eyes, but she was dressed in a hospital gown beneath a yellow print robe.
“I’m sorry. Did you say something?” he asked feeling bemused, or maybe just sleep deprived.
“I said, it’s amazing. They’re so perfectly formed even at such an early age.”
He nodded. “Yes. I never knew.” His throat closed and tears pricked at his eyes. He struggled to regain control and after a moment, he pointed with his chin. “Is yours a boy or a girl?”
Her smile held an odd, sad quality. “I have a little boy.” She lifted the blanket so he could see the baby’s face. The features of a child with Down syndrome were unmistakable.
His Bundle of Love / the Color of Courage Page 3