Five Minutes To Midnight

by C. B. Stagg

  “It won’t always be sunshine and rainbows, but two people can share one umbrella and still weather storms together.” He sighed and pressed his lips to the top of my head. “Katy, there’s so much I have to say to you. I’m not quite sure where to even st—”

  The familiar sweep of the heavy door slammed the brakes on whatever conversation was about to happen, and we both turned to see an older, balding man enter the room carrying medical files.

  “Ms. West, I presume?” I nodded and took his offered hand. “I’m Dr. Fitzgerald.” Another name to add to my notebook, no doubt. He shifted his gaze. “Mr. Clark, good to see you again.”

  My head whipped around, eyes narrowed as Christian nodded, shaking his hand with a knowing smile. “Good to see you as well.” Things weren’t adding up.

  The man took a step back and examined the clipboard hanging at the end of Waverly’s bed. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting to find you both at the hospital at this hour, and definitely not together at Waverly’s bedside.” He flipped around, looking at this machine, and that monitor, making notes here and there. “So, you two know each other then?”

  Christian’s wide eyes shifted back and forth between the strange man in my daughter’s hospital room and me. “Well, in any event, it saves me a call.” He stuck the clipboard back on its hook and focused on me again. “Has Mr. Clark filled you in?”

  “On what, exactly?” I was doing nothing to mask the sudden rage I felt at being out of the loop. I was the parent. The only parent. And that made me the one in charge.

  “Doctor, I’m sorry, I just arrived and haven’t had an opportunity to speak with Katy about everything. Could you give us a few minutes?” The doctor nodded, checking his watch before exiting the room.

  The new charge in the room sat heavy like a fog, the strange surge of change in the air scaring me. “What the hell is going on?” My heart threatened to jump from my chest, and I was shaking, near tears.

  Christian guided me to sit in the uncomfortable reclining chair I’d just vacated, squatting down in front of me. He placed his hands on my damn thighs and started rubbing. His touch was soft, warm, and had a calming effect. Almost instantaneously, my breathing and heart rate started to slow.

  “I met Dr. Fitz a while back at St. Luke’s. My primary care doctor referred me to his office to start my donor evaluation process.”

  “What?” What was he saying?

  “I used Waverly’s name and birthdate to see if I could be a live kidney donor, to see if I was a match. It took forever, but late yesterday afternoon, Dr. Fitz called me personally. Katy… ”

  “What? Please tell me what’s happening.”

  “My kidney… It’s a match.”

  It took a beat for his words to sink in. A match? He’s a match. “You? You’re a match?”

  He was nodding, his bright smile lighting the dismal room. “Yes, I’m a match. A perfect match.”

  “But… ” The odds were insurmountable.

  “Six years ago, I kissed you goodnight, not goodbye. It was never meant to be goodbye. She’s mine, Katy. Waverly and Wade are mine.”

  That got my attention, snapping me out of the fog I’d fallen into.

  “I was born on April 15, 1985. I celebrated my twenty-first birthday making love to the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on. It may have only been one night, but that night put into motion the events that would change my life forever.”

  “But—”

  He stopped me with one look. He wasn’t finished. “The next day, when I woke up, she was gone… but I was changed. I didn’t want to be a drunk anymore. I didn’t want to be the kind of man who was too intoxicated to remember what was undoubtedly the best night of his life with the girl of his dreams. I wanted to be the kind of man who deserved that beautiful girl, so I changed.”

  Was it possible? “Wade?”

  I reached up and let my fingers trace his eyebrow, drifting lower to touch the growth on his face. Looking through a different lens, it was almost too easy to spot Waverly’s deep blue eyes, her silky blonde hair, and the wide grin they shared. The one that turned up at the corners like they were always in on a joke no one else knew. My daughter was the spitting image of the man standing right in front of me, her father.

  “They said you died. These girls, at the Chicken, they said the twins’ roommate perished in the fire. I went back for you, I looked for you, but you were gone.” I could scarcely draw a breath, my lungs cinched tightly in a knot I couldn’t loosen. He was shaking his head.

