by Dee Palmer
“Um, Regan, can we get her ready for the move?” Kellee pops her head around the door, she’s one of Ruby’s primary nurses—bright, bubbly, and blonde. She’s friendly and extremely proficient at her job. However, her question has me confused. Ruby was only moved into this room yesterday.
“Move? Where are you taking her?”
“She’s being transferred over to CMC. ”
“Why?” My heart kicks up to that of a rabbit in the headlights. What new information is floating around, and why I haven’t been told?
“Not sure. Hey, Paula, do you know why Ruby’s being transferred?” Kellee leans back out of the doorway and calls to her boss. I can see Paula look up from the nurses’ station, her dark features quickly assess the situation, and she stops whatever she is doing and walks over.
“Hello, Regan. I’m sorry; you obviously weren’t informed. We received the request just now, and it has something to do with her father working over there; he wanted her close.” She shifts uncomfortably, her eyes unable to hold mine as unease rolls off her stiff frame and starched scrubs.
“What the fuck! No! She’s not being transferred. Harper, he can’t do this, can he?” I snap, my attention diverted equally between the nurse in charge and my best friend, the hot-shit attorney.
“Um, I don’t know. Family law isn’t really my… Give me a minute.” She reaches for her phone and starts to scroll, and I start to lose my shit.
“Stop, stop that! Don’t touch her.” I position myself between a startled Kellee and Ruby’s bed, my wide arms blocking any attempt to get close. To be fair, she hasn’t tried since I yelled, but I’m not taking any chances.
“Regan, you need to calm down.” Paula steps into the room, and her attempt to be the voice of reason bounces right off my ears as if I have my fingers wedged in the holes. I retaliate, the rising hysteria beyond my control. Every fucking thing is out of control.
“Oh, because that always works, telling someone who is clearly losing their shit to calm down. I am calm, and I’m calmly telling you to leave my daughter alone. She’s not going anywhere.”
“Regan, what’s going on?” Joel pushes his way into the room, and it takes everything I have not to fly at him with fists raining down and knees crunching his nuts.
“You! You…you fucking arsehole.” I stammer to get the words out fast enough. The rage hinders my ability to speak and addles my brain. I march up to him and punch my finger into his chest. He doesn’t flinch. Steely resolve and understanding form this perfect, balanced, and rational barrier. I know I’m not doing myself any favours, and yet I can’t stop. “You’re not her father, I am.”
“You’re her father?” His brow furrows like he’s seriously processing the possibility of my mistake.
“Not what I meant.” The anger pinching my shoulders to my ears evaporates for a moment, and the weight of everything pulls them down with a heavy slump.
“When did you last sleep?” He goes to stroke the hair away from my eyes, and I slap his hand away.
“Fuck you, Joel. Leave her alone. She’s mine, and you had no right to interfere,” I snarl, my teeth grinding with the force of my clenched jaw.
“Technically, I do, and besides, I didn’t think I was interfering. It’s only a request, not a court order, and I had come here to discuss it with you. I thought it would help you.” He states this all too calmly, dismissing my tempered rage, if not my statement. “You work at CMC. It’s closer to your home, and you would have people you know to help you care for Ruby, including me.”
“She’s not your patient.”
“No, she’s my daughter, and she’s sick. I deserve to be with her, Regan, and you know that.” His voice softens so much, it’s unbearably tender, and my heart just cleaves in two. My head starts to shake of it’s on volition.
“No, no…”
“Regan…” Harper touches my arm, and I snap my whole body away from her and back away. I continue to refuse to acknowledge any of this. My whole body starts to shake.
“No, Harper. I don’t want to hear it.” Sobs wrench from deep inside me, sucking the air from my lungs, making it so hard to breathe. The tentative hold I have on everything begins to slip, and I gasp at the agony at my chest. Endless tears streak my cheeks, still, I manage to draw in a forceful breath, and I wildly point my finger at everyone in the room to bear witness to what I have to say. “He doesn’t come near her. I want an injunction, something, anything. I don’t care. But he doesn’t come near my daughter.”
