by Becky Wade
She stepped toward them with the flowers. “Do you two know each other?”
“This is my best friend, Dr. Sebastian Grant,” Ben told her.
“Ah!” she said. “You’re one of the Miracle Five, like Ben.”
“Yes.”
“Ben’s told me all about you.”
“And this,” Ben said to Sebastian, “is my friend Leah Montgomery.”
For a terrible, disorienting second, Sebastian’s mind blanked. Then denial filled it—red and loud.
No.
“I’ve told him all about you,” Ben said to Leah.
“I hope you’ve been emphasizing my most sterling qualities.”
“I have,” Ben assured her with a dopey, infatuated look.
No!
Ever since Leah came to Misty River High to teach math more than a year and a half ago, Ben had had a crush on her. Ben was taking his time, content to build a wide base of friendship with Leah, in hopes that it would one day lead to more.
Last fall, Ben had told Sebastian that he loved Leah. Sebastian had given him a hard time for claiming to love a woman he wasn’t even dating. But Ben had stood behind his statement.
Ben believed himself to be in love with her.
Which meant that Sebastian could never ask her out. Ben had found her first, and in the code of brothers, that meant that she was off-limits to Sebastian.
No.
“Small world,” Leah said lightly to Ben. “Last fall I was driving behind Sebastian here when his car went off the side of the road. I kept him company until the ambulance got there.”
“Oh?” Ben said. Then, “Oh.” Understanding was no doubt filling his brain.
Just as Ben had told Sebastian about Leah, Sebastian had told Ben about the woman who’d been in his car with him when he’d regained consciousness. Ben knew about Sebastian’s search for her and just how consumed by her Sebastian had been.
“Sebastian called me the day of the accident.” The usual optimism was draining from Ben’s expression. “He told me about the woman who stopped to help, but I had no idea that woman was you.”
A high schooler approached the stall. “I’m heading out,” he said to Leah. The newcomer was a few inches shorter than Sebastian with a soft, smooth face.
“Hello to you, too,” Leah said to the teen. “I’m in the middle of a conversation.” She indicated him and Ben.
“Cool,” the kid said. “So . . . I’m leaving.”
Leah regarded the boy with scolding affection. “I’m fine with you leaving, my darlingest of darlings, but before you go, I insist you make a stab at politeness by greeting these adults and then introducing yourself.”
“Hello,” the kid said in a monotone. “I’m Dylan.”
“Sebastian.”
“Good to see you, Dylan,” Ben said warmly.
“Yup.” Dylan loped off, flicking the fingers of one hand upward in a parting gesture.
Leah watched him leave, then handed the bouquet to Sebastian.
“How much do I owe you?” His voice sounded rusty. He was cool under pressure. Always. It was one of the things he was known for. At the moment, though, he didn’t feel cool. He felt crushed and angry. The only positive part of this situation was that Ben had joined them before Sebastian had hit on Leah.
Unfortunately, it didn’t make things better to acknowledge that things could’ve been worse.
“Twenty dollars,” she told Sebastian.
Sebastian handed over cash. He also passed the bouquet he’d purchased back to her.
She gave him a questioning look.
“For you,” he told her. “I appreciate what you did for me last fall.”
“That’s kind of you, but you don’t need to give me flowers.” She extended them back in his direction.
“They’re yours,” he insisted. “Thank you again.” After nodding at her politely, he stalked toward the spaghetti line.
Behind him, he could hear Ben and Leah exchanging good-byes.
Ben caught up and fell in step next to him. They walked in silence for several strides until Ben said, “Hold up a minute.”
They both came to a stop.
Ben stuck his hands into his jeans. “Leah was the woman who was with you in your car after your accident?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Me neither. I passed her table just now and recognized her.”
Ben shifted uncomfortably, looking toward one of the gigantic human-filled balls. It revolved slowly down its course.
Sebastian held himself motionless, still struggling to absorb the fact that he’d found Leah and lost Leah in the space of less than ten minutes.
“I really care about her, man,” Ben said. “We . . . we don’t typically have the same taste in women. But this time we do.”
“Obviously I’m not going to get in your way.”
“Look, I’m sorry about this. I know how much you liked her.”
“I don’t even know her. I talked with her six months ago for a short period of time. That’s it.” Sebastian set his body in motion again, finding it too hard to stand still.
The situation made him feel guilty, which it had no right to do. Until now, he hadn’t known the woman in his SUV was the Leah Ben had a crush on. The situation also made him feel resentful toward Ben. It had no right to do that either. “Who’s Dylan?” he asked.
“He’s Leah’s younger brother. She has custody of him.”
“Why does she have custody?”
“Their parents divorced when Dylan was young. After the divorce, Leah’s mom forced Leah’s dad out of the kids’ lives, little by little.”
“And her dad accepted that?”
“Yeah. Over time he let the kids go. So then Leah and Dylan were left with just Leah’s mom. Ten years ago, she accepted a job overseas and voluntarily relinquished Dylan’s custody to Leah.”
“How old was Leah ten years ago?”
