A Mom for His Daughter

by Jean C. Gordon

  Fiona’s smile shot right through him. “Yes, I’d like to.”

  There. He struck his claim. But to what exactly was another question.

  Chapter Seven

  Fiona rose and went out to the medical center hallway for a second drink of water. Where were Marc and Stella? The only contact she’d had with Marc the past week was his text to confirm she was coming to Stella’s appointment and her response that she’d meet him here. It didn’t make sense for him to go out of his way to pick her up at the farm.

  Fiona had thought about attending service at Hazardtown Community Church yesterday, but that had somehow struck her as stalker-ish. She’d tried the Stone Church in Schroon Lake instead and, while it hadn’t felt like a good fit, simply hearing God’s words had made her less apprehensive about Stella’s appointment this afternoon.

  She returned to the waiting room and rifled through the folder of medical records she’d brought—Mairi’s childhood ones from when she had custody of her and the ones Fiona had received from Autumn Hanlon at the birthing center. Most likely overkill, but she liked to be prepared, not that she ever felt fully prepared when dealing with Marc and Stella.

  “Hey, been waiting long?”

  Fiona slapped the folder shut. “Hi, Marc, Stella.”

  The little girl had no reaction to her greeting, which Fiona took as a good thing. “I’ve been here a few minutes. I overestimated the time it would take to drive from the office.”

  “Never a bad idea with the winter weather here. I’ll go check Stella in. Stay here with Fiona,” he said to his daughter.

  “’Kay.” Stella crawled up on the chair next to Fiona. Another good sign.

  The little girl swung her feet back and forth. “Don’t cry, and Feena will get a good girl prize.”

  Fiona wasn’t sure what Stella meant, but Stella talking to her with no prompting warmed her to the core.

  Marc folded his tall frame into the chair on Stella’s other side. “Her pediatrician gave her a coloring book after her exam.”

  “Stella colors at school, for Daddy. Luc scribbles, breaks crayons. Aunt Dee says no.”

  “My oldest sister, Andie,” Marc explained.

  Stella and Marc’s reminders of their family pushed Fiona to the outside of the circle of intimacy she’d felt around the three of them. No, she admonished herself, you’re part of Stella’s family, too.

  “Stella Delacroix,” a nurse called from the doorway to the exam rooms. The three of them rose and followed the nurse. She took Stella’s vital signs and said the doctor would be with them in a minute.

  A knock on the door signaled his arrival. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Delacroix, Stella, I’m Dr. Franklin.”

  “Marc,” he extended his hand, “and this is a family friend, Fiona Bryce. I’m a widower.”

  Dr. Franklin glanced from Stella to Fiona. “Sorry for my presumption. And how are you, Stella?”

  “Almost free,” she answered, misunderstanding his question and holding up three fingers.

  Dr. Franklin laughed and explained to Stella in children’s terms what he was going to do in his exam.

  “Great job,” he said when he finished. “Would you like to go look at the fish in the waiting room with my nurse while I talk with your daddy and Fiona? My nurse has something for you,” Dr. Franklin added.

  “A good girl prize! ’Kay, Daddy?”

  Fiona released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  “Sure.” Marc visibly relaxed, an action the doctor appeared to pick up on.

  “We can talk in my office. The nurses’ station is on the way.”

  Marc lifted Stella from the exam table and they followed the doctor into the hall.

  “Sonja,” he said to the nurse who’d taken Stella’s vitals, “Stella would like to go see my fish, and I told her you would have something for her.”

  “Right. Come on, Stella. We have a new fish that likes to hide in the rocks. Let’s see if we can find him.”

  Stella looked up at Marc.

  “Go ahead, sweetpea.”

  Fiona’s heart clenched at how willingly the little girl went with the nurse, compared to her reaction to staying with Fiona at Marc’s restaurant.

  Marc leaned toward her, his warm breath tickling her ear. “For whatever reason, she’s more comfortable with older women.”