  “First, my name is Christian Wade Clark. And second, I wasn’t their roommate. They were good friends, but I lived across town. Do you remember that night? I pulled my keys out to take you home with me, but when you said you wouldn’t let me drive you anywhere drunk, I made the decision to use their apartment. Their roommate was a buddy of mine who went home to Lubbock on the weekends. I always crashed in his room when I was too blitzed to get home—which was often—so I knew he wouldn’t mind.”

  Too overwhelmed to think, I fell into his hard chest, where he held me tight while I mourned all the time we’d lost. But all the miscommunications, mistakes, and misunderstandings were in the past. We were here now, together again. We were here, in the same room, touching and—

  “Wait.”

  The blanket of stress and worry surrounding my brain for years lifted to reveal a bright, sunny day. “You’re a match. Does that mean… ”

  His head bobbed, his smile the source of the new golden light shining on me. “It means very, very soon our daughter will have a new kidney, a new lease on life, and a mom and a dad who love her.”

  Shifting his weight, he kneeled down on one knee in front of me. “It’s time to give Waverly the life she deserves: a mom and a dad who love her and each other, don’t you think?” He grabbed my hands, pressing my fingers to his lips.

  “Katy, apparently I had to make all the wrong choices before I could make the right one. I have missed so much, but I’m here now. You’ll never have to do this alone again. I’m yours now, yours and Waverly’s. My life and my heart belong to you.” He paused to look as our precious girl stirred in her sleep. “I think it always has.”

  The symphony of my jagged sobs, hiccup-stuttered breaths, and sniffles created the least romantic soundtrack to what was turning out to be an unforgettable day. But I’d lost emotional control several revelations back.

  “I will be the best father to our little girl.” He looked in her direction and wiped the tears from his eyes and cheeks. “And I’ll be the best husband to you if you’ll have me.”

  I dropped to my knees in front of him and kissed his beautiful face. Oh, how I loved this man.

  Chapter 24

  Christian

  “OF COURSE I WILL MARRY YOU, Christian Wade Clark.” Her words were soft, as her forehead pressed against mine.

  “You will? For real?”

  She nodded. “After all, you are the man of my dreams.” I kissed the tears from her face. “Christian, I prayed for a miracle. Each night I prayed for a miracle. And here you are. You’re my miracle. I walked away from you once, and it was the biggest mistake of my life. I won’t ever walk away from you again.”

  The things I’d prayed for most had been mine all along. I pulled Katy to her feet, wrapping her in my arms as Dr. Fitz reentered the room, followed by Cara Jo, Roy, and my parents.

  Despite the movement in the room, Waverly remained still and quiet, our little sleeping beauty in her giant bed. With her chest rising and falling with a soft rhythm all her own, she dozed, blissfully unaware her whole life had changed in a matter of hours.

  Dr. Fitz scanned all the new faces entering behind him. “Ms. West, do I have your permission to speak freely?” Katy and I both nodded. “All right then, let me get everyone up to speed. The crossmatch results came in yesterday, and as I told Pastor Clark on the phone last night, he’s a perfect match. Christian and I have spoken in depth over the last several weeks, and he’s agreed to d
onate a kidney to Waverly West.” He put the file down and eyed my arms around Katy, his puzzled expression not unlike the one worn by the other adults in the room. “Do you two realize how lucky you are to have found each other?”

  I knew he was referring to the kidney, but his words meant more to me than anyone could possibly know. I kissed the top of Katy’s head. “Yes, but, in the name of getting everyone up to speed, let me clarify a few points.”

  My mother and Cara Jo stepped forward. The women had become friends over the last several months, and I had my suspicions they’d been formulating a plan to ramp up their matchmaking attempts. So they were particularly focused on how close I held Katy against me.

  “First, it’s Waverly Clark. She’s my daughter.”

  Roy stepped up and elbowed Cara Jo, whispering, “I told you. That little girl is a carbon copy of the pastor. Didn’t I tell you?”

  She slapped him on the chest. “Hush, old man.”

