Newborn Needs a Dad / His Motherless Little Twins

by Dianne Drake

  Eric glanced over at Neil. “You should go be with Gabrielle now. She needs you. And you need her.”

  One last look at Bryce, and Neil walked out of the operating room. He dumped his surgical gown, mask and hat into the hamper outside the door, and turned to leave the area, but Gabby was standing in the doorway. More like leaning against it. Pale. Weak. Tired. And fighting with everything she had in her to be there.

  “How is he?” she asked.

  The worry on her face was plain. “You shouldn’t be here, Gabrielle. You’re not strong enough yet.”

  “Where else could I be?”

  “Back in bed. Resting.”

  “But I wanted to find out. All I’ve been getting are the vague reports they call out from surgery. You know, ‘It’s going as well as can be expected.’ ‘Your baby is stable.’” She slumped a little harder against the door frame and Neil immediately sprang forward to support her, to wrap his arms around her and hold her up. “How is he, Neil? You were in there, you saw him. So, how is my son?”

  “He’s pink.”

  “Pink?”

  “You know, pink, the way a baby should be.”

  “Pink,” she said, leaning her head into his chest and sniffling. “My baby is pink.”

  “It’s a simple TGV, Gabrielle. Eric said he’s in good shape and his prognosis is promising.”

  She nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “And they’re getting ready to close, so you should be able to see him in a little while.”

  “I’m glad you were with him, Neil. Somehow, I’m sure he knew that. I was in there,” she whispered, then sighed in relief. “I was in there. Through you.”

  Touched, and choking back his own tears, Neil cleared his throat. “Look, you need to get back in bed. Eric will come and let you know when you can see Bryce.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Other patients. I have…other patients to see.” That was a lie. But right now he just couldn’t deal with this. There were too many emotions, too many memories. And he couldn’t sort them out and, at the same time, be around Gabrielle, because Gabrielle clouded his judgment to the point where she was the only thing he could feel. The only thing he could see. Right now, he had to have objectivity and clear thinking. Because he loved her, and loved that little boy.

  But would it be enough to get him past his feelings about Gavin?

  Neil signaled to one of the nurses at the other end of the hall. “Please see to it that Dr Evans gets back to her room.” Then he turned and walked away. Never looked back. Wouldn’t look back, because if he did, he couldn’t walk away. And right now, walking away was the only thing he could do.

  “Are you sure you’re up to this?” Eric asked Gabby.

  “It’s only a helicopter ride. I’ll be fine.” The surgery had ended twenty-four hours ago, and she’d spent almost every hour since then either holding Bryce or sitting next to his crib, counting fingers and toes, singing lullabies, kissing his chubby pink cheeks, just watching him and falling more and more in love.

  Outside, the flood waters were receding, but not significantly. Activity had died down at the hospital, though. People weren’t flowing in with the current as they had only a day ago because they were back home now, trying to make sense of the damages and salvage whatever they could. Walt Graham had finally wandered in, complained that he’d made a wasted trip as Gabby had already delivered. One by one, every friend she’d made in White Elk had come in to see her, and with the flooding still going on outside, for some of them it hadn’t been an easy trip in. But she’d had a steady parade of visitors who made her feel so loved, and so much a part of something wonderful.

  If home was where the heart was, in just a few short weeks she’d found home. But there was another heart to consider—one that wasn’t hers, or Bryce’s. That was the heart she would not break no matter what happened. All the hours with Bryce, all those hours holding him and being thankful for everything she had…that’s when she’d made her decision. If Neil wanted her, she would stay. If he didn’t, she would leave and allow him to have his life here without the constant reminder of his brother. It would be a sacrifice, but not too great a sacrifice if it made Neil whole again.

  Besides, even though home was where the heart was, her heart was with Bryce and wherever they were together, that would be her home.

  She only hoped, and prayed, that Neil would be part of that.

  Gabby hadn’t seen Neil, though. Neither had she heard from him. It hurt, but she was dealing with it the best way she could.