  Had she been that transparent? Fiona thought she had better control of her emotions than that.

  They followed the doctor to his office and sat in the two chairs facing his desk. Fiona placed her folder on the desk.

  Marc eyed it and cleared his throat. “Before you start, I...we need to share a few family details. Stella is adopted. Fiona is her birth mother’s sister. She...we only recently learned that. Fiona can tell you her family history.” His words seemed to trip over each other.

  “Good. From my exam and your pediatricians’ records, I have some questions. Do you know of any instances of IBS or Crohn’s disease in the immediate family?”

  Fiona froze.

  “No, not that I know of,” Marc answered.

  “My family has a history.” The words scraped across Fiona’s vocal chords.

  Dr. Franklin picked up a pen. “IBS or Crohn’s?”

  “Crohn’s.”

  The doctor made a note. “There’s not an absolute proven hereditary correlation, but Crohn’s disease appears to run in some families. Stella’s birth mother?”

  “No, our younger sister.”

  “Adult or child onset?” the doctor asked.

  “Child.”

  An arctic chill radiated from Marc.

  “She has it successfully managed?” Dr. Franklin asked.

  “No. I mean, she died when she was about Stella’s age, from colon cancer.”

  “Are you saying Stella has Crohn’s disease?” Marc interrupted. He stopped and dropped his hands to his lap.

  Without thinking, Fiona reached over and covered his hand with hers, surprised when he didn’t pull away.

  “My wife, Cate, died of bone cancer when Stella was eighteen months old.”

  “The risk of colorectal cancer in young children is very low, unless inflammation goes unmanaged and the entire colon becomes affected,” Dr. Franklin reassured him.

  Tears moistened Fiona’s eyes. She’d been only a child herself, but... “My mother didn’t do a good job of following the instructions Beth’s doctors had given her.”

  The two men stared at her.

  “I read them,” Fiona said. “I probably understood them as much as my mother did.” Even in her lucid moments. “I did what I could to help.”

  Dr. Franklin’s expression turned compassionate, and Fiona squirmed. What did it matter if her words had given the doctor, or even Marc, insight into where she’d come from? That was the past. She was here today for Stella.

  “I haven’t made a diagnosis,” the doctor continued. “I’m still gathering information and will want to run some tests once I look at the results of the bloodwork I’ve ordered.” He explained the possible tests.

  When the doctor had finished, Marc glanced down at Fiona’s hand on his and pulled it—and the warmth they’d shared—away.

  “I want you to schedule an appointment to bring Stella back in two weeks,” Dr. Franklin said. “Until then, keep a journal of what she eats and note any complaints of stomach discomfort. Will that be a problem at daycare?”

  “No, she’s usually with me or my mother for lunch, and my sister is her teacher at preschool.” Marc drew his lips into a grim line. That was assuming Mom took his directions from Dr. Franklin seriously. She had her own ways of doing things and might treat the food diary as unnecessary.

  “I’m advising against either of you doing too much online research on IBS and Crohn’s until we have a diagnosis, but if you feel compell
ed to, stick with the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation and Mayo Clinic.”

  The doctor scratched the websites on a Post-it note that Marc stuffed in the pocket of his shirt.

  “I’m familiar with both of the sites,” Fiona said when Dr. Franklin reached for another Post-it.

  Of course she was. He should be thankful for Fiona’s input about her family’s medical history. But after what Cate went through, the story Fiona had shared about her youngest sister just plain scared him, despite the reassurance Dr. Franklin had given him.

  He and Fiona walked back to the waiting room in silence.

  “Daddy!” Stella called when they reached the waiting room doorway. “We found the fish. See.” She pointed at a blue-gray angelfish. “He looks like the rock.”

  Marc bent to Stella’s level and squinted at the aquarium. “So he does.”

  “And I got ’nother coloring book. Luc no scribble.” Stella shook her head emphatically.