“Eighteen. Dylan was seven.”
Sebastian’s eyebrows shot up.
“Until I met Leah,” Ben said, “I didn’t even realize that eighteen-year-olds could be granted custody of younger siblings.”
Sebastian was no stranger to issues pertaining to orphans. “In most states, including Georgia, eighteen-year-olds can gain custody of a younger sibling so long as they’re able to show that they have the means to support them both, somewhere safe to live, and so on. How did Leah have the means to support herself and her brother at that age?”
Ben tapped him on the arm, stilling him again because they’d almost reached the food line. “So, I’ve told you, right, that Leah was a math prodigy?”
Sebastian gave a short nod.
“By the age of four she could do algebraic and quadratic equations. One of her elementary school teachers took her under her wing and made sure she was challenged, gave her all kinds of resources and opportunities. By ten, she was into complex numbers and math theories.”
At ten, Sebastian had been into skipping school and hating the world.
“She stayed in public school through eighth grade,” Ben continued, “then was offered a scholarship to the Program for the Exceptionally Gifted at the Clemmons School.”
“I’m not familiar with it.”
“It’s basically a boarding school for girls who are off-the-charts smart in math. She graduated from there at eighteen with both a high school diploma and her bachelor’s degree in math. Can you relate to any of that?”
Ben knew he could. Sebastian, too, had graduated from college at eighteen.
Ben scratched the hair behind his ear that he kept shaved close to his skull. “She didn’t tell me this part, but I’ve read articles about her, so I know that she was then offered a chance to pursue her PhD free of charge at several of the best mathematics programs in the country. She chose Princeton and was all set to go when her mom took off. Leah ended up turning down Princeton’s offer and looking for jobs as a math teacher.”
“She wouldn’t have had the certifications to teach, though. Would she?”
“No. But she immediately enrolled in an online master’s program. If you have a BA in a subject and can show that you’re pursuing a master’s degree that will lead to certification, you can teach . . . assuming you can convince a principal and a school board to hire you.”
“Which is the route she took?”
“Exactly. She was hired as a middle school math teacher in Gainesville while she was getting her master’s. I’ve never heard of anyone else becoming a teacher so young. It’s rare. But then, she’s rare. Her math mind is one in a million. She should be working as a professor at a university, but instead she’s here, teaching our most advanced math students. It’s a shame for her, but it’s been awesome for the kids. She’s an excellent teacher.”
Sebastian’s mouth tightened. He’d never considered his lack of siblings to be fortunate. But because he hadn’t been saddled with family responsibilities, he’d been free to accept the medical school offers that had come his way. “Why did she move to Misty River?”
“Dylan. He was struggling in Gainesville. His grades were terrible, and his friends were rough. She decided it would be best to give him a fresh start.”
“How’s that worked out?”
“Well, for the most part. I think he still gives her plenty of reasons to worry, but he’s doing much better than he was.”
A frazzled-looking gray-haired woman whistled and flagged Ben down by waving both arms.
“Got to go,” Ben said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
As Sebastian approached the man who appeared to be in charge of the spaghetti line, he allowed himself one last look in Leah’s direction. He could only make out her bright sweater.
Disappointment snarled inside him, prowling for an outlet.
Math prodigy Leah Montgomery could not be his.
Your DNA results are in! Discover your heritage! popped up in Leah’s email inbox two weeks after submitting her second sample.
Immediately upon seeing that subject line, her blood pressure escalated in a rush.
This time the message found her while she was sitting on the bleachers at a track and field meet, cheering for her students. During a long break between events, she’d checked her phone.
She clicked the link in the email, then asked God for His peace and strength as she typed in her username and password.
The screen populated, and Leah stared at the same ethnicity pie chart YourHeritage had served her the first time. She brought up the screen showing her genetic matches. The same unfamiliar pictures and names appeared in a long line. Haskins, Brookside, Schloss.
Sorrow crept over her.
Her mother believed Leah to be the child she’d given birth to.
This second test proved, unequivocally, that she was not.
She wasn’t related by blood to her brother, her mom, or her dad. By blood, she was related to these people she did not know.
The starting gun signaled another race had begun. She raised her face and watched the runners dart off the blocks, pumping their arms and legs. Inside, her emotions were as chaotic as those churning, straining limbs.
Dylan.
For the past two weeks, her thoughts had been drawn to her DNA over and over again. It wasn’t as if she’d had no warning about the potential loss of her biological connection to her brother. Yet this confirmation sliced her with a grief so new and painful, it felt like a personal insult.
For many, many years prior to Dylan’s birth, she’d wanted a little sister of her own. Leah had been lonely, shy, uncoordinated, self-conscious—a solitary girl with a reservoir of love to give. She’d imagined that her little sister would look just like she did, love to graph parabolas like she did, appreciate tea parties with stuffed animals like she did.
Around the time she’d turned ten, she’d resigned herself to the truth. She was never going to get a sibling. Just like she was never going to get the Apple computer she asked for every Christmas.