  “Well, Fallon’s going along to look after both you and Bryce,” Eric said. “And I’ll be in touch as soon as you land. The hospital is on alert, and Dr James Galbraith will be standing by to assume Bryce’s care. So, you’re good to go.”

  “Dr Galbraith is good?”

  “I’d trust my twins to him.”

  Knowing that made her feel better. She was anxious for this trip, anxious to have Bryce in the hospital where he would have his next surgery, anxious for his recovery so they could start a normal life together. Still, she’d wanted…no, she’d hoped…Neil would stop by, wish her luck, check on Bryce. Anything. That simply wasn’t to be the case, though. So she hugged Eric, climbed into the back of the ambulance and took a seat next to Fallon, then prepared herself for the trip up to the top of the middle Sister, where her medical transport awaited.

  An hour later, she climbed out of the ambulance that had picked them up in Salt Lake City, and stepped back as a flurry of medical activity swooped in over Bryce. He was whisked straight away to the NICU—neonatal intensive care unit—not because he was in critical condition but as a precaution, while Gabby was left behind to tend to the admittance chores like paperwork, consents and insurance.

  “Father?” the admitting clerk asked, when she saw that section of the form had been left blank.

  “No father,” Gabby said. Then changed her mind. “Dr Gavin Thierry, deceased.” He was Bryce’s father and deserved that title, even posthumously.

  “I’m sorry,” the clerk said.

  “So am I,” Neil said, stepping up behind Gabby.

  She spun to face him. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “Neither did I. Yesterday, when I left the hospital, I just drove. It took me hours to get out of the valley, taking all the high roads, and once I was finally out, I wasn’t sure where I was going. So I came here. Took a room across the street at the hotel, and…waited.”

  “For Bryce.”

  “For you, Gabrielle. I wanted to see you.”

  “Your son’s checked into the NICU now,” the clerk interrupted. “You can go on up.”

  Gabby nodded her thanks to the woman, and started to head for the elevator. But halfway there she stopped, and turned back to Neil. “Are you coming?”

  “Do you want me?”

  “He’s your nephew, Neil. He has your blood running through his veins. You have a right to be here.” He had a right, but she desperately wanted him to have the need to be here, and right now she didn’t know if that was the case, or if he’d come out of some kind of misplaced loyalty or obligation. “And I won’t keep you out of his life, if you want to be in it.”

  He didn’t speak as he stepped onto the elevator with her, or as he rode up to the fourth floor. And when the door opened, he stepped out without saying a word. But when Gabby gowned up and headed for the NICU, Neil said, “Tell him I’m here, and that I love him.”

  “Do you?” Gabby asked, not to be contentious but more because she wanted to know the answer.

  “None of this has been easy, Gabrielle. Not for either of us. But whatever’s happened, it has nothing to do with Bryce. He’s an amazing little boy who’s fighting his way through a tough situation, and he’s going to need all the love he can get for a while.”

  “Only for a while? Because if that’s your condition, then maybe you shouldn’t be here. Because my son…Gavin’s son…needs and deserves more than only your
conditional love. He needs it strong, and he needs it forever. And if you can’t give it to him that way, go back to your hotel, or back to White Elk. Or go anyplace you want to go so long as it’s not here.”

  Gabby spun away and went though the NICU doors. Her hands were shaking. She wanted to cry. And scream. And kick the wall. Most of all, she wanted to go back outside and tell Neil that she loved him and she wanted him in her life…in Bryce’s life. But on her terms, which were forever. When she looked back through the doors, though, he was gone. Beyond that, she couldn’t think because she was rushed into the NICU for her first ten-minute visit, top of the hour, every hour thereafter.