“Fine, I’m going now, but only because this escalated way beyond what I’d intended.” He holds up his hands in defeat and backs away one slow footstep at a time. I exhale loudly, even if I don’t feel remotely better for my victory. He reaches the door, and I catch the moment he fixes his eyes on Ruby. Pain distorts his perfect face, and heartbreak etches his eyes as they close; however, when they open, all that is gone. This expression I recognise: determined, fixed, and focused. “Harper, you need to explain the reality here, because, trust me, I’m Ruby’s father, and I will be back.” His tone brooks no argument. I get it; Joel always gets what he wants, but not without one helluva fight.
“Trust you! That’s priceless.” I fire back, thrusting myself forward like a rabid dog only to be leashed back by Harper and Kellee. “You’re only contribution to being a father was not wearing a fucking condom when you fucked my sister behind my back!” Kellee gasps beside me, and Paula winces, most likely because I’m screaming the F-word at full volume.
“I never fucked your sister.” Joel lowers his voice perfectly at the pertinent word before pushing away from the door and storming off down the corridor.
“Wow, you’re right; he didn’t, did he?” Harper releases her hold of my arm, expressing what I know in my heart to be true. She still continues to ask the unanswerable question all the same. “How the fuck is he Ruby’s—”
“What did he mean by ‘explain the reality’ Harper?” I interrupt because horse, stable door, and bolt are the only things relevant to how Ruby came to be. I want to know what happens now that she is, and now that he is her father.
“I’m so sorry, Regan.” Harper pulls me into her warm and strong embrace. It’s not strong enough. I break out all over again.
“Not what I wanted to hear, Harper.”
“I know.”
“This had nothing to do with him.” I mutter to Harper as we bounce around in the back of the ambulance currently transferring Ruby from Mercy to CMC. Ruby is stable and still sleeping, her vitals haven’t changed, but they haven’t deteriorated either, and I’m taking what comfort I can from that.
“You don’t need to explain.”
“It’s just better for Ruby.”
“It makes sense.” Harper grins, tight-lipped and extremely irritating. I made this decision on its own merits, and it certainly doesn’t mean I’m about to cave to Joel’s demands.
“He’s not having her, Harper.”
“Why?” She closes the magazine she wasn’t really reading and raises a curious brow.
“What? What do you mean why?” My eyes widen, and then scrunch with confusion.
“Look, I know you’re up to your ears with all this, and, honestly, I wouldn’t be coping half as well as you, but this isn’t like you.”
Without a second thought, I crisply shut her down. “No.”
“See, that’s what I mean. Shooting me down like that. You don’t do that, I do that.”
“This is a new me,” I counter with absolutely no conviction, doubt already chipping at my resolve. I’m in turmoil, and the only way I can see a way through this is to not let any of it in.
Deny, deny, deny.
“Bullshit, and what about ‘everyone deserving a second chance’, hmm? Joel hasn’t even had one chance with Ruby, and you’re hell bent on keeping him out. It’s crazy. It’s so not you, and I just want to know why.” Her voice rises for a fraction and softens with her features. I can see she’s trying to pick her way to an answer,
and I kind of hope she finds one, because I’m floundering. No, I’m not floundering; I’m scared out of my mind. I look over to my expectant friend, paused and breath held waiting on an answer that I can’t give her. All I have is a feeble shrug that cuts no ice with Harper as she continues her interrogation. “And I know you’re not even mad about him cheating because you don’t believe he did.”
“Actually, I think I know how that happened, and it’s seriously creepy.” I’ve had many hours to ponder this, and, if nothing else, I jump at the chance to change the subject, even a little.
“How? I can’t quite picture her drugging him, and him not knowing, and that’s the only scenario I came up with.”
