by Becky Wade
She had so many pictures of the school, and had studied them all so carefully, that she probably knew the campus and the college’s history better than most of their incoming students.
She never could decide if these pictures were a healthy way to process her loss or an unhealthy fixation on her loss.
Both?
She could bear without too much difficulty the idea that she may have missed out on a wedding because she’d been switched at birth. But it was much harder to bear the idea that she could have missed out on the chance to further her education because she’d been switched at birth.
She still had every intention of furthering her education when Dylan left for college. She’d take as many courses as she could handle time-wise, while continuing to work, and money-wise, while contributing to Dylan’s tuition. Eventually, she’d achieve her PhD. She would. It’s just that, to get there, she’d have to climb a challenging uphill path. The prestigious, fully funded route of years ago was gone.
She shoveled more nuts into her mouth.
It was too soon to think about her doctoral work. Nearly a year remained until Dylan’s graduation. For now, her primary focus was to ensure that he made it to his freshman dorm room in one piece and well prepared for independence.
With God’s help, she and Dylan had come a long way together. With God’s help, they’d cross the remaining distance.
A snide voice within her sneered, He’s not even your brother.
“Yes he is,” she whispered to the empty room. The mighty ties of love and loyalty that bound her to him had not changed. The truest truth of her life was that she’d love Dylan always. Unconditionally.
The things she’d learned today didn’t have to mean that Sophie had been the beneficiary of the switch and Leah the loser . . . because Leah had gotten Dylan, and she wouldn’t relinquish him for anything. She’d chosen his well-being above Princeton, and she’d chosen rightly. She didn’t regret it. Given the same set of circumstances, she’d make the same decision.
It would serve her well to remember that none of the ramifications of the switch were Sophie’s fault. She and Sophie had been minutes old when the mistake had occurred. Both of them helpless newborns. Victims. Sophie had been robbed of the opportunity to grow up with her biological family just like Leah had.
She should feel kinship with Sophie. And she did. . . .
It’s just that she felt a bit of hostility toward her, too.
How many nuts had she just eaten? Hopefully not half the can. She set them back on the shelf and returned to the dining room to Google Jonathan Brookside.
She hadn’t been able to find anything on him last week, but she’d given up after the first three or four pages of hits. This time, she’d dig deeper.
Sure enough, on the eleventh page of hits, she came upon two future-casting articles attributed to Jonathan Brookside, Founder, Gridwork Communications Corporation. The pieces were both well written. One article had appeared six years ago, the other eight. She had no way of confirming if this was her Jonathan, because no information was given about his age or family status.
She went to Gridwork Communications Corporation’s website and learned that they were a computer services company located in Atlanta. It made sense that a man who’d lived in Atlanta in young adulthood might have founded a business in the same city.
Carefully, she deleted her browser history in case Dylan attempted to snoop.
She and her brother were about to leave on their epic road trip. Her goal for their time away: to rest and to fill her days with new places and experiences. She refused to let this thing with her past distract her so much that she couldn’t enjoy the vacation she’d spent six months planning.
Fate, destiny, paternity were weighty issues. Twenty-eight years had gone by without her knowing anything about the Brooksides. It wouldn’t hurt to give herself time to strategize her next move.
One afternoon in mid-July, Sebastian assessed the couple who’d just taken the seats across from him in his office at Beckett Memorial.
Timothy and Megan Ackerman, both around his age, were sitting in the two chairs no parent wanted to sit in. All the parents who sat in those chairs were forced to face one of the worst things that can happen to a person—the life-threatening sickness of their child.
A sonogram in the middle of Megan’s second trimester had shown that their daughter, Isabella, had a combination of heart problems, including a faulty ventricle. Less than a week ago, at thirty-six weeks of gestation, the doctors in their hometown recognized that Isabella’s heart was starting to fail, so they delivered her by emergency C-section. Once testing confirmed that her heart was dangerously malformed, Isabella had been transported here. For the past several days, the PICU staff had worked to stabilize her. She’d been on a ventilator, sedated, with tubes carrying medicine into her bloodstream. Tomorrow Sebastian and his team would operate.
“The environment in utero is very supportive of babies with congenital heart defects,” Sebastian said. This situation was so upsetting and foreign to parents that they didn’t always grasp the information they were receiving. Prior to surgery, he met with parents for as long as was needed to make sure he had their informed consent and that they understood the options and risks. “The environment outside the uterus is much less kind. We’ve been giving Isabella prostaglandins, which have helped us replicate the benefits she was receiving before birth. However, the benefits they provide won’t fix anything, and they only last so long. Which is why we’re moving forward with surgery.”
Megan’s skin was pale, her eyes grim.
“I wish that we could repair Isabella’s heart through surgery, but we can’t,” Sebastian continued. “The best we can do tomorrow is put temporary fixes in place that will hopefully keep her heart functioning until a donor heart can be found, and we can perform a heart transplant.”
“Okay,” Timothy said.