  Bryce looked so helpless, lying there in the crib, hooked to oxygen, hooked to an IV. She needed to hold him, needed to feel the intimate bond she’d had with him before his birth, but that had been breached and she couldn’t. In this impersonal room full of machines and other worried parents, there was no place to whisper the things to him she’d whispered over the months, or to sing him the lullabies. But she touched him—laid her fingers on his tiny chest and felt him breath for those ten minutes. It wasn’t nearly enough, but she was grateful. Because when she looked at her son lying there, sound asleep and oblivious to all the things causing her so much pain, she saw a miracle. Seven months ago, when she’d learned she was pregnant, she’d known it was a miracle. And now that Bryce was here, and on his way to being healthy, she was filled with overwhelming gratitude to the man Neil hated. So maybe that situation couldn’t be rectified. As much as she wanted it to be, she just didn’t know. “What will be, will be,” she whispered to Bryce, as she kissed him on the forehead just as her visit was up. “But no matter what, Mommy loves you and that will never change.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I THOUGHT you might like some hot chocolate.” Neil handed over a plastic cup, and sat down next to Gabrielle, who was stretched out in bed, staring at the wall. The hospital had checked her into a private room, more as a guest than a patient, partly as a medical privilege, partly because of her condition.

  “I didn’t know you were still here.” She took the cup, clutching it like it was her life blood. She’d been so cold since she’d come here, so cold since she’d had to walk away from Bryce and leave him all alone in Intensive Care, and the warmth felt good on her fingers.

  “I couldn’t leave, Gabrielle. Right now, I’m as mixed-up as you are about how this will work out, but the one thing that I knew for sure was that I couldn’t walk away from you and Bryce.”

  “I don’t want you to leave, Neil.” Gabby sucked in a sharp breath, held it for a moment, then let it out. “If that’s what you think you have to do, I won’t stop you. I’ll honor your wishes, whatever they are. But just so you’ll know, my wish is that you’d be part of our family. Bryce and me. You and me. Especially you and me.”

  Neil laughed. “You never mince words, Gabrielle. That was one of the first things that attracted me to you. When I was married to Karen, I never knew where I stood. With you, I always do.”

  “Life’s too short to play games, and I think I’m only just now coming to understand what that really means.” It was a bit of her father’s wisdom she’d taken to heart a long, long time ago. “My dad always said that when the opportunity arises, grab it and hold on for dear life, because you might never get that opportunity again.”

  “He was a wise man. I wish I could have met him.”

  “I wish you could have, too. You would have liked him. And I think he would have liked you.”

  “Maybe I’ll get to know him through his grandson.”

  “Is that what you really want, Neil? Because while he’s Bryce Evans’s grandson, he’s also Gavin Thierry’s son, and that’s never going to change.”

  “Tell me about my brother, Gabrielle. You know things about him I need to know.”

  Yes, he did need to know. Finally. She took a deep breath to brace herself. “We met at a medical seminar in Chicago, about nine months ago, as it turns out. It was also just a few weeks after I’d buried my father, and I was so…alone. My dad was, quite literally, the only person I had in the world. No other relatives, except a few distant cousins. We were very close, probably closer than most fathers and daughters because he was the one who raised me. So, pretty much, it was just the two of us. Anyway, I wasn’t back to work yet, was pretty sure I didn’t want to return to that particular practice when I was ready to work again, and I needed something to keep me occupied until I figured out what I wanted…I was pretty lost. So I went to a pediatrics seminar and figured that since I deliver babies, it might do me some good to learn some advances in pediatrics.”

  “And that’s where you met Gavin.”

  Gabby nodded. “He was a lecturer. Brilliant, so passionate in his love of pediatrics. I think I fell a little in love with him when I heard him speak, because I’d never heard anyone with such excitement about his work. He lectured on operating a small-town pediatric practice, talked about how important pediatric specialties were to the more rural or isolated areas, and outlined ways to get better service to those areas. Maybe the most important thing he did was tell those of us who came to his lecture to consider small-town practice when we were weighing our options, and not to write it off too quickly. He was brilliant, Neil. People approached him afterwards and told him that he’d given them something to think about.”