A fifth grader going on the age of fifty, she’d put her longing for a sister on the shelf. There hadn’t been time to mourn. She’d had her hands full with the miserable social aspects of her latter elementary years and an academic workload that would have challenged Einstein. Her parents had moved from town to town every few years, forever chasing and never catching new dreams, better jobs, greener grass.
And then, out of the blue, her mom and dad—never the masters of birth control—had experienced their second unplanned pregnancy. At first when they told her they were expecting a baby, she’d responded like any self-respecting preteen: with mortification. But after she’d had time to get used to the idea, the old yearning for a blond little sister had stirred back to life.
Her parents had waited to find out the sex of their baby. And so, when Leah had finally entered her mom’s hospital room to meet her new sibling, excitement had bounced around inside her body like a pinball. Dad informed her that if the baby was wearing pink, it was a girl. If the baby was wearing blue, it was a boy.
Leah approached the little plastic box on wheels where the baby was sleeping. Long before she was close enough to determine the color of the baby’s clothing beneath the blankets, she read the sign stuck to the inside of the baby’s bed. It’s a boy!
Mom and Dad’s gender reveal plan had been spoiled by an obvious sign they’d failed to notice.
Benevolently, she acted surprised when she pulled the baby’s blanket down and revealed blue.
Leah sat in the room’s window seat, and Dad rested her tiny brother in her lap.
He was beautiful. A mini nose, a perfect doll mouth, slightly bulgy closed eyes. She peeked under his cap and found lots of dark, silky hair.
Overtaken with wonder, she’d hugged him against herself. In that moment, it hadn’t mattered that he wasn’t a girl or that he wasn’t blond.
He was hers.
She was no longer alone with her erratic parents.
She’d found her person.
Love had vibrated through every cell of her adolescent self. And over the seventeen years since, that love had proven deep and staunch, the most unchanging aspect of her life.
Her relationship with Dylan was forged of much stronger stuff than blood. She’d been there for every important moment of his life. For the last decade, she’d been his caregiver.
Shared history. Love in action. Those are the things that family relationships are made of. She would, forever and always, continue to be Dylan’s sister. But until this DNA test, she’d trusted in the fact that she was Dylan’s biological sister. She’d wanted, very much, to continue to be Dylan’s biological sister.
Now it felt as though Dylan, Mom, and Dad were on one side of a river, a party of three. And she was on the other side by herself.
A sheen of tears misted her eyes.
She was not who she’d always thought she was. Which begged the question . . . who was she?
Your identity has not changed, she told herself firmly. She was the very same person she’d been before the DNA results. Her truest identity, the only one that would last, was anchored in Christ and no one could take that from her. She’d spent hours preaching that truth to herself these past weeks. . . .
She only wished it had sunk in better.
She inclined her head, closed her eyes, and determinedly prayed the words she clung to every time bad news confronted her. I’m going to trust in you with all my heart and lean not on my understanding. In all my ways, I’ll acknowledge you. Please make my paths straight.
Lifting her head, she consciously relaxed the muscles tension had seized.
Who were the parents she should have been given to on the day of her birth? What had happened to the baby who should have been given to Leah’s mom and dad? And what chain of events had sent two babies home with the wrong parents?
CHAPTER THREE
Surgery days were Sebastian’s best days.
He entered the operating suite at Bec
kett Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, an undercurrent of adrenaline sharpening his concentration more effectively than coffee. Markie, registered nurse and physician’s assistant, came forward to help him slip on his sterile surgical gown and gloves. He’d already scrubbed in and put on his surgical cap, mask, and the loupes that magnified and enhanced his view of the field.
“Good afternoon,” he said to the team.
“Good afternoon,” they replied as a group.
Sebastian assessed the monitors, then the progress already made. Today’s patient was three-week-old Mateo Peralta, who’d been flown in from Argentina for a ventricular repair on a heart approximately the size of a walnut. Mateo lay on the table with his eyes taped closed, head to the side, a ventilation tube in his trachea, tiny hands relaxed.
Sebastian prepared his surgical plans the way generals strategized complex battles. Even so, he sometimes altered his plans when he saw his patient’s anatomy with his own eyes. Echocardiograms had grown more and more sophisticated, but there was still no substitute for looking into a chest.
Now that he was viewing the boy’s heart, he was indeed going to adjust his plan of attack. He asked for his instruments. “Let’s get to work, people.” It was his customary phrase.
Markie shot back her customary response. “Some of us are already working.”
Smiling a little, he bent forward and began.
Sebastian and his mentors had several things in common. They were all persistent perfectionists, determined to execute their role flawlessly. They were also confident. Thick-skinned. Tough-minded. Ambitious.
Sebastian was unlike the rest of them in one key way, however. He’d been a foster kid, and because of that, his street smarts were wickedly sharp. In elementary school, if he took a toy from another kid and that kid cried, he hadn’t cared. Why should he care? He’d ended up with the toy. In middle school, he’d learned to defend himself with his fists. In high school and college, he’d used people to get ahead, he’d put his own interests first, and he’d bent every rule that didn’t suit him.
Plenty of people had called him ruthless, but no one had ever called him humble.