  “Nice,” Marc said. “But remember what I said the other day about sharing.”

  Stella huffed. “’Kay.”

  “I’m going to head back to work,” Fiona said. “See you Thursday evening.”

  Marc’s mind blanked. Thursday evening was the Twenty-/Thirtysomethings regular meeting at church, but neither of them belonged, and he didn’t remember making any plans to go.

  “The meeting with Noah,” she prompted. “Bridges.”

  “Right. See you then.”

  Marc watched Fiona leave and pasted a smile on his face for his daughter. At the moment, all he wanted to do was scoop up Stella, take her home and never let go. He gazed down at her studying the fish again, his heart nearly bursting.

  Lord, please. I’m not strong enough to go through it again. Not with my baby.

  * * *

  Stella wasn’t Beth. Fiona had told herself that a thousand times since Tuesday. But it hadn’t entirely relieved the sick feeling in her stomach. Rationally, she knew that her mother’s haphazard care of Beth was partially responsible for the deterioration in her baby sister’s health, and she knew Marc would do anything for Stella. Still, a part of her wondered why he hadn’t questioned the little girl’s stomachaches earlier, and she answered herself—fairly or unfairly—that he’d simply been too wrapped up in his work.

  Fiona pulled open the door to the building in Elizabethtown where the Christian Action Coalition had its offices. It probably would have made sense for her and Marc to drive up together, but he hadn’t offered. He hadn’t contacted her at all since Stella’s doctor’s appointment. Not that there was any reason he should have. Except to reassure me about my place in Stella’s life. She wrinkled her nose. Fixating on Dr. Franklin’s concerns had opened her old longing-to-belong wounds that she’d worked so hard to close.

  Fiona quickly found the director’s office and went in.

  “Hi,” Noah said. “You’re the first to arrive.”

  “Hi.” Fiona knew that. It’s what she’d planned, after the discomfort of arriving last at the group meeting. She’d checked the parking lot for Marc’s SUV when she’d arrived.

  “Take your coat off and join me.” He rose from his desk and motioned first to a coatrack by the door and then to a couch and two chairs positioned in a horseshoe around a low table. “Would you like a cup of coffee while we wait for Marc?”

  “No, thanks.” She didn’t need anything to add to her jitters.

  “So how’s it going?” he asked after she’d settled into one of the chairs.

  “With Stella?” she asked.

  “Or in general.” He smiled.

  Noah was obviously trying to make her feel more comfortable. But she wasn’t comfortable, and would probably be even less so once Marc arrived.

  “Work’s good.” She grasped onto the subject she felt most grounded in.

  “You’re with the Willsboro farm, right?”

  “Yes, the new farm-to-table program.” She searched for something else to say. “Marc and his partners are my first clients.” For all of the other things she could have told Noah about her job, the reference to Marc just flowed out.

  “Interesting.”

  She cocked her head toward him. Was he psychoanalyzing her? She’d certainly had enough experience with various school counselors over the years that she should know.

  Noah sat calmly in the other chair.

  “Marc showed me his restaurant the other week,” she said when the silence grew too long for her. “We took Stella with us.”

  “And how did that work out?”

  He was analyzing her. She checked the clock to see how close it was to seven. Six fifty-eight.

  “So-so. Marc had to check out a problem the renovation contractor had found in the kitchen and needed Stella to stay in the dining room with me. She didn’t want to.”

  “I see.”

  Fiona gritted her teeth and checked the clock again. She’d found the Bridges children’s group activity valuable but was reassessing her agreement to participate in the adult group.

  “Hey, sorry I’m late.” Marc walked in and slipped off his coat.

  His Oxford dress shirt and sharply creased slacks made her feel rumpled in the slacks and sweater she’d worn to work. While it hadn’t made sense for her to drive home to Ticonderoga from work and back north to Elizabethtown, she could have brought a fresh outfit. She shook off a vision of herself in ill-fitting, thrift-shop clothes, sitting in the guidance counselor’s office on her first day at the last high school she’d attended. She straightened in her seat. She wasn’t that poor little Bryce girl anymore.

