Let It Be Me

by Becky Wade

  “Be safe!” Leah yelled. “Love you!”

  Muffled grunt. The door closed behind him.

  When Dylan was younger, he’d been challenging because he’d been wounded by Mom’s abandonment, hungry for attention, in need of constant supervision, full of energy, and not in the least independent. But he’d been good company.

  Now he didn’t want attention, didn’t require much supervision, had low energy, and was very independent. And Leah really, really missed his company.

  Why was it so easy to focus on the difficulties that came with a specific phase of a relationship? As soon as that phase ended, you mourned the benefits.

  “And you?” A roll in one hand, Rudy stretched his knife toward the butter dish. Tess moved the butter dish out of his reach. His attention swung to Leah. “Are you interested in dating any of the young men you know?”

  “I’m not. No.”

  “None of them has been tickling you?”

  “Not a one.” Rudy wanted her to fall in love. Unsuccessfully, she’d explained to him that she was already married to her goal of achieving her PhD. That was the only thing she needed to keep her warm in bed on a cold night.

  Tess and Rudy stayed for coffee, cookies (of which Tess allowed Rudy two), and a speed round of Scrabble (since Rudy’s bedtime was ten).

  When they left, Leah waved them off from her dark front lawn, Rudy’s question echoing in her ears. “Are you interested in dating any of the young men you know?”

  She’d thought about Sebastian Grant often over the past few days, because thinking about him caused delight to rumble within her like kernels of corn about to pop. At the Colemans’ party, he’d been very composed and controlled. Yet she’d felt the energy in him, pulsing under his skin. Behind his bland expressions, she sensed a tremendously sharp, alert mind. He was focused, but remote. Intelligent, but not open. Determined, but difficult for her to read.

  There’d been a moment when he’d looked at her so directly that sensitivity had bloomed across her skin. When he’d told her about his mom’s death, she’d had a wayward, but powerful, urge to comfort him.

  She’d been telling herself that the physical attraction she’d experienced for him when they’d met at the hospital coffee shop a week and a half ago was an outlier, a data point differing significantly from the rest of her responses to the opposite sex. But now that it had occurred again, she couldn’t classify it as such.

  She returned to the house, picked up her laptop, and walked straight through to her miniature back patio. Exterior and interior light spilled illumination onto the pavers that formed a curving shape just large enough for an outdoor chair, footrest, and side table.

  After lowering onto the chair, she hooked a toe beneath the footrest, pulled it into position, then settled her computer so that it formed a bridge between her thighs and abdomen.

  Due to the waiver that Mom had finally submitted, Magnolia Avenue Hospital had gathered the files about her birth. She’d been born at a time when records were kept only on paper. However, she’d requested them in an electronic format, so the hospital had scanned the pages. Earlier today she’d begun reading them via an online portal.

  She’d seen at once that doctors’ reputation for illegible handwriting wasn’t unfounded. For several hours she’d combed through the documents, slowly deciphering words, taking notes. Now she could revisit them and finish researching the oddities she’d found the first time through.

  Immediately after birth in the delivery room, her weight had been listed as eight pounds, one ounce. Two days later, when she and her mom left the hospital, the log noted her weight as seven pounds, one ounce.

  She surfed the web and discovered that it wasn’t unusual for a formula-fed newborn to lose five percent of her body weight after birth. But according to her chart, she’d lost twelve percent of her body weight.

  Her mother’s biological daughter was the one who’d weighed eight pounds, one ounce. Leah had likely weighed close to seven pounds at birth.

  Mom’s blood type was recorded here as type O. A Google search informed her that O was common. So was Leah’s blood type, A. Her dad had type B, which was more unusual. A few of the times he’d given blood when she was a kid, he’d taken her along. Those occasions had imprinted on her memory because . . . needles. Blood. “I’ve got to help out my fellow Bs,” he’d told her. Afterward, he’d winked and cajoled the staff into giving Leah a carton of juice and a package of saltines.

