Their Surprise Daddy

by Ruth Logan Herne

  She looked at him.

  He looked at her.

  Her heartbeat ramped up, then skipped not once, but twice, as if trying to gain her attention. And from Cruz’s expression, she was pretty sure he got it, too, but they weren’t kids messing around. They were grown-ups, from different walks of life. He’d return to the city in a few weeks and she’d be scouting Craigslist and garage sales for gently used preschool items, their goals at opposite ends of the spectrum.

  She dropped her gaze on purpose, then tossed a dishcloth his way. “Can you rinse that out and hang it, please? I’ll wash it tomorrow, but it’s amazing how quickly a dishcloth can go sour in the summer.”

  He did as she asked, then drained his wash water and rinsed the sink. When they were done, they faced one another. He glanced up at the clock and made a face. “I can’t believe that it’s not even nine o’clock and we’re calling it a night.”

  “Not exactly like Manhattan, is it?”

  “I’d be sitting down to eat dinner about now.”

  “Seriously?” As long as he kept his distance and addressed the mundane, she’d be fine around him. “That’s a long workday, Cruz.”

  He crossed the kitchen and dining area, paused at the door, then held out his hand. “Come here.”

  She hesitated.

  He tipped his head slightly. “I won’t bite.”

  She crossed the room and put her hand in his.

  He opened the door and led her outside. He didn’t pause in the yard beneath the trees. He kept walking until they were in the broad, open expanse leading to Canandaigua Lake. “Look up.”

  She did, and a star-soaked sky hung over them, stretching down and around in every direction. “Amazing, right?”

  He tipped his head back, too, still holding her hand. “There.” He whispered the word and pointed slightly east as a meteor streaked across the sky, disappearing into the dark horizon below.

  “A meteor!”

  He nodded, still gripping her hand. “Yes. My life gets crazy in New York and I don’t always remember to go up on the rooftop to see if I can glimpse one or two. The city lights are too bright to see much. My dad and I used to go out onto the top of the hill, with grapevines stretching down both sides, and we’d lie down and watch the meteor showers. The Delta now, Perseids in August. Every year, like clockwork, because that’s how the universe is. Balanced and timely. So if I seem to be a little locked to the clock, blame my father.”

  She heard the smile in his voice and a gentle peace within him, and she could picture father and son, walking uphill to lie back and view the summer sky. “I’m glad you had a good relationship with him, Cruz.”

  “Great relationship, partially because we needed to create a unified front for whenever Hurricane Rosa went on a rampage. Which was fairly often.”

  “I think she’s better, Cruz. I’ve only known her personally for a few years, but I’ve had no problems whatsoever, and it’s a rare day I can say that about preschool parents.”

  He stopped looking up, then he let go of her hand. He rolled his shoulders and shrugged, clearly unconvinced. “We’ll see.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned back toward the house and garage. “Thanks for going over things with me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  It was like a door closed. No more talk of stars or meteors or sweet celestial happenings. They were back to all business, and while Rory knew that was probably for the best, she missed watching the midsummer show with her hand wrapped snugly in his.

  Still, it wasn’t something her hand—or her heart—could afford to get used to.

  Chapter Seven

  Cruz’s phone jangled him awake an hour before he usually woke up. He spotted Drew’s name and swiped the screen swiftly. “What’s wrong?”

  “Your mother.”

  A thick knot formed in Cruz’s throat. “Tell me.”

  “She called 911 and was transported to Rochester Regional Hospital. They’ve got a great cardiac facility there, and her doctor’s affiliated. That’s all I know.”

  Cruz was accustomed to shutting his emotions down to focus on business, but his cool head abandoned him this time. “I’ll head right in.”

  He had the sudden urge to call Rory and tell her what was happening, but should he call at this hour? Drew saved him.

  “I’ll call Rory in an hour or so. We’ll know more then. No sense waking the kids so early.”

