She swipes more tears away. “Please do. She’s so special.”
Yes, she is. And one day, when I work up the nerve to tell him, Theo’s going to think so too. There’s no way he’ll be able to look at Stella’s sweet face and not fall madly in love with her.
I don’t know how to fix this. All I know is I have to try.
Chapter Nine
Theo
It’s going to take more than a fresh pair of hospital-issue scrubs to get me ready for my first all-night shift in the ER. I have to keep my eye on the prize. Each shift gets me a few dollars closer to my goal. Maybe when my three-year fellowship is up, I’ll have enough cash saved to take that Doctors Without Borders trip. I hope I can survive that long.
I’m going to need as much caffeine as possible in my bloodstream to make it through the night. That and a Foley catheter because I’ll have to pee every thirty minutes. I fumble my way to the cafeteria and grab the largest cup I can find. If they had one of those sixty-four-ounce bladder-buster cups, I would get it. Clutching my diabetic kit under my arm, I fill the cup to the brim and survey the room to see if anyone’s watching before I try to slurp down the coffee without scalding my tongue.
Gag. It tastes like coffee I would find in a truck stop. It’s awful, but it does the trick even before I douse it with all kinds of unhealthy additives. I refill my cup before I schlep to the cashier. Wow. I’m such a rebel, living on the edge. I’m so tired, I don’t really care if I get arrested for topping off my coffee.
As I slip the lid on my cup, Isaac from the fitness center appears. He looks at me and clucks his tongue as he cocks his head to the side. I’ve been busted by the health police. But I could get him in just as much trouble with that bear claw pastry and large coffee he’s carrying. So my only offense is that I plan to pay for a large coffee when I should be paying for an IV bolus supply.
Isaac gets in line to pay, and I stand right behind him. He turns and wiggles his eyebrows at me. “Interesting couple of days, huh?”
“You could say that. You’re here late.”
“Yeah, had a lot of paperwork to do from the orientation session yesterday, especially since Darla hightailed it out of there after y’all’s meet and greet.”
I must have really made her mad, but I don’t know why.
“Hey, Janie,” Isaac says to the cashier.
She holds her hands out. “Now, Isaac, I know I’ve said it before, but I’m going to get to the fitness center. I promise.”
He smiles at her. “Sure you will.”
“You know everyone, don’t you?” I ask him.
“Pretty much. It’s part of my job. Hey, Janie, I’ve got his too.” He pays for our coffees.
“Thanks. So… you know Darla very well?” It spills out before I know what I’m saying, but maybe he’ll know what I did wrong. Beating around the bush has never gotten me anywhere. Hence the reason Mallory still thinks we’re going to get back together.
Isaac motions for me to follow him to a table in the far corner of the cafeteria. I sit across from him and sprinkle sugar substitute into my coffee.
“I’ve known Darla since we were kids, but not like you know her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
I crack a grin.
He cackles with laughter. “What do you want to know?”
I glance around the cafeteria before blowing on my coffee. “She didn’t seem too happy to see me. That’s for sure.”
Isaac shrugs. He waves at the man cleaning a nearby table. “She doesn’t tell me everything. Some things are locked up tight in that pretty head of hers. Darla and her older sister, Diane, were my neighbors growing up. I even dated Diane briefly, but obviously that was a disaster,” he singsongs.
I can’t help but like this guy. He’s so friendly and genuine. I’m glad Darla has a friend like him in her life. If I didn’t have my brother and sisters, I don’t know what I would do.
Isaac’s happy expression fades. “I don’t know anything, but I have never seen her get this messed up over anyone before. I sense there was something special there. Maybe still is.”
I knew it. She feels it too. Sweet.
He leans in and whispers, “Don’t say I said this, but I think she really likes you. She might be afraid.”
“Of what? Have you looked at me? I’m not very scary. She could probably take me in a fight. What could she possibly be afraid of?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s you popping back into her life, or maybe it’s something buried deep that no one knows.” He rakes his teeth over his bottom lip. “Heck if I know. Damn, she’s goofy as hell, but she’s golden and about the finest person I know.”
I lean back and close my eyes. If I sit here too long, I’ll fall asleep. “I recently got out of a toxic long-term relationship, one that would have never happened in the first place if I’d had only a few more minutes with Darla. You have no idea how much I’ve thought about her over the years.”
He chomps down on his bear claw and gulps down a swallow of coffee. “Be honest with me. Do you want to pick up where you left off?”
“Yes!” I guess I said that with a little bit too much enthusiasm. Several families at nearby tables swivel their heads in our direction. “But she does seem fragile… not to mention mad at me for something. I don’t want to scare her off. Yep. I should approach this really slowly.”
“But not too slowly.” He snaps his fingers. “Her office is in the fitness center. Stop by and let her get used to you. You can find time to work out, can’t you?”
“Are you a walking advertisement?”
He shrugs. “And if you need Uncle Isaac or the Fairy Godmother to knock some sense into her, we can do that.”