“I’ll seat a band around her pulmonary artery, ligate her duct, and install a pacemaker.” Sebastian slid a diagram from his desk drawer and explained the procedures.
They listened, their posture tight with desperation. Sebastian knew that whatever part of their focus was here with him, the larger part was with their baby in the PICU.
Timothy looked like he could’ve played on the defensive line of his high school football team. He had a sandy brown beard and kind eyes.
Megan wore a maternity shirt that reminded Sebastian that she’d given birth just a few days before. As terrible as she must be feeling emotionally, she couldn’t be feeling great physically, either. Her blond hair was short in back, but her bangs were long and swept to the side around an earnest face.
Markie had already informed him that Timothy and Megan had been waiting and praying through infertility for four years. They’d gone through two in vitro fertilization treatments and been ecstatic when they’d conceived Isabella, their first baby.
The baby they’d waited and prayed for would soon be wheeled into the operating room to have her chest opened.
“If you were us, would you opt for your child to have this surgery?” Megan asked. She searched his face for guarantees.
Sometimes, this question wasn’t easy to answer. Sometimes parents faced two choices with evenly matched advantages and disadvantages. This was not one of those times. This surgery was Isabella’s only hope. “Absolutely.”
“Do you think she’ll make it through?” Megan asked.
“I think she will make it through, yes.”
“We’re Christians,” she said. “And we believe that God is still in the business of doing miracles.”
Sebastian nodded.
“He did a miracle for you once,” she said. “Right?”
“Right.” Clearly, they’d researched him and learned about the earthquake.
“Are you a believer?”
“Yes.” Sebastian didn’t elaborate, though he wanted to remind them that God didn’t often provide miracles on cue. In fact, only occasiona
lly did He answer prayers for critically ill humans by healing them here on earth.
“It’s clear to us that God chose you to be Isabella’s doctor.” Megan glanced at Timothy, then back at Sebastian.
“We’d like to move forward with the surgery,” Timothy said.
“The two of us, our family, and our church will all be praying for Isabella and for you, Dr. Grant. We’re trusting the Lord to bring her through the surgery and, eventually, to give her a whole new heart.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
In the northeast corner of the United States of America, Leah was engaged in a game of smashball with Dylan. The two of them played barefoot on a wide strip of grass situated between their trailer’s spot in the RV park and the dusky blue of Moosehead Lake, Maine.
Had they been keeping score, Dylan would have been beating her one hundred to zero. Happily, they were working as a team, their objective to keep the ball going back and forth between them.
She’d been unable to afford some of the more expensive items and activities Dylan had wanted on this trip. But at $10.95, the price of smashball had been right, so she’d purchashed the two wooden paddles and rubber ball in Bar Harbor a week ago.
They’d hiked in Vermont. Gone canoeing in New Hampshire. Followed a walking tour map of Boston.
Without the pressure of schoolwork, friend dynamics, and football, Dylan had been more communicative. Another bonus—Leah hadn’t had as many reasons to worry about him because he was usually within her line of sight.
The Airstream had turned out to be more difficult to tow than anticipated. Twice she’d needed the help of a passerby to navigate her way through gas stations. Once—horror of horrors—she’d been forced to back the trailer up. Also, she now knew more about emptying the trailer’s sewage tank than she’d ever wanted to know.
Overall, though, the trip had been everything she’d hoped.
She hit the ball back to Dylan too softly. He made a comical dive forward and popped the ball into the air. Hampered by amusement and poor athletic reflexes, she couldn’t get her paddle under it in time. The ball plunked to the earth.
She set her hands on her knees and laughed.
“You’re tragic at this,” he pointed out helpfully.
“I know. I’m tragic at every sport I’ve ever attempted. Take pity.”
“No pity.”
She fed the ball to him. He hit it straight back to her. Her return shot sprang up, and he had to do an acrobatic leap to knock it back. Her next shot went wide right.
He lunged and got his paddle on it. “Aim toward me!”
“I’m trying!” She hit another sky ball. He leapt into the air again but this time missed. He gave her a mock glare.
“You’re breathing hard,” she observed. “Is it taxing to play a team game with me?”
“The best athlete in the world isn’t in good enough shape to play a team game with you, Leah.” He served the ball to her again.
Thwap, thwap, thwap.
“Do trips like this make you miss Mom and Dad?” she asked over the sound of the ball. Leah brought their parents up from time to time so he’d know he could talk to her about either of them whenever he wanted to.
“No. I don’t even remember Dad.”
“Mom, then? It’s been a long time since we’ve seen her. It’s okay, you know. To miss her. That won’t hurt my feelings.”
“It’ll be fine when she comes for her next visit. But I don’t miss her.”
“She told me she’s planning to come for Christmas again this year.”
“’Kay.” He shrugged as if he truly didn’t care one way or another. The heart of a teenage boy was a difficult thing to understand.
“Have you thought any more about our dinner conversation last night?” she asked.
“What? About quesadillas?”
