Our Finest Hour (The Time Series Book 1)

by Jennifer Millikin

  “And he wasn't lying, either.” I add when I see the skeptical look on my dad's face. “There were moving boxes everywhere. Packed.”

  My dad drains the remainder of his beer.

  “What now?” he asks.

  “I need to find a doctor.”

  “And school?”

  “I'll figure that out. Just not yet.”

  “What about the father? Does he have a name?”

  I bite my lip, preparing to lie. I've already decided that Isaac's name doesn't matter. Knowing his first name isn't going to make him magically materialize. It was one hour. At this point he was a sperm donor. Just like my mother was a deliverer.

  “Mike," I say, picturing the neon sign of the bar. Can't get more basic than Mike. “But I've already decided it doesn't matter. I can't locate him, and you won't be able to either.”

  “The hell I won’t,” he growls, his chest puffing out. “I’ll hire a private investigator and—”

  “He left the country three days after that night. A long trip, he said. And before you ask, I don’t know why he was leaving. I didn’t ask. Because I didn’t want to know.” The less we knew the better, or so I thought at the time.

  One hour spent trying to forget, and for that I’ll spend the rest of my life remembering that one hour.

  “I made my bed, and now I'll lie in it. This baby wasn't planned, but it's mine.” My hand goes to my stomach, rubbing the flatness. “I'll raise it myself. I know how to be a single parent. I've been watching you for years.”

  Dad shakes his head. “If only your mother—”

  “Don't give her that much power. Don't start thinking about the way things could’ve been if she'd stayed.” It's a fruitless endeavor. And it does more harm than good. I would know.

  His eyes grow shiny. “Can I come to your first doctor's appointment?”

  “I'd be mad if you didn’t."

  He hugs me the same way he did whenever I got hurt when I was little. The way only a dad can.

  “Do you want dinner?” he asks when he releases me.

  I nod, wiping my eyes. “Of course. A lot of dinner. I'm hungry these days.”

  He chuckles, but the sound is more incredulous than joyful. He goes to the kitchen. I follow.

  “I have just one request for you." He looks over his shoulder as he stands in the open pantry and moves stuff around. “No more life-altering surprises for a long time, OK?”

  “Agreed.”

  The rest of our evening is pleasant, mostly, but there are some awkward moments. My thoughts move frequently to Isaac, to our hour together, the way I quietly dressed and tip-toed out. Leaving wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I liked his deep voice, his quiet competence, the way his hands felt on my skin, like they were supposed to be there. We had a tangled rhythm, an interwoven flow. The entire hour was an apex of cast-away pain and welcome pleasure. When our time was up I thought about telling him that something other than flowers when he came back was possible. In the end, my rational brain won. We had placed a time limit on ourselves, and so had circumstance. He was leaving soon. So I left first.

  I had no way of knowing this would happen to me.

  This isn’t how I pictured my life going. But this is what it is now.

  And if I know anything, it’s how to handle the unexpected.

  It surprised me how much I liked being pregnant. But what surprised me even more was the way I felt when the doctor laid my baby on my chest.

  “Did you decide on her name yet?” she asked. I’d been waiting until I saw my baby’s face to name her.

  “Claire,” I whispered through the curtain of tears streaming over my lips.

  A nurse approached with her arms open. “I need to clean her and take her measurements.” She lifted Claire off my chest and, even though she was mere pounds, I felt the absence of her weight.

  “Be careful. Don’t trip.” I told the nurse, frightened for my daughter’s safety for the first of what I knew would be countless times.

  She smiled warmly. “Of course.”

  I’ve hardly set Claire down since the nurse finished up and brought her back. Everything about her feels right. It doesn’t matter how she was conceived. What matters now is that she’s here, and she feels like everything I was always supposed to have.

  For the first time, I’m seeing what my mother lost when she left. I’ve spent my whole life thinking I was the one who missed out, but that’s not completely true.

  All I needed was Claire to show me. But the funny thing about truth is that it can’t be controlled. The truth can hurt. And with the knowledge Claire brought to me comes greater pain.