  That was sensible. Why call her now, in the middle of the night? Although he wanted to, just to know he had her support. Drew was right, though. He grabbed clothes from the small closet as he finished up the call. “I’m on my way. Thanks, Drew.”

  The GPS app on his phone guided him into the ER parking lot about thirty minutes later, a long drive for an emergency situation. He exited the car and jogged into the ER receiving area. “My mother was just brought in by Grace Haven Volunteer Ambulance. Rosa Maldonado.”

  “Two East.” She pointed down the hall alongside the ER waiting area. “Show your ID to the guard, go through the doors and follow the line to the red elevators.”

  Following her instructions, he arrived on the second floor, only to be stymied by more locked doors and an intercom system.

  Had it been like this when his father got sick? Had he lain behind locked doors with no one to visit him because Cruz had been too busy in New York to comprehend the gravity of his illness?

  Guilt rose like a tidal wave.

  He pressed the intercom button, answered the nurse’s questions and when she instructed him to have a seat in the small adjacent waiting area, he bit back a retort.

  He didn’t want to wait.

  He didn’t do waiting well, another Rosa characteristic. He wanted answers and he wanted them now.

  “I expect a cup of coffee sounds pretty good.”

  He turned quickly. Steve Gallagher held out a steaming cup of coffee that smelled as good as anything he could buy in New York City. “I won’t deny how happy I am to see you. Did Mom call you?”

  Steve shook his head. “Tara saw the ambulance lights and woke me up. She likes to run around the lakeshore before work, and she was up in time to see the ambulance pull away. I called Drew and he filled me in. You okay?”

  Cruz gripped the heavy-duty paper cup tightly and glanced around. “This is where my father was, too, right?”

  Steve nodded. Cruz didn’t mention that he’d never made it home to see his father before he died.

  “Did she visit when he was here? My father, I mean? Did she come to see him?”

  Steve held his gaze. “No.”

  Remorse hit him hard. “I didn’t, either,” Cruz confessed. “I knew he was sick, she’d called me, and I was going to come up that weekend, and then he was gone. Just...” He drew in a deep breath, then blew it out. “Gone.”

  “No one expected him to die, Cruz.”

  “But when I was sick, he took care of me.” His fingers curled into his palms and stayed there, tight. “When I was hurt, he was always there for me. When I needed stitches, he hopped into the front seat of that farm truck and drove me to the ER so fast, I was sure we’d get a ticket. And when he needed me, I was too busy wrapping up business to fly up and sit with him. He must have hated me, Steve. And who could blame him?”

  There. He’d said it. He’d voiced what he’d been feeling all these years. What his mother had thrown at him after the lackluster funeral she’d thrown together for a wonderful man.

  “He loved you.”

  Cruz scoffed.

  Steve took a sip of his own coffee and sat back. “Think what you will, but I was here with him every single day, and all he ever talked about was you. How proud he was. How thrilled he was with your success. How he loved America, because where else could an uneducate
d immigrant marry a landowner’s daughter, have an incredible son and do the job he loved all of his days? He may not have had the best marriage...”

  That caught Cruz’s attention. He looked up, curious.

  “But he had the best life because God had blessed him with verdant fields, a chance to give back to so many and a perfect son.”

  Cruz wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t anywhere close to good, much less perfect, but in his father’s eyes...

  He closed his eyes and imagined Hector Maldonado looking down at him like he used to, the gap-toothed grin, the brindled beard that had turned gray, the sun-weathered skin a deep copper brown. “Do you think there’s a heaven, Steve?”

  “I know there is.”

  “And I’ll see him again?”

  “The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

  Why was it so much harder for an educated man to grasp the innocence of belief than an uneducated man like his father? He’d believed freely, all his life. He’d come north to seek freedom, and to embrace faith, hope and love, and once here, he’d encouraged his sister and her children to do the same.

  The children.

  A chance to give back to so many...

