Another Man's Child

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Why don’t she just do that for herself?”

  “Give her time, Willie, she will. She just has to grow a bit more.”

  Lisa wondered if Marcus had any idea how much he sounded like a papa defending his young.

  “She don’t look big enough to grow.”

  “She’s almost four pounds now. You should’ve seen her when she was born.”

  Willie nodded, apparently satisfied. “We can skip the batting cages if you want, you know, since you got your own kid to think about now.”

  Lisa braced herself as she heard the words. Did it hurt Marcus every time people referred to Sara as his, or did he just freeze out their words as he did hers? And how could he possibly think they could go through life living this way?

  “I’ll have time, Willie. We’ll go as soon as you’re ready.”

  Of course he would. Willie wasn’t a threat. He expected nothing. Marcus was able to be more of a father to Willie than he was to his own daughter.

  SARA’S OXYGEN LEVELS began to drop around four o’clock. She’d only been breathing on her own for just over six hours. Lisa watched as her little chest continued to rise and fall, as her lungs labored for air, worried that each breath might be the baby’s last. In spite of the capable medical staff attending to Sara, Lisa was afraid to take her eyes off her baby even for a minute.

  “I’ll watch her, hon,” Marcus said shortly before five. “Why don’t you go down and get some fresh air?”

  Lisa shook her head. It could all be over before she got back.

  “Would you like me to call your father?” he asked.

  Again Lisa shook her head. It might be hours yet before they knew anything for sure. Lisa wanted her father to have what unrestricted happiness he could. She was glad that Beth was with him, that if the unthinkable happened to Sara, her father wouldn’t be alone.

  Sara slept on. The baby hadn’t opened her eyes in more than four hours.

  Marcus went in with Lisa while she sat through Sara’s eight-o’clock feeding. Lisa sang to the child, as she always did when she fed her, but while the baby’s body was continuing to accept nourishment, Sara slept through her entire meal.

  “She’s going to have to go back on the ventilator,” Lisa whispered as Marcus led her back out to the viewing room.

  “Let’s just be patient, Lis. Randal hasn’t given the order for that yet,” Marcus said. Though his face was pinched, his brows tight with worry, Lisa just accepted that he was worried on her account. The baby’s, too, but only in the way anyone would be concerned about another in a life-threatening situation. She wasn’t going to read any more into it than that, couldn’t afford to waste any more energy hoping for what would never be. For as much as she believed in Marcus’s ability to be a father to her child, he didn’t believe in himself, and there was nothing she could do to change that.

  Randal arrived in the nursery at nine. He checked Sara carefully, not only watching her readings, but listening to her chest and looking under her eyelids. Finally, straightening, he motioned for a technician to bring back Sara’s life support.

  Lisa started to cry as the machine was wheeled over beside the baby. She just couldn’t let them do it. She couldn’t put her baby through more pain if it was all going to be for naught.

  Randal caught sight of her sitting out there, and Lisa didn’t even bother to wipe away the tears that were streaming down her face. She wasn’t a professional. She was a mother.

  “We’re not hooking her up just yet, folks,” Randal said, poking his head out the nursery door. “Her levels have been fluctuating a little more this past hour. We’ll wait for one more reading.”

  Lisa nodded, but she knew that at that point the chances of Sara’s breathing normally on her own were slim to none. Marcus stood silently behind her, his hands on her shoulders. She leaned back against him, soaking up his warmth. He’d been a rock throughout the entire day, never leaving her side, watching her baby intently, as if he could actually will his own breath into the baby’s lungs. She knew, without a doubt, he would if he could.

  “Can we sit with her?” Lisa asked. Surely, given the circumstances, Randal would break the rules this once.

  The doctor nodded.

  “Let me help you with that,” Marcus said a few minutes later. Lisa’s hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t get into her scrubs. Marcus was already dressed and masked.

  He was being a wonderful father. If only there was some way to make him see that, believe it.

  Lisa could feel every beat of her heart as Randal approached Sara’s crib half an hour later, checked the baby over and then checked her a second time, finally turning to face Lisa and Marcus. His face looked grim.

  “Her oxygen levels are up. She’s breathing well enough on her own again.” He stood by Sara’s bed, looking down at the baby. He appeared to be struggling for words.

  “What’s wrong, doctor?” Marcus asked. He slid his arm around Lisa’s waist, pulling her against his side.

  “She’s not responding to…” The doctor looked at Lisa, his eyes filled with sorrow. “She’s in a coma, Lisa.”

  Marcus caught Lisa as her legs gave way beneath her. A rocker appeared behind him and he lowered Lisa’s limp body into the chair.