  Now I know exactly what my mother chose to leave. And even though I’ve only known Claire for twenty-four hours, there’s no chance I would ever leave her. Being her mother is a privilege.

  Every few minutes, Isaac's image pops into my head. I see his happy grin, feel his hands on my back. He would've been an excellent dad. Somehow I'm sure of it.

  Claire startles in my arms, wails for a moment, then falls back to sleep. I wonder what this will all be like once we’re at home? It won’t be just me and Claire, and right now I’m really happy about that. Moving back in with my dad was a good idea. As independent as I am, I can’t do this alone. He was in the delivery room with me yesterday, last night he slept on the excuse for a chair, and this morning he brought me breakfast.

  I just wish he would stop making comments that cause me to think even more about Claire’s father. “Dark eyes,” he said before he went home to shower. He gave me a meaningful look, then he kissed the top of my head and left.

  His comment wasn’t lost on me. Neither is Claire’s skin tone.

  She has Isaac written all over her.

  Something tells me she’ll have his smile, too.

  4 years later

  “She’s good, isn’t she?” My dad asks, but it’s not really a question. His eyes don’t stray from the field. Quickly he rubs his palms together, over and over.

  It makes me smile. He always rubs his hands together like that when he’s excited. I call it his grasshopper music.

  “She’s good.” Claire’s legs seem tiny, but they move quickly as she tries to maneuver in front of another little girl who has the soccer ball. “But she’s also four.” I feel the need to remind him of this fact, even though there's no way he needs reminding. Her birthday was last month. “They all are. It’s supposed to be about having fun, remember?”

  He sips coffee from his stainless-steel thermos and leans in to me. “I can’t help it if my granddaughter is more talented and cuter than every other kid on the field, can I?”

  My shoulders shake as I suppress my laughter. “You need to learn how to whisper.”

  We laugh together, our eyes on Claire as she charges down the field just like she does in our backyard. She’s an intense child with a take-no-prisoners attitude. She loves hard, she plays hard, and she’s almost always happy. Except when she’s sassy. But even then, it’s a happy sass.

  This is Claire’s second season playing soccer. Her coach is the father of another girl on the team. He’s never without the baseball cap bearing his alma mater’s logo, and he needs to size up his T-shirt. When I look at him, the words Dad bod come to mind.

  It's a perfect Spring morning, the kind I imagine people in cold climates fantasize about during the dark days of winter. In Phoenix there isn't a long winter, but that doesn't mean we don't appreciate a lovely March morning like this.

  Claire’s kicking the ball, dribbling like the coach showed her in practice last Tuesday, when something goes wrong. One cleat crosses over the other, and she goes down hard. My shoulders inch forward, but my feet stay planted as I wait for her to pop back up. I’m not too worried. Claire falls a lot. My dad says it’s because her mind is so much faster than her feet.

  This time, Claire doesn’t get up. She rolls onto her right side and screams.

  I’m by her side in seconds, crouching down. My dad and th
e coach make it there just after me, their voices blending as blood pounds in my ears.

  Tears stream sideways down Claire’s scrunched up face.

  “Baby, what hurts?” My voice is panicked. I’m not good at calm. I could never be a first responder.

  “My…” She’s hyperventilating. Tiny, shaky gasps of air suck into her throat. “…arm.”

  My mind races, and my limbs feel like they’ve been hit with bolts of electricity. I’m trying to determine the next step. I’m the mother, I’m supposed to know what to do, but, oh my God, I don’t.

  I take a deep breath. “Mommy needs you to roll onto your back, OK? I need to compare your arms to one another. Can you do that for me?”

  She releases a fresh round of tears as she nods. With my hands on her back and bottom, I gently position her onto her back. She screams and grabs her left arm with her right hand. Adult hands crowd my vision, my dad's and the coach’s, each automatically reaching out to help. I push their hands aside, my eyes finding the spot Claire has grabbed. Her elbow.

  I don’t have to look at her right elbow to know that her left elbow is already bigger than it should be. I meet my dad’s eyes.