“That one crossed my mind too, but I agree. Okay, but this is gross.” I wrinkle my nose with warning. Harper’s smile widens, and she sits ramrod straight in her seat, even the paramedics in the front turn their radio down. “Joel is messy, and I mean throws his used condoms vaguely near the bin in the bathroom kind of messy. I remember one morning; he’d stayed over and after he left and we’d… Well, anyway, Raleigh insisted on using my bathroom. I didn’t even get the chance to get out of bed to let her in. She just came barging in as soon as Joel had shut the front door. She bolted straight to my bathroom saying something about hers being blocked, and all I could think was great. She was in there ages, and after awhile, the nurse in me started to get worried. I banged on the door just as she opened it. I asked her if everything was all right, and she replied she’d let me know when the time was right. Cryptic shit that I brushed off as Raleigh being Raleigh. Anyway, I went in holding my nose to have my shower. After, I started to clean up, and as usual, I expected to have to hunt for the discarded condom, as it wasn’t on the top of the bin like it should’ve been. It was nearing the end of my safe period for my contraceptive implant, and you know what a stickler he was. “It’s funny how all this clicks into place after the fact. Raleigh had been really curious about my birth control, asked me a ton of questions that, like a dumbass, I assumed at the time meant she was reconsidering her grand plan. Anyway, I couldn’t find it, anywhere. I even stood in the middle of the room and did the mock ‘now where would he fling it in a hurry’ thing, and it just wasn’t there. I actually remember laughing at the possibility of him finding it later in the day stuck to his elbow or something.”
“So?” Harper asks, even as her face transforms with dubious comprehension and horror.
“Raleigh must’ve taken it and the contents.”
“You can do that? I mean you can actually get pregnant from a used condom?”
“Googled it, and yep, it’s a fifty-fifty thing, but it’s possible.”
“Wow, she really was a class act. At least Joel didn’t fuck her.”
“Yeah, still not a hundred percent on that one.” My gut twists with the lie.
“He didn’t.” Harper’s assertive reply surprises me and makes me feel a little less naive. “I don’t even like the guy that much, but he wasn’t lying. As far as he is concerned, he kept his dick firmly in his pants when it came to your sister. Still, this was Raleigh, and she had no moral compass, and the lawyer in me has to caution about the possibility she duped him like she did me. The pertinent point is, his intentions were…are pure. He didn’t cheat back then, and actually, he’s probably feeling all kinds of violated right now.”
“I know.” I swallow the hard lump in my throat as she voices the same thoughts that plague my conscience.
The ambulance pulls to a stop, and the rear doors swing open. I gather Ruby’s things, and Harper and I jump from the vehicle and wait for the paramedics to carefully ease Ruby’s gurney out the back of the ambulance. Once inside the hospital I lead the way to my ward, relief washes over me at the familiar surroundings and I kick myself that I didn’t think to do this sooner. I smile for the first time as we move Ruby into her new room. The truth hits me hard ,when I’m greeted by friendly faces and people I know and trust. This has nothing to do with Ruby’s treatment; this move was about me. He knew this would be better, for me. Damn him.
“You know he can’t have kids?” Harper blurts as soon as we are left on our own, clearly bursting to continue a conversation I thought we’d finished.
“He told you that?”
“He’s pretty cut up, Regan, and that’s what I don’t understand, why you won’t let him in, for Ruby’s sake.”
“She’s all I have.” I cling to that reality as tightly as I hold her tiny hand, willing her to open her eyes and wake up.
“She’s all he has, and all he’ll ever have and who knows for how long…” She snaps her mouth shut far too late to take the unspeakable back. I step back, amazed and horrified, dumbstruck. I turn my back. I have to get away before…before what? I have no idea. This is too much, too damn much.
“Oh, god, I’m sorry. You know I didn’t… Fuck, Reggie, please…please don’t walk away.” Harper’s broken cries mix with the echo of my footsteps down the corridor. I walk… and walk, faster and faster until I’m running, breathless, flat out and blind from the tears. I can’t breathe. I can’t stop. I can’t do this anymore.
“Regan.” A shadow falls across my face chilling the air around me. Joel blocks the view even as he wisely hovers at a minimum safe distance. I pinch my jaw tight and try my best to look right through him.