  “Really?”

  Gabby nodded. “He was respected. Well researched, well-spoken. All that, and he was nice to me when I desperately needed someone to be nice. He…he distracted me from the things I didn’t want to think about yet. One thing led to another. So at a time when I was lower than I’d ever been in my life, Gavin and I connected. I might have been a little in love, or maybe a better way to put that is infatuated. But it wasn’t permanent. Wasn’t meant to be anything more than it was, and we knew that after a little while. But for a couple of days we were two people who were both going through some lows, trying to pick each other up.”

  “He was going through some lows?”

  Gabby nodded. “He didn’t say anything about it, but you could see it in his eyes.” Eyes that were so much like Neil’s. And she’d seen that same distance in his eyes, too.

  She shifted in bed, settled back more into her pillows, raised the head a little. And shut her eyes, trying to picture Gavin. Funny thing was, all she saw was Neil. They really didn’t look so much alike, except the eyes. Bryce’s eyes. “It didn’t turn into a real relationship, Neil. We were careful, even though no one would have ever believed I could have a child, but apparently Bryce was meant to be. I wanted Gavin to be part of his son’s life, if he wanted to. I was going to give him that opportunity.”

  “As possessive as you are about Bryce, didn’t that scare you?”

  “It did. I mean, he could have wanted full custody, or partial custody. He might have wanted to have influence in ways I wouldn’t approve of. There were a lot of risks, letting him know.”

  “So why, ultimately, did you decide to do it when he probably would have never found out?”

  “Because it was the right thing to do. Bryce had a right to his father, and his father had a right to Bryce.” Overhead, the hospital light seemed especially harsh shining in her face, and she reached up to shut it off. Then she twisted to have a better look at Neil. “Everything was going so well in my life…I was having the baby I never thought I’d have, and falling in love with the man I thought I’d never meet. It was so perfect, and I didn’t want it to end. But that day in the hospital, when I saw Gavin’s name on the plaque…how could anyone be prepared for a situation like that? How could anyone even know what to do? Gavin had hurt you, and here I was, having his baby and falling in love with you.” She stopped. The words had run out. There was nothing more to say that he hadn’t already heard. So now it was up to Neil to make the next move. And there were so many ways this could go, it frightened her to the very core because she wanted to be a family with him. The three of them. Living in White Elk.
Happy.

  Only she didn’t know if Neil could do that. So, now was the moment of reckoning. Her destiny laid out before her, and the choice was Neil’s.

  “Gavin and I were…at the time he died we were almost getting along again. He’d changed. I saw it after he’d come back from his medical seminar. He was…calm. Maybe a little more contented. And that was something I’d never seen in him before. Ever. But he’d called me and we’d talked a few times. He’d told me how sorry he was for breaking up my marriage. He, um…he begged for my forgiveness and I told him I wasn’t ready yet, but maybe sometime in the future. It was the best I could do.”

  “That’s good,” Gabrielle said, her hopes growing even though she was trying to hold them back.

  “Not good, but better. There were too many hard feelings to clear up in a matter of days or weeks. And I think he understood that.”

  “Maybe that was the sadness I saw in him. The regret for what he’d done. We all make mistakes, and maybe he was at a point where he was realizing that his biggest mistake was losing his brother.”

  Neil shrugged. “Maybe. But we’ll never know, will we?”

  “What we know is that the man I met wasn’t the man who stole your wife. Something changed him, Neil, and while we’ll never know what that was, it would be nice to think that Gavin’s desire to have a relationship with you again caused the change. Honestly, I think he found his heart and his happiness through his medicine and, perhaps, that’s where the change in him started. And you know what? I think his lecture was about White Elk, even though he didn’t mention it by name. It was his passion, like it’s yours.”

  “Karen and I weren’t getting along when Gavin stepped in. She was such a…mistake. More like a lapse in sound judgment. And, to be honest, I didn’t miss her when she was gone.”