  She located a chart listing how blood types descended from parents to children. Ah. It wasn’t possible for a type O mother and type B father to have a type A daughter.

  She’d already known she wasn’t Erica and Todd Montgomery’s child. The DNA said so. Her improbable weight loss as an infant said so.

  So why did this fresh confirmation lower onto her shoulders like a lead blanket?

  She read back over every item—the doctor’s scrawl regarding the caesarean section, her mom’s blood pressure stats, the notes on the baby’s feeding times, the results of the pediatrician’s exam.

  Her mother’s baby had been whisked from the delivery room to the nursery because of concerns over a rapid heartbeat. As far as Leah could tell, the baby’s heartbeat had stabilized quickly. The remainder of Mom’s stay at the hospital appeared ordinary.

  Not a single detail pointed to the question of how. How had two babies been switched?

  Leah tilted her head up. Trees conspired to crowd out most of the starry sky. It might not be possible to answer the question of how. But it should be possible to answer the question of who. Who were her mother and father?

  She logged in at YourHeritage. Starting with the DNA matches that the site designated as her closest relatives, she’d been studying each person one by one. Many had opted to keep their information private. Some who’d made their family trees public had only used the site for genealogical purposes and therefore hadn’t included living relatives. Others had only traced one branch of their tree.

  Borrowing and building on the research they’d made available, she’d been striving to assemble a master family tree for herself. It was laborious.

  The site says this woman’s my second cousin. But how? Through whom? Who are her parents, siblings, and kids?

  Given more time, however, she had faith that she’d be able to crack the code.

  Two days later, she did.

  Maybe.

  She’d taken her computer on a breakfast date to The Grind Coffee Shop and was just finishing up a chai latte when she suddenly located a jackpot of a family tree.

  It had not come from one of her closest DNA matches. It had come from a distant relation named Cheryl Brookside Patterson. An obvious overachiever and a woman after Leah’s own heart, Cheryl had made public the most thrillingly thorough family tree Leah had ever seen.

  Section by section, Leah compared her fledgling tree with Cheryl’s enormous tree until—finally—she found the place where her tree overlaid with Cheryl’s tree exactly. If she slotted a man named Jonathan Brookside into her tree as her father, then the few matches she’d been able to determine fell into place.

  Many of the people on Cheryl’s tree had been born in Connecticut. However, Jonathan had been born in Atlanta. He had no siblings. At the age of fifty-seven, he was certainly of the right generation to be her father.

  It seemed she was . . . a Brookside.

  No information beyond his birthdate and place of birth had been given. She ran a search for him at YourHeritage, then on Google, then on social media sites.

  No hits, which frustrated her curiosity but did not detract from the fact that she now, very likely, had enough DNA data to justify a court order for Baby Girl Brookside’s records.

  Leah wouldn’t presume to call her knowledge of music well rounded. When she was young, her parents had introduced her to the 1980s soundtrack of their high school years, and she’d never found songs she liked better.

  However, she was familiar enough with TLC’s hit “Don’
t Go Chasing Waterfalls” to know the lyrics suggested that you shouldn’t go chasing waterfalls, but instead stick to the rivers and lakes you were used to.

  Which was preposterous.

  Case in point: She’d spent a glorious Friday morning chasing a waterfall at Tallulah Gorge State Park. She’d hiked from the rim down to the floor. From her current spot on a shaded rock, the river tumbled past, crystal blue and frothing white. A hundred or so yards away, Hurricane Falls cascaded over ancient rock and filled the air with an underlying drone of nature’s power.

  She’d have missed all this if she’d stuck to the rivers and the lakes she was used to.

  After unpacking the lunch she’d brought in her backpack, she checked her phone and found a new email from Sebastian’s attorney, Jenna Miles. Leah had called Jenna immediately after deducing that Jonathan Brookside was her father, and Jenna had wasted no time.