  Cruz understood those words. Hector had helped Elina’s mother and her children. He’d sent money back to Mexico, to help fund immigration and education, despite Rosa’s scolding.

  The double doors opened. A woman strode in wearing a white coat. “Mr. Maldonado?”

  A wealth of feelings rose up inside as he studied her grim expression. “Yes?”

  “It’s not good news.”

  He’d read that in her eyes. “How bad is it?”

  “Her heart has suffered considerable damage. I can’t give you a real prognosis, but she’s in a compromised state with minimal hope of recovery. At some point her heart will give out one more time, and she’ll be gone.”

  He turned to his former neighbor and mentor. “Steve, I’m going in. Can you call Rory and have her bring the kids?” He turned back to the doctor. “We have two small children in Grace Haven, children she was raising. It’s all right if they come to see her, isn’t it?”

  “It is. And when you’ve seen her, we’ll need to make some decisions, Mr. Maldonado. Whether to keep her here in the hospital or put her in a nursing home.”

  “Home.”

  She misunderstood him and nodded. “I’ll look into available beds.”

  He shook his head and gestured toward the window. “No, not a home. Her home. We can hire nurses to give her care, and if she’s going to die, I’d like her to pass away looking out over the fields she loved, in the home she was raised in. Can you have someone look into that for me? If we’re going to lose her, I want it to be on her terms.”

  “We could be talking days, not weeks,” the doctor explained. “Or you could get everything arranged, and she might not survive the trip home.”

  That was a risk he had to take. “No matter what happens, at least we’ll have tried. If you can get her stable...”

  “Exactly what we’re working on now.”

  “Then we’d like to bring her home. One last time.”

  He held her gaze and she obliged. “I’ll have the hospital social worker take care of it as soon as she arrives.”

  He walked into his mother’s room in the northeast corner of the cardiac care unit. The morning sun had broken the horizon, and Rosa’s window looked out over a checkerboard of fields and farms.

  The head of her bed was raised. The soft clicks and whirs of machines kept track of her vitals while oxygen eased her breathing. “Mom?”

  Her eyelids fluttered closed, then opened. She saw him and sighed.

  “You gave us a scare.”

  She didn’t look at him. She gazed down and her free hand picked at the woven cotton blanket.

  “How are you feeling?” He wasn’t used to making small talk with his mother. “Are you in pain? Can I get you anything?”

  Again she picked at the blanket, then paused. “Another chance.”

  She whispered the request so softly, he had to lean in and ask her to repeat it. “What did you say?”

  Eyes down, she fingered the cotton again, then raised tired eyes to his. “Another chance, Crusberto. With my son. My only son. The love of my life.”

  He stared at her.

  Never had she said such words to him. Never had she intimated that he mattered. Yes, she’d worked hard and long, tirelessly, trying to build her formal event empire. She’d raised the bar for other venues, and she’d brought a lot of business to the area. But she’d never implied that her devotion was to anything but money.

  Remorse rose again, because wasn’t he following a similar path?

  He sank onto the edge of the bed and took her hand. “Your heart’s been damaged.”

  She grimaced. “They told me this is the last time, that I might not make it through the next spell.”

  So she knew. “The doctor is very nice.”

  She nodded.

  “She suggested that they either keep you here or in a nursing home, but I want to bring you home. To Casa Blanca. To hire help to take care of you.” He paused because he wasn’t accustomed to asking permission to make decisions, but this time it seemed right. “Is that all right with you?”

  “To come home? Until—”

  “Until whatever the good Lord’s got planned comes to pass, I’d say.” Steve walked into the room. He leaned down and gave Rosa the gentlest of hugs. “You like the idea, Rosa?”

  “Yes,” she whispered again, and her fingers knit the cotton fabric more fiercely. “I want to come home.”

  “Rory and Corinne are bringing the kids in to see you for just a moment,” Steve cautioned. When she began to thank him, he motioned to Cruz. “His idea. Not mine. And then we’ll work with the hospital to get everything set up for you at home.”