“About colleges.” They’d already visited four that fell within the overlapping parameters of her budget and his GPA and test scores. They had a few more to visit. So far he didn’t seem enthusiastic about any of them, and she couldn’t tell if that was because of his glum-colored glasses or because he didn’t want to expend energy writing essays and answering application questions.
“It’s too early to think about college,” he said.
“It’s the middle of July, and many colleges open applications in August.”
“Yeah, but applications stay open until December or something.”
“When do you intend to submit your applications?”
“December or something.”
She let the ball fall to the ground and put her hands on her hips. “If you apply early, I suspect that you’ll give yourself an advantage.”
“I don’t want an advantage. I’ll just wait.”
She gave him a look of outrage.
“It’s too early to think about college,” he repeated.
“It’s exactly the right time—”
“Too early,” he said stubbornly.
“In that case, let’s at least talk more about fields of study and possible career paths.”
“Yawn. C’mon. Feed me the ball one last time, then I’m gonna go.”
“And do what?”
His face said, duh. “Check my phone.”
“Yes, because why would you want to experience this lake in Maine when you can stare at your phone?”
“I’ve experienced this lake in Maine enough. C’mon.”
They volleyed the ball.
They’d stay here another two nights, then point the Airstream south and begin the three-day journey home. She was simultaneously sorry that their trip was drawing to a close and ready to return to a space larger than twenty-three by eight feet, her shower, her home’s valley views, the cinnamon rolls at Sugar Maple Kitchen. And, of course, in Misty River, she’d be closer to Sebastian—
Confound it.
Look where she was! New England! With the person who was closest to her in the world. Who cared about proximity to Sebastian Grant?
Oddly . . . she did.
“I’m done,” Dylan declared when she once again failed to control the trajectory of her strike. He handed her his paddle and headed to their trailer.
Leah drifted to the lake’s edge and sat. Placing the paddles and ball to the side, she leaned against her wrists. Large rocks the color of pewter descended to the mirror-like surface of the lake, which reflected the clouds. Trees crowded the shoreline. Someone rowed a distant boat in her direction.
She imagined that it was Sebastian rowing. He’d moor the boat, then stride toward her. . . .
She’d have been more successful at avoiding daydreams of Sebastian while on this trip had she not had so many night dreams of him.
Sleeping in the bedroom of the Airstream that smelled of barbecue smoke and orange-scented Pledge, her customary anxiety dreams about Dylan had given way to dreams about Sebastian. Burnished, marvelous dreams, rippling with sensations. In them, Sebastian had slow danced with her. He’d sat next to her and looked across his shoulder into her eyes, laughing. He’d run a fingertip down the inside of her arm.
She’d entirely forgotten how wonderful dreams could be. So wonderful that the instant her conscious mind interrupted one of her dreams of him—even before she was fully awake—she started regretting the dream’s end.
Physical attraction was, it turned out, quite a delightful thing to undergo. Like eating an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Or calculating partitions of a number.
Physical attraction was also a perplexing thing to undergo, seeing as how she had informed Sebastian that she was missing the attraction gene.
It wasn’t that she’d never experienced tugs of interest toward men. She’d experienced tugs of interest in the past and even gone on a few dates in her early twenties. However, it had been clear to her that none of those flickers of chemistry had the potential to convert into an actual relationship, because the flickers had been so extraordinarily temporary in nature.
She’d certainly never felt a fractio
n as strongly about any man as her friends felt for their boyfriends and husbands. She’d concluded that she was wired differently than other women . . . much less prone to the type of deep and long-lasting attraction and love that led to marriage.
Leah was already unusual in several ways. Her brain was unusual. The fact that she’d begun raising a child at the age of eighteen—unusual. The fact that she’d been working as a teacher and pursuing a master’s degree when her peers had been graduating from high school—unusual. It hadn’t been a stretch to accept that she was unusual when it came to romance, too.
She’d decided to place the idea of a boyfriend on the shelf and simply go without. She was proud of that choice in the same way that she was proud of herself for going without the type of luxuries that had the power to destroy her monthly budget.
She wasn’t fated to fall in love. She’d made peace with that.
And yet, here she was: sitting on this lakeshore during her vacation, envisioning Sebastian Grant rowing a boat toward her.
She’d been very aware of her powerful responses to him the times they’d met at Magnolia Avenue Hospital and at the Colemans’ barbecue. Her reactions to him had been different than anything she’d experienced before. Even so, she’d expected them to prove fleeting.
Instead, a peculiar thing had occurred. An unprecedented thing. It had been more than two weeks since she’d seen him, yet her conscious and unconscious mind returned to him often. If anything, her draw toward him was intensifying.
Had she reached a hasty conclusion when she’d determined that she wasn’t capable of feeling the way other women felt?
No self-respecting mathematician ever trusted a hasty conclusion. So, if that’s what had happened here, she’d made an error.
Admittedly, her data set of romantic interactions was small. In order to test her conclusion about her wiring, she’d need to enlarge that data set. To do that, she’d need to see Sebastian again.