  “Well,” the doctor chuckled, “that makes a lot more sense now. Congratulations, Mr. Clark… It’s a girl!”

  “Um, hi.”

  The room silenced as we all looked to where Waverly had crawled to the bottom of the bed, careful to hold her IV hand out to the side. It was clear this wasn’t her first rodeo. Not one to waste time and in true, blunt, Waverly style, she directed her big blue eyeballs right at me.

  “So, you’re my dad now?”

  I gently popped my daughter off the bed, took a seat, and plopped her right back down into my lap. “Yep, I’m your dad. And I’ve got a kidney in here with your name on it.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “You do?” I nodded. “Mom? Is he for real?”

  She needed confirmation from her mother. That was fair. She didn’t trust me yet, but she would.

  “It’s true, except it doesn’t have your name on it. Yet.”

  She laughed. “I like having a dad.” She looked to my mom. “Look CC, I have a dad.” She swiveled back to look at me, a wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. “Hey, can I, like, call you Dad?”

  “You better.”

  I tickled her, and she squirmed a little, throwing her short little arms around my neck. Katy came to sit next to us on the bed and for the first time, as I held my girls, I truly knew exactly what my mother meant when she’d say her heart was full.

  Mine was full to bursting.

  Chapter 25

  Kaitlin

  TWO MORE DAYS in the hospital for Waverly meant two more days in the hospital for Christian and me. But soon enough we were headed home while we awaited the next step. The transplant surgeries, barring any complications, were scheduled for the middle of September, a mere five weeks away.

  Co-parenting with Christian was a dream come true, but I couldn’t say either of us were thrilled when we were given our marching orders. Maybe it was fear of the unknown? I wasn’t sure how we’d keep up the whole mom and dad dynamic in my tiny trailer or his parsonage. And how was our sudden appearance going to be taken by his congregation? It was discouraging to think about all the obstacles we had to face before we could settle in and just live life.

  “Daddy?” I was just about to enter Waverly’s hospital room after signing her discharge papers, but stopped at the sound of her raspy little voice—full of love—using a word I never thought would come from her tiny lips.

  “What’s up, Little Fish?” He spoke to her with a tenderness that turned my legs to jelly.

  “Where are we going to live tonight?” His chuckle sent heat waves through my veins, and I rubbed my face. I’d been doing that a lot lately. Sore cheeks from too much smiling—not a terrible problem to have.

  “That, my dear, is a really good question. I need to talk to Mommy about that, but do you think there’s room for me in your toaster?”

  “Mmmmm… I think you won’t fit in Mommy’s bed with her, but you can sleep with me or on the couch. We do have a couch, you know.”

  “It sounds like you’ve figured it all out.”

  I eased my way through the door. They were sitting side by side on her bed, coloring in one of those giant, poster-sized coloring books I kept in my car for this exact reason. It was a thousand times sweeter than any Hallmark commercial, and I almost blew my cover with giggles when she slid one crayon out of his hand—a color she needed no doubt—replacing it with another without Christian missing a beat.

  “Well, you have to live with me and mom, or you’ll miss us too much.”

  He stopped coloring and pressed his nose into her hair. “You got that right, girly.”

  I dried my constantly leaking eyes. “Well, you two ready to blow this popsicle stand?” I waved the papers in the air. Waverly apparently expected an actual popsicle because she frowned, quickly huffed a breath when one didn’t materialize, and went back to her coloring.

  “We’re ready. Daddy packed me up, and I’m dressed. Daddy says his truck is here and that he has my booster in the back, and that he’s coming to live at our toaster tonight and I’m even sharing my bed with him.” She never looked up, and she never quit coloring.

  Christian was already wrapped around Waverly’s little finger.

  With Waverly fed, bathed, and tucked into her bed—all of which had to be done by her daddy—I stopped to consider our new and most unexpected reality. While Christian read her a story, I pulled the couch out into a bed, making it up with sheets I borrowed from Cara Jo. My weary bones screamed at me to crawl in and hunker down for a night or three for some real, uninterrupted sleep. As amazing as that sounded, though, I sat on the edge of the bed and waited, listening to one half of my heart giggle at something the other half was saying.