“Not going to talk to, me hmm? Well, this should be interesting,” he says, tapping his fingers on his lip in contemplation. I narrow my eyes before looking away. “May I sit, or did you want to enjoy pity party solo?”
“Pity party why you utter -“ My volatile response is cut off by the exact same word I was about to hurl at him.
“-Asshole, yes, I know, and even so, you are still going to have to talk to me, Regan. You’re not the only one hurting. You might not believe me, but I do understand.” His tone softens, and without invitation he takes a seat next to me. I stare ahead, afraid to look in his eyes. I’m barely hanging on as it is, and I can’t break, not in front of him.
“You don’t know her, Joel, you’ve had nothing to do with her, you’re not a parent, so forgive me, but you can’t possibly understand what I’m going through right now.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, but just because I haven’t been Ruby’s parent doesn’t mean I don’t care, and not being her parent is hardly my fault. So how about I flip that sentiment and say, ‘you can’t possibly know what I’m going through either’. I have a child I knew nothing about, and I know you don’t believe me, but I never fucked your sister, not consciously.” He adds like an awkward afterthought.
“But sub-consciously is a possibility?” I clip.
“I don’t know.” He drops his head and drags his hands through his hair pulling himself upright. He lets out a long tired breath that mirrors the exhaustion I feel in my bones.” I’ve racked my brains, and it’s the only thing I can come up with.” He muses out loud. “She did like to dress like you to try and fool your friends. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility…I mean she tried it once with me, but I…I never-”
“-I know,” I interrupt, but the anguish and pain is too much, his face contorts with the need to be heard. He turns, and grabs both my hands, pulling me round to face him.
“No, Reggie, you must believe me, I always knew it was her. I never touched her, not one fucking finger, and I fucking hate that she did that to me…to us.”
“There is no us, Joel.” I ease my hands from his. I know he’s hurting. It’s as plain as the agony in my own chest, only I can’t help him, not like this. There is no us.
“But there was, and even if I fucked it up at the end, it was still the best time of my life, and she’s ruined that memory. I fucking hate her for that.”
“You hated her before that,” I add, with a lacklustre smile.
“True, I’m a great judge of character, and she deserved it.”
“Yeah.” I literally have no words left to describe my sister, defaulting to the safe option of ‘it’s wrong to speak il
l of the dead.’
“I just can’t work out how she-”
“-Used condom.”
“Excuse me?” At any other time his face might be comical, all screwed up with a mix of shock and disgust.
“She stole a used condom from my bathroom,” I clarify, and undiluted anger replaces the shocked part of his expression.
“Fucking bitch, that’s unbelievable, who does that?” he fumes.
“Raleigh does that…did that.” I don’t hold his gaze for more than a second.
“For what it’s worth, that helps.” He speaks, breaking the few moments of silence.
“Helps how?”
“I’m not a cheat,” he states, pushing himself up from the bench.
“I never thought you were.”
“Thank you, that means a lot.” I look up, and with little hope I force myself to ask.
“Enough for you to drop this arbitration thing?”
“Will you give me access to my daughter?” His quick response is expected, and I’ve already started to shake my head.
“I can’t.”
“Then you have your answer.” He turns and walks away.
“Asshole.” I mutter, but I’m not really sure who I’m referring to.
There’s barely a second to dwell when I hear the tentative voice of my best friend.
“Hey,” Harper approaches me bearing gifts. Her face is so pale, I think she shouldn’t be outside in this chilly air. She holds out the bag of flying saucers that I know she must’ve scoured the city for. A childhood favourite sweet of mine that you can only get in England or those specialty shops in the States that charge an arm and a leg.
“Hey,” I take the bag with a faint smile. I can’t stomach the fizzy sherbet on my empty stomach, but I really appreciate the effort. I know she must be feeling just as shitty as I do right now, probably worse. She sits on the bench beside me, facing the main entrance to the hospital. I didn’t run far; my feet froze the second my face hit fresh air. I couldn’t leave, and I couldn’t go back inside either. I’m in limbo, alone, and I need my friend.