  “No problem. It gave me a few minutes to get to know Fiona. I have to admit that I have quite a bit of backstory on you from your sister.”

  “Renee?” Marc laughed. “Only believe half of what any of my siblings say about each other—good or bad.”

  Fiona wondered if Noah had caught the edge on Marc’s laugh. Or had she imagined it? He assessed the sitting arrangement and settled on the couch, his only option. Fiona resisted the inexplicable urge she had to join him.

  “Fiona was telling me about you and her and Stella visiting your new restaurant.”

  Marc rubbed his chin. “Yeah, that didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.”

  “Fiona said Stella was reluctant to stay with her.”

  “Not as much as she could have been. She didn’t throw a fit or anything.”

  “She’s done that before?” Noah asked.

  “Unfortunately.” Marc rubbed the back of his neck. “Stella seems to be comfortable only with older women and my sisters. What bothered me was that Stella went right to one of the construction workers.” Marc’s face hardened.

  That had bothered her, too, but she couldn’t fathom why it would have bothered Marc.

  “I’ve tried to teach her stranger danger.”

  “You were there. I’m sure she felt safe,” Noah said.

  But not safe with me. Fiona studied her hands in her lap.

  “Back to Stella not wanting to stay with Fiona. The restaurant visit was, what, the third time Stella has been with Fiona?”

  Marc’s eyes narrowed, and Fiona sank back in her chair.

  “Renee said you introduced Fiona to all of your family a couple weeks ago.”

  “Did she also tell you that my mother was not receptive?”

  Fiona caught the sharp edge in Marc’s response and sank farther into the chair.

  “She did. How do each of you feel about that?” Noah asked.

  Fiona opened her mouth to answer, but Marc stopped her by raising his hands to Noah, palms out.

  “Wait a minute. I thought the purpose of the adult group, of our meeting with you, was to help us develop strategies for working together to help Stella adjust to losing her mother, moving here and, on top of all of that, having an aunt appear whom no one k
new about. Let’s drop the feelings stuff and cut to the chase. My hopes are that we can leave tonight with a plan to introduce Fiona to Stella as her aunt sooner rather than later.”

  “What’s your hurry?” Noah asked.

  “Stella said something to my mother when she was watching her today about Fiona not being her aunt. I don’t know where Stella picked that up. I’m not even sure she knows exactly what an aunt is, only that she has several. Mom didn’t disagree. She said she didn’t want to confuse Stella, which I can appreciate.” He stopped and took a deep breath.

  “But your mother’s still not convinced, even by the DNA test,” Fiona finished for him.

  “No.” Marc turned to Noah. “As to how I feel about Mom—confused. It’s totally out of character for her to refuse to accept Fiona despite the proof. Everyone else in the family has.”

  Fiona warmed at Marc’s defense of her.

  “This is good,” Noah said. “You’ve targeted a major goal. I’m going to suggest a modification. Rather than focusing on Fiona being Stella’s aunt, bring Fiona into the family without a label. Marc has a good point about the possibility of Stella not fully understanding family connections. Now, fill me in on Dr. Franklin.”

  Marc told him about Stella’s checkup and appointment with Dr. Franklin.

  “So you may have a health issue thrown in with our other challenges.”

  “Not necessarily,” Marc corrected Noah. “The counselor I took Stella to downstate said her stomachaches could be triggered by the stress of dealing with the loss of her mother. Her pediatrician there wasn’t concerned about her growth development—at least at the couple of checkups I took her to after... That’s something Cate had always handled.”

  Fiona’s stomach twisted in a sharp spasm. Was he as much in denial about the possibility that Stella had a medical condition as his mother was about her being Stella’s aunt?

  “All right,” Noah said. “Where do you go from here?”