  “What happens next, Doctor?” Marcus asked.

  Lisa heard the conversation. There was nothing they could do but wait. She already knew that. The medical team had done everything possible. It was up to God now. They could wait hours. They could wait days. They could wait forever.

  Marcus talked Randal into allowing them to remain in the nursery with Sara for the rest of the night.

  Lisa dozed on and off that night, her head settled back against the bars of the rocker on which she sat. And Marcus was in a rocker right beside her, holding her hand, dozing off only when she woke up.

  She prayed for all she was worth, but as time slid slowly by with no change from the baby lying so still in her bed, Lisa stopped asking for anything at all. She looked at her baby, all trussed up with wires and tubes and laboring to breathe. Was it right to let her baby suffer so?

  She saw Marcus stir, exchanged tired sad smiles with him as they silently changed guard, and settled back to try to get some sleep. She honestly didn’t know which was worse. Her sleeping nightmares or her waking ones.

  Marcus’s soft murmuring woke Lisa sometime in the early hours of the morning. Disoriented and frightened, Lisa struggled to sit up, only to realize that she was already sitting up. And that her neck ached horribly. The shaft of pain she felt when she tried to straighten brought her back to full consciousness. Sara.

  Her eyes flew open immediately, seeking reassurance that her baby was still alive. Sara’s monitors were bleeping, but Lisa couldn’t actually see her for the man who was leaning over her crib.

  “YOU’VE GOT TO BE strong now, Sara,” he said. “It’s up to you. Everyone’s pulling for you, ready to catch you, but you have to take the jump, Sara. Just take the jump.”

  The baby’s eyes popped open.

  Marcus’s heart catapulted into his throat when he saw Sara stare straight at him. He was afraid to move, afraid those beautiful blue eyes were a mirage, a cruel twist of his exhausted mind.

  Sara blinked.

  He straightened, still watching the baby, holding her gaze with his own, as if he could somehow make her consciousness real by sheer will. She blinked again, and his heart started to pound in double time. The baby was really awake.

  “Lisa!” He turned, intending to wake his wife, but the minute his eyes broke contact with Sara’s, the baby started to cry, soft thin little wails.

  Marcus turned back, frightened, thinking something was wrong. “What is it, little one?” he asked.

  The baby stopped crying as soon as he spoke.

  Freezing beside the crib, Marcus was aware of Lisa behind him. He knew she was awake because he’d heard her sharp intake of breath when Sara had cried out. But he couldn’t go to her, couldn’t leave this tiny li
ttle girl.

  He heard a nurse approach and he shook himself. He was being ridiculous. He had nothing to do with the baby’s crying. It was mere coincidence that the child had woken up right when he’d started to speak to her, that she’d stopped crying when he’d turned back to her. Forcing himself to face reality, he backed slowly away from the funny little crib. Sara’s eyes followed him until he was no longer in her sight.

  And then she started to cry again.

  Vaguely aware of the crowd gathering in the nursery, of his wife sitting and sobbing in her rocking chair behind him, Marcus approached the crib again. As soon as Sara saw him, her wails turned into pitying little hiccups. Instinctively, before he even realized what he was doing, Marcus reached down into the warming bed and slid his hands beneath the naked little body staring up at him so trustingly. Careful of the catheter in her foot, he lifted her up to his chest. Sara snuggled against him, obviously not the least bit daunted by his awkwardness.

  And in that instant, Marcus suddenly understood what being a father was all about. Just like that, he had his answers.

  He’d been such a fool.

  He’d allowed his sterility to shake his confidence in himself to the point where he actually thought that if he didn’t have what it took to make a child, then he didn’t have what it took to care for one. But being a father wasn’t about perfection or the ability to do everything. It wasn’t even about biology. It was the willingness to struggle, to worry. It was the intense need to provide. To protect. The willingness to give up one’s own life, if need be, for the little being dependent on him.. Being a father was about loving. And somehow this tiny baby snuggling against him so trustingly had known how much he loved her even before he’d known it himself.

  LISA SAT UNMOVING in her chair, tears streaming unchecked down her face as she waited for Marcus to turn around. She wanted to get up, to go to him, but she was trembling so much she wasn’t sure she could stand. So she sat. And waited. For what seemed like hours, but was probably only a couple of minutes, while Marcus held his baby.

  He turned around slowly and Lisa choked on a fresh wave of tears as she caught her first glimpse of her big strong husband holding their tiny daughter in his hands for the first time. Marcus’s palms were resting one on top of the other, supporting Sara’s body, but it was his eyes that told her they’d finally found their dream together. His eyes were glistening with tears-and awe.