  Leah opened the email, a smile growing as she read the contents.

  Then she spent far too long formulating and proofreading a text message to Sebastian. She was determined that no person would ever, ever, receive an email or text from her riddled with typos.

  Jenna just informed me that she was granted a court order. She’ll deliver it to Donna McKelvey at Magnolia Avenue Hospital within the hour and request that Baby Girl Brookside’s documents be made ready for my perusal on Tuesday. You’d asked me to keep you informed about upcoming meetings, and I’m upholding my end of the bargain. Thank you very much for securing Jenna’s services on my behalf.

  She could only hope that the detective work she’d done to pinpoint the identity of her father had been sound. If it hadn’t been, the effort to secure a court order pertaining to a baby girl with the surname Brookside would be wasted when Magnolia Avenue Hospital informed them that said records did not exist.

  She completed her hike and was backing out of the parking lot when her phone dinged. She pressed the brake as if on the verge of flattening a pedestrian, even though no one was nearby. Bobbled her phone. Then plucked it up and checked her texts.

  Sure enough. From Sebastian.

  Let me know when to meet you at the hospital on Tuesday. I’ll do my best to be there.

  Please don’t feel duty-bound to attend.

  I want to be there.

  I’m sure your schedule is full, and I’m sure Jenna and I can handle it.

  I’ll see you Tuesday.

  Sebastian sent his text and swiveled his office chair so that his vision landed on the pictures that his patients’ parents had sent him. Smiling babies.

  He understood hospital politics and procedures better than Leah and Jenna. It was justified, generous even, for him to attend the meeting in order to provide backup.

  So why did he feel guilty?

  He pressed from his office chair and headed toward the stairs that led to the PICU, one floor below.

  He felt guilty because he didn’t know how much his desire to see her again was influencing his certainty that she needed him at the meeting. Did his desire to see her again account for twenty percent of his motivation to be present at the meeting? Fifty? Eighty?

  At exactly what point did helping Leah cross the line into betraying Ben? Had he already crossed that line?

  No.

  During his meeting with Leah at the hospital coffee shop, he’d encouraged her to date Ben. At the Colemans’, he’d talked Ben up. When he saw Leah this next time, he’d advocate for Ben again.

  If Leah found the information she needed on Tuesday, that meeting would likely be their last. She’d no longer need his help with her search into her past, and so he’d see her again only through Ben. If he went out with Ben’s friend group in Misty River. Or if Leah became Ben’s girlfriend.

  His stomach churned.

  He strode toward Josiah Douglas’s room. Sebastian had performed a successful arterial switch operation on him a few weeks ago. Since then, they’d been monitoring him around the clock and administering medicine to improve his blood flow.

  When Sebastian entered, Josiah’s mom and dad pushed to their feet to greet him. Josiah, awake and relaxed, still hooked up to his IV, was cradled in his mom’s arms.

  “Good news,” Sebastian told them. “After morning rounds, we discussed Josiah’s case, and we all agreed he’s ready to go home. I’m discharging him.”

  Instantly, Josiah’s mom’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Thank you,” her husband said, looking more grateful than if he’d won the lottery.

  It strained families to have their child admitted here for weeks or sometimes months at a time. The opportunity to go home was always celebrated, and Sebastian was always glad for them. This was the outcome he worked toward—hearts with congenital defects, repaired as much as medicine allowed.

  However, he understood better than Josiah’s parents did the difficulty of the road before them. The surgeons here could not cure patients. They could only exchange a life-ending condition for a serious chronic condition. Josiah’s needs—medicine, check-ups, vigilance—would demand a lot from his parents. He was at risk for leaky valves, arrhythmias, and more.

  “I know the staff here has been teaching you how to take care of him,” Sebastian said. “I just want to remind you to keep an eye on his weight gain, his growth, and his oxygen levels. Call us if he has any feeding or breathing problems. All right?”