  “Yes.”

  Cruz began to rise, but she reached out and caught hold of his hand and a corner of his heart, as well. “Will you stay? Please?”

  His mother, asking him to stay. Asking him to share her time. Saying she cared...

  Of course he’d stay. He sank back down onto the chair and held her hand. He wasn’t sure when Steve left. He might have dozed off, he might have been remembering old times, old friends, deep green grape leaves and thick, juicy clusters of fruit. He only knew that when Rory and her sister-in-law slipped into the room with Lily and Javi, he felt more at peace than he had in a long time.

  Lily seemed to assess the situation quickly. “Mimi is very sick, isn’t she?”

  “I am.” Rosa opened her eyes. She found Lily in Corinne’s arms and smiled. “But I am so glad to see my sweet ones. Have you been good?”

  Lily nodded.

  Javi scrambled into Cruz’s lap and grinned at his ailing caretaker. “Mimi, I have so much to tell you! I saw a book wif fwee dinosaurs fighting! They were not big in the book, but Cruz said that in real life they were so big, they were big like buildings! Can you even believe it, Mimi?”

  Love softened her gaze as she looked at the small boy. Joy brought a hint of smile to her mouth. “I can’t, Javi. I can imagine it, but I can’t imagine seeing it. But you, my darlings.” She raised her left hand slightly. “You will see so much. Do so much. And Cruz will make sure you have every chance there is to love your family, your faith and your freedom.”

  He knew what she was asking. She wanted him to ensure that the children would be kept safe in America, safe with him. There was no way in the world he could refuse that request. “I’ll make sure.”

  She sank back against the pillow, relieved. Her eyes drifted shut.

  Rory touched Javi’s shoulder. “We’ve got to go now, honey. Mimi needs sleep.”

  “I’ll fol
low you out.” Cruz stood, holding Javi against him, and when they made it to the automated door, he handed the boy over to Rory. “I’m bringing her home, Rory. For whatever time she has left, I’m bringing her home.”

  “I think that’s a wonderful idea, Cruz.”

  It was, but what a shame it took a life-and-death matter for him to see the perils of holding grudges versus the grace of forgiveness. “Overdue, but...” He shrugged. “I’m going to get things lined up with Steve’s help, and I’d like to get the place back in shape for her. So she can see it like it was, before everything fell apart. If I can manage quiet workers.”

  “I’m quiet!”

  Javi made the declaration in a voice that was anything but quiet.

  “Shh.” Rory motioned to the door. “I’m going to get these sweet things out of here. We can talk later, or Uncle Steve can fill me in.”

  “I know it puts extra weight on your shoulders.” Cruz didn’t want to mention the responsibility of the kids. Rory’s expression indicated she understood.

  “Well, we’re Gallaghers, and we’ve got big shoulders.” She bumped her forehead gently to Javi’s, teasing. “We’ve got this, Cruz. You take care of your mom, and we’ll pray. I’d love for her to have enough time to see your plans for Casa Blanca.”

  “Me, too.”

  They left with the children, but as they approached the bank of red elevators, Lily looked back.

  Sorrow filled her gaze. In five short years she’d known too much loss. Too much change.

  He couldn’t let them go to strangers, but how would they adapt to life in the city? His work hours weren’t kid-friendly. He’d have to hire a live-in nanny to watch over them, but was that in their best interests or his?

  He couldn’t worry about that now. Right now he needed to make sure things were put in order for his mother’s return home. Anything after that would have to wait, because Cruz had made a pledge to make a difference at Casa Blanca, and it was going to take a lot of hands-on effort to see it got done.

  He texted Chen a brief message to oversee his workload for the day, then called his boss. Rodney Randolph hadn’t developed one of the nation’s biggest investment firms by being easygoing. He wasn’t going to like Cruz’s news, and there was no way of knowing how the man would deal with it, but with Rosa’s condition and his guardianship of the children, Cruz had no choice.