  My eyes shot open when I felt the bed shift beside me. I was completely horizontal, head on the pillow and everything, though I didn’t remember how I got like that. How embarrassing.

  “I’m sorry… ”

  I tried to push myself up and out of the bed I’d just made for my guest, but he was having none of it. Instead, he nudged me over and stretched out, pulling my back flush with his front. Our physical contact had been somewhat limited in the hospital, but with no danger of unwanted interlopers, I was anxious to see what might happen.

  When he started rubbing my back, I thought I’d melt into a puddle. “If you keep doing that, you’ll never get me out of your bed.”

  “Good,” he whispered so close to my ear that the hairs on my neck stood at attention. “That’s exactly where you belong.”

  Heat crept up my chest as I turned to face him, both of our heads sharing one pillow. His rather large hand reached out and cupped my cheek.

  “There’s been no one but you. In my bed. In my dreams. In my life. Only you.”

  Could that be? No, surely I was misunderstanding something.

  Sadly, my trailer was small enough that, just by extending his arm out behind him, Christian could grab his wallet from the kitchen counter where he’d set it upon entering. He flipped it open, reached inside, and pulled out a ratty, folded piece of paper. It was a list with 4/16/2006 scrawled across the top. Starting from the top, he had crossed the first four items off.

  No more drinking

  No more girls

  Finish college

  Find an ADULT job

  Then he reached into his pocket and handed me a purple crayon, no doubt confiscated from the bucket hanging above Waverly’s bunk.

  “Hey, Harold, what’s with the purple crayon?” I'd been able to hear the book they'd been reading to Waverly earlier, and he got the joke immediately.

  He motioned toward the list in my hand. “Cross off number five.”

  NOW, look for a relationship like my parents

  I ran a line through the fifth item on his list, peeking at what was left.

  Marry her—fast, before she figures out you’re an ass

  Buy a house

  Live happily ever after

  I handed it back to him, but he shook his head. “You keep it. I don’t need it anymore. I plan to have the rest of that li
st completed in the next few weeks.”

  There were no words to express what I felt for this man, so I didn’t use words. Rolling into his arms, I attacked his mouth, plunging my hands into his slightly damp hair, fully relying on him to hit the brakes when he felt comfortable doing so. And he did, but only after his mouth made promises I planned to cash in on in the very near future.

  Nose to nose, we shared the pillow as we tried to catch our breath. “There’s been no one but you, either, you know. In my bed, my dreams, and my life... it’s only ever been you.”

  Christian growled and swung his legs off the bed, pulling himself into a sitting position. “I need you to marry me.”

  I laughed. “I already agreed to that, remember? It was right after you revealed that you were my Prince Charming, riding in on your white horse to save the day.” I tried to wrap my arm around his middle, but he scooted out of my reach, holding his head in his hands, elbows propped on his knees.

  “No, I mean, I need you to marry me. Soon. Like very, very soon.” His struggle with self-control was adorable, but it brought something to the front of my mind, something I’d been meaning to tell him.

  “I need to talk to you about something important before we get married.”

  He shifted, but the stiffness in his body changed the vibe in the room. “Good, I need to talk to you about something too. You go first.”

  I sat up, the playfulness from moments before evaporating into a memory. “The disease that Waverly has, ARPKD, is genetic. Both parents have to be carriers to pass it to their children. I only bring it up because if you have dreams of more children, I… ” Despite being surrounded by the stuff, I couldn’t seem to pull any oxygen into my lungs. “I can’t give you more children, Christian. Waverly’s life has been so hard on her, but Wade… I can’t lose another baby.”

  He pulled me onto his lap, sprinkling kisses over my face and hair. “I know, babe. I’ve been on a self-imposed crash course in renal disease over the last few months. My mother lost a brother to kidney disease in the sixties. And didn’t you write that your mother had a stillborn baby boy before you were born?” I nodded, having never made the connection before Christian pointed it out. “I would never put you through that again. Never. I’ll get a vasectomy. I’ll go do it tomorrow if you want me to.”