  “The hospital's just a few blocks away. I’ll go get the car.” He jogs away.

  I look back to Claire. She’s quiet now, her cries soft, but that’s going to end as soon as I pick her up. My insides twist, seeing my daughter in such pain and knowing that in order to get her help, I’m going to have to make it worse.

  “I’m going to pick you up and take you to the hospital. Mommy loves you so much, and I’m going to make everything better.”

  Claire’s gaze is frightened, but wide and trusting.

  I’m gentle when I touch her. Gentle when I place one arm under her knees and another under her back. She whimpers the second I shift her. Using her right hand she keeps her left arm locked in place by her side and cries quietly.

  With Claire secured to my front, I move through the crowd of concerned parents and children, delivering half-hearted promises to email them when we know the extent of the injury. I nod to the coach as we pass. He gives me a tight smile.

  “Good luck,” he calls out. He jogs back to the center of the field, waving at the other little girls on the team to follow him.

  Claire wails with every other step I take. “It hurts,” she says through her tears. Somewhere in the back of my mind I appreciate the childlike ability to communicate pain. There is no holding back, no biting of the tongue.

  “I know, baby, I know. I’m so sorry. I wish I had a magic wand so I could take away your pain. You’re going to see a doctor, and he’ll make you all better.”

  My dad waits on the curb, as close as he can be without driving onto the field. He jumps from the driver’s seat and pulls open the back door. I slide in and keep Claire on my lap. She’s keening, her grip still on her left arm. My dad’s gaze flashes to her car seat, pausing there for a moment, then comes to rest on me.

  I thought about it too, but there’s no way to get her in there and buckled. I can’t risk moving her elbow any more than I already have. “Just drive carefully.” I close my eyes and rest my head against the headrest. “It’s only half a mile.” It makes me feel better to say this out loud. Nearly seventy percent of car accidents occur within ten miles of a person’s home. Going in the direction of the hospital puts us roughly thirteen miles away from our house. Statistically, this is an acceptable risk.

  Apparently my dad trusts me, because he runs back to the driver’s seat and throws the car in drive.

  Everything is going to be OK. It’s probably a break. It’s not as if something truly horrific happened. She’s safe, she’s not going anywhere.

  When I open my eyes, Claire’s eyes are on my face. Her lower lip quivers. I’m pushing all my love and good thoughts onto her, into those dark eyes that take me back to one hour nearly five years ago. Who knew sixty minutes of time spent with Isaac would produce the one thing I’d been missing my whole life?

  Claire is my salvation. My saving grace. She came along and unknowingly gave me all the love I’d missed from my own mother. She gave me the opportunity to be in a mother/daughter relationship, even if I only know what it’s like to be the mother.

  My dad sends frequent, worried glances back at us in the rearview mirror. If we were driving any farther, I’d tell him to pay closer attention, but we’re nearly there now.

  I’m so lucky to have him. He’s an incredible grandpa and an even better dad.

  What would Isaac have done differently on that soccer field? I turn away from the thought. Claire has me, and I did my best.

  The hour-long wait in the emergency room feels like three. Claire stays on my lap and doesn’t move. I haven’t moved either, not since I adjusted myself without thinking and she cried. Since then both my feet have fallen asleep. Now they’re numb.

  I’ve never been to the emergency room. I’ve never broken or sprained anything. A cavity has never burrowed into one of my teeth, and not because Dad was vigilant about my oral care. Like most things, he assumed I had that covered.

  So maybe my lack of experience waiting is why I’m fuming now. When we’re finally taken back, we wait longer. The nurse comes back, I explain what happened, she takes Claire’s vitals without jostling her, then she leaves. We wait again. It feels interminable.

  “How much longer before she gets some kind of pain medicine?” My question sails into the space and rustles the curtains hanging all around us. Distress, irritation, indignation, they all saturate my voice.

  Dad has no answer.

  With my free hand, I rub my eyes. Claire is cradled in my other arm, her lower half lying across my own. She’s quiet but alert. It’s only eleven in the morning. This day has already been forever. It might as well be eleven at night.