  He walked toward Lisa slowly, lifted the baby away from his chest, kissed her tiny head and slowly lowered her into Lisa’s arms.

  “I’m a father.” His gaze met Lisa’s briefly before going back to the baby in her arms. He reached out and ran one finger lightly down the baby’s cheek, as if, now that he’d finally held her, he couldn’t touch her enough: “I’m a father,” he said again.

  Too moved to speak, Lisa nodded, as cheers broke out around them.

  Marcus watched his wife brush her lips across their baby’s brow, and his heart was finally at peace. He’d given Lisa what she’d always wanted, after all. Her dream had not been to have a baby with her husband, but to share one with the man she loved.

  And by some miracle, that man was him.

  EPILOGUE

  THREE-YEAR-OLD Sara Barbara Cartwright was not a happy camper. She kept watching out the window like Mommy had told her, but Daddy’s car wasn’t coming like Mommy’d said it would. She stomped her foot, trying to make someone notice she wasn’t happy, but the sound just went right into the carpet. Mommy didn’t even glance up.

  Sara looked over her shoulder at Mommy and Aunt Beth, kind of glad they hadn’t heard her. She didn’t like being naughty. Mommy saw her and smiled and took Sara’s mad away.

  “You keep watching, Sara baby. Daddy’ll be home in just a few minutes.”

  Sara turned back to the window.

  She wondered what “few minutes” was. She’d thought Daddy was coming now.

  Aunt Beth had her hand on Mommy’s tummy, waiting to feel the new baby kick. Sara had gotten to feel it first, so she didn’t mind when other people wanted to feel it, too. Especially Aunt Beth. Aunt Beth was married to Grandpa. And she made babies. She made her, Sara. She made her new sister, too. Except she made her new sister bigger than Sara. She was staying in Mommy’s tummy longer.

  Sara didn’t remember being in Mommy’s tummy, but she sure wished her new baby sister wouldn’t stay in there so long. Mommy couldn’t play on the floor so much now. And she slept a lot. One day Sara had even seen Daddy have to tie Mommy’s shoe. She wasn’t sure why having a baby in your tummy made you forget how to tie your shoes.

  She wished the baby would just come out so she could play with her. It wouldn’t be so hard to wait for Daddy to get home if she had somebody to play with. Sara stuck her thumb in her mouth, staring out the window. She didn’t like “few minutes.” It was making Daddy take too long. -

  Then she heard his car. She couldn’t even see it yet, but Daddy drove a really loud car that sounded like the big truck on cartoons. Sara ran to the door.

  She started to jump up and down when she heard his key in the lock. “Daddy!” she shouted, barreling toward his legs as soon as the door opened.

  “Hi, pumpkin!” he said, swinging her up over his head, and then back down to straddle his stomach. “Did you have a good day?”

  She played with the buttons on his shirt. She loved his buttons. They were all the same size. Not like Mommy’s, which changed every time she wore different clothes. “I drawed and made cookies,” she told him, hoping she wasn’t leaving out something else good.

  “Cookies? That’s great! Did Hannah help you?”

  She nodded. “Hannah buyed me gum,” she told him, remembering the other good thing.

  Daddy carried her into the living room where Mommy was with Aunt Beth. He kissed Mommy hello, and his voice got all soft and gooey like it always did when he talked to her. He said hi to Aunt Beth, too, and then carried Sara with him into the kitchen. They were going to have cookies.

  Really, he was going to have some. Mommy wouldn’t let her have any of her own because they would spoil her dinner, but Daddy would share his with her. Daddy’s cookies didn’t spoil dinners.

  “You promise to eat all your dinner, pumpkin?” he asked her as he reached into the cookie jar.

  “Yes, Daddy.” She always had to finish every bite so she’d grow up big and strong.

  Mommy came into the kitchen just as Daddy popped the last bite of cookie into his mouth. Sara giggled, trying hard to keep her own mouth shut so Mommy wouldn’t see the cookie in it.

  “What’re you two doing out here?” Mommy asked.

  “It’s a father-daughter thing,” Daddy said. Sara wasn’t sure what that meant, but she was glad she had it with Daddy.

  “You’re the best daddy in the whole wide world,” she said, hugging his neck.

  Daddy squeezed her. “You’ve sure made me the happiest one, Sara.”

  Sara wasn’t sure why Mommy got tears in her eyes when he said that, but she supposed it must just be from having a baby in her tummy.

  Sara just wished it would hurry up and get borned.

  eISBN 978-14592-7047-3

  ANOTHER MAN’S CHILD

  Copyright © 1997 by Tara Lee Reames.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or In part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any Information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters In this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly Inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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