  They both nodded.

  Sebastian stepped forward and swept a few fingers across the top of Josiah’s springy hair.

  The baby peered up at him with a trusting expression.

  “Good-bye,” Sebastian said. “Stay healthy.”

  Leah was about to be granted a peek into the hospital records of Baby Girl Brookside.

  Who was her. Or . . . had been her for a short time. Before she’d been given to Erica and Todd Montgomery.

  Over the past few days, after Jenna had delivered the court order to the hospital, she’d been half expecting a call informing her that Magnolia Avenue did not possess records for an infant girl named Brookside, born on her birthday.

  But that call never came.

  Leah waited for Sebastian and Jenna at the same table at Magnolia Perk where she’d waited prior to the last meeting with Donna McKelvey. Unlike last time, it was late afternoon. Like last time, she’d arrived early—

  And there was Sebastian. Also early. The electronic doors whooshed open dramatically as he swept in alongside a sleek woman in her forties.

  He had on a pale gray dress shirt and navy suit pants. All the vitality in the place seemed to pull toward him like ocean water whizzing back out to sea. Was Leah the only one who noticed? She glanced around. Everyone else seemed to be carrying on as usual.

  When the pair reached Leah, Sebastian introduced the woman as Jenna Miles, attorney. Jenna promptly excused herself, making a beeline for the coffee counter.

  He didn’t take the chair opposite Leah, so she looped her purse over her shoulder and stood. Together, they moved out of earshot of the other tables.

  “Thanks for coming, Dr. Grant.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it, Professor Montgomery.”

  “I’m not a professor.”

  “You will be. Besides, the title suits. You’re more of a professor than most of the professors I had in school.” He was only thirty-two, but his life, his career, and the pressures he lived under made him look a few years older than that. There was nothing soft or young about Sebastian Grant. “So. We talked about Ben’s interest in you the last time we were here together.”

  “We did, yes.”

  “And you said you weren’t interested in him in return. I heard you, but—”

  She arched a brow at him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “When a woman expresses her stance and a man responds with ‘I heard you, but,’ that doesn’t bode well for the quality of the exchange.” It was the honest truth, delivered teasingly.

  To his credit, he laughed. “May I have permission to finish my thought?”
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  She nodded.

  “I want to encourage you to keep an open mind where Ben’s concerned. I mean, it couldn’t hurt to go out to dinner with him, could it? What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “A, I could end up ruining my relationship with my closest friend at work. B, and far more chilling, I could fall for him.”

  “That would be great.”

  “That would be a catastrophe.”

  “You’re smart enough to keep it from becoming a catastrophe.”

  “I’m book smart, not romance smart.” She looked toward Jenna, who’d moved to the side to wait for her drink. The attorney wore her auburn hair in a short pixie cut that flattered approximately one percent of women. Jenna was in that one percent.

  Leah straightened her short-sleeved crewneck sweater—raspberry in color with dark pink flowers stitched across it in horizontal rows. She’d paired it with narrow gray pants and heels.

  “You can learn to be romance smart,” Sebastian said.

  She sighed. Ever since Sebastian had told her Ben liked her, that knowledge hadn’t been sitting well. “I’ve actually been considering going out to dinner with Ben,” she admitted.

  “Hmm?”

  “I’ve been considering it,” she repeated. When Leah glanced at Sebastian, she found him watching her. Dinner with Ben would give her a private, unhurried setting in which she could ask about his feelings and ensure that he wasn’t holding out false hope where she was concerned.

  “You’ll go out with him?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He swallowed, and his jaw appeared to harden.

  “Which is what you’ve been lobbying for. So I’m confused as to why you don’t look pleased.”

  He shook himself slightly. “Sorry. I got distracted for a second.” A wide smile overtook his mouth. “I’m pleased.”

  “Then that’s settled. Dylan and I are leaving in a few days on our trip. When I get back, I’ll have dinner with Ben.”