  “I’m pissed too.” My dad sends me an ironic smile over Claire’s prone form. “Think we’re alike?”

  “Just a little.” Despite my frustration, I allow a short laugh. When I was younger I’d pretend I was just like my mom. My Dad didn’t put any sweetener in his tea, so I did, because that’s probably what my mom would have done, and I was sure I was just like her. But ever since I became a parent, I see how much I’m like my father. And I also see how that’s not a bad thing.

  Finally, the nurse returns with a doctor.

  “Hi, I’m Dr. Green.” He extends his arm.

  “Aubrey Reynolds.” I do what I can not to jostle Claire while I shake his hand. “This is my dad, John.”

  Dr. Green shakes hands with my dad and looks at Claire. “And this is our tiny patient, huh?”

  Claire looks at him with her big, brown eyes and nods. He bends down and shows her his stethoscope.

  “I’m going to listen to your heart with this, OK?”

  “I know what that is.” Claire’s little voice rings out. “I’m a big fan of stethoscopes.”

  I stifle a laugh. The doctor and nurse fall in love with Claire instantly, I see it in their eyes. It’s the first Claire-like sentence she has spoken in hours.

  Dr. Green smiles and asks Claire how she got hurt.

  “I was playing soccer and my feet got tangled underneath me and I fell.”

  Listening to her talk about her injury makes my stomach ache. Dr. Green nods while she speaks, then he finishes examining her.

  He tells Claire he’s going to make her feel better and take some pictures of her arm. Turning to the nurse, he orders pain medicine and x-rays.

  I lay Claire down on the bed, where she takes the medicine like a champ, but when we get to the x-ray room, she clings to me. Finally the x-ray techs give up trying to get me out of the room and drape a lead apron over me. I sit beside Claire, holding her good hand.

  Once we’re back in the emergency room bay, we wait some more. My dad takes out his phone and finds the PBS Kids app.

  “WordGirl, please.” Claire’s request is so typical, it reminds me how constant children can be. All this drama, but she still loves
what she loves.

  Claire is on the bed, my Dad’s phone propped up on a pillow that lies across her lap. Dad sits in the empty chair beside me.

  “How’re you holding up, Aubs?”

  I groan under my breath, my eyes fixated on Claire. Blades of green grass stand out against the white bottoms of the cleats she’s still wearing. Her soccer uniform is too big, the shorts folded over twice to fit her tiny waist. The hospital bed dwarfs her.

  “I wish it were me.” My eyes pinch as I try to maintain my composure. “She’s only four. I’m twenty-six, and I have no idea what she’s feeling right now. I hate knowing she’s in pain.”

  “The worst thing for a parent is to watch their child suffer.” He says it like he knows.

  “And a grandparent, too, huh?” This can’t be easy for him either. Grandpas are people who sneak you donuts when your parents aren’t looking. He’s that and more to Claire.

  “Of course. But I was saying it from the perspective of a parent. Watching you suffer was hell on Earth.”

  My confusion pulls my attention from Claire and to my dad. “I’ve never injured myself. Did something happen I don’t know about?”

  His smile is sad. “Your mom. All your life I’ve watched you miss her, maybe less now that you have Claire. But so many times I saw the pain in your eyes, even though you never spoke a word of it. And there was nothing I could do to end your suffering.” He shakes his head as if it’s heavy, the white hair in his two-day-old stubble glinting in the fluorescent lights. “It’s a hurt that lasts a lifetime. I’m sorry she did that to you. I’m even sorrier I couldn’t give you pain medicine and make it better.”

  His words wash over me. This man, who stays quiet when most people talk, has just said more about my pain than I ever knew he understood. I lay my hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s OK, Dad. It wasn’t your place to end my suffering. She should’ve never inflicted it. And you’re right, I think about her less often since Claire was born.”

  Dad’s hand covers mine, and he squeezes. Dr. Green pushes back the curtain and steps in, followed by a nurse. Dad and I stand.