A warm feeling runs through my veins, and it’s not the caffeine. I think back to the one night Darla and I had together. I was ready to have her meet my family; I was certain that she was the one for me. “No, I think I can handle this one on my own.”
We fist-bump.
“I’m sure you can.”
Not that I needed one more item on my schedule, but working out is for a good cause. I have to get another dose of the Darla drug soon, or I’ll go through withdrawals again.
Chapter Ten
Darla
I ramble around my galley kitchen in my favorite comfy clothes—a pair of ratty surgical scrubs, my old gray university sweatshirt, and my favorite flip-flops. To celebrate the last day of school, I am making Mexican food. Stella loves to make tacos. If I didn’t know better, I would think she was descended from the Aztecs. She eats chips like other kids eat french fries.
“You better hold off on those jalapeños. They’re killers,” I say to her as she pops another salsa-laden chip in her mouth. She seems completely unfazed by the heat, even though beads of sweat are already forming on her forehead.
“I know what else will kill you,” she says.
I take out the ingredients for our meal. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“A spinning wheel.”
I stare at her.
“It’s true. That’s what happened to Sleeping Beauty.”
“Ahh. It’s a good thing we don’t have a spinning wheel.”
“I know.” She bounces on one foot then the other. “Can I shred the cheese?” She blows a strand of hair out of her face.
I have absolutely no self-control around her. It has been the two of us for so long that it would be really weird to have a traditional household—a mom, a dad, two point five kids, and a dog. I’m so used to doing everything myself that I’m not sure if I could hand over some of that control.
At first, it was overwhelming because I had to take all the day and night feedings. I was the one who had to make a mad dash to the store during a tornado warning with a three-month-old in tow because I ran out of diapers. And I paced the
floor alone, praying that God would let her fever break.
But we survived, and every day got better and better. Eventually, I found my groove, and with help from friends like Isaac, we’ve done pretty well on our own. He really stepped up to the plate since my father didn’t want anything to do with me and my illegitimate child, and my crazy sister had already moved to Los Angeles.
Isaac was there through it all—the pregnancy, the delivery, the post-partum anxiety, and all those times I needed someone to fall back on. He even helped out by watching Stella when I had to work the night shifts as a staff nurse. But the missing piece of the puzzle has always been the daddy-sized elephant in the room.
I tried to date, but that faded over time. It wasn’t worth the effort. The bar had been set so high that even an astronaut would have had trouble reaching it. The only person that would fit all my criteria was tucked neatly away in medical school, living the life he wanted.
He has some nerve, waltzing back in and acting as if life is peachy, as if he doesn’t even remember that one night. It’s as though he doesn’t even remember he has a daughter. Medical school must have zapped all his memory cells for him to forget something like that. The party, the baby, the emails, the rejection. It breaks my heart to think he has so little respect for the life he created when she is absolutely wonderful.
I hand Stella the shredder. “Here, make sure you don’t shred your knuckles this time.”
“Oh, Mommy, I only did that once.”
She takes the chunk of cheddar in her tiny hand and slowly starts making little bits of crumbled cheese. I don’t care if the shreds are imperfect. Cheese is cheese. Most of it lands on the floor, which Yeti willingly cleans up. I brown the ground beef on the stove, keeping one eye peeled over my shoulder to make sure she doesn’t get her little hands too close to the shredder’s sharp edges.
“I like lots of cheese. Daddy does too.” She must have been a fly on the wall, watching the recent turn of events.
“What makes you think that?”
She shrugs. “Don’t all daddies? Can we watch a movie tonight?”
I grin at my daughter. Sometimes I can’t keep up with her rapid shifts in conversations. She can go from what happened at school to some current event to that pretty butterfly outside the window in less than thirty seconds. All the while, I’m still trying to work my way through what happened at school. She sure does keep me on my toes.
“Sure.”
“Kade has a great daddy.”
And we’re back to daddy talk. This is starting to get freaky. If she has the ability to read my mind, we are going to be in a world of trouble when she’s sixteen.
“When do you think Daddy will be finished with that special, secret job he has?”
Not soon enough. “Soon, or at least I hope so.”
Every time she mentions my little white lie, my blood pressure rises ten points. I wish I could blame this on someone else, but it falls one hundred percent on my shoulders. A few years ago, she started asking about her daddy, and I couldn’t look at that precious face and tell her he didn’t want her. To protect her until she was old enough to understand the situation better, I went with the fib about him being away working, which wasn’t entirely a lie.
“But hey, we’re doing good, you and me, right?”
She shrugs. “You won’t get me a pony.”
I can hardly afford to feed the two of us, let alone a huge beast. And Stella has it in her mind that a pony can live in our postage-stamp-sized backyard. The neighbors would love that.
It’s time for me to change the subject. “Hey, Aunt Diane will be here in a few days. Remember, you’re going to spend a few weeks with her.”
Stella’s eyes get as big as saucers. “Oh yeah! She promised me she’d take me to Disneyland.” All her worries about spinning wheels and finding her daddy are forgotten like a dandelion after the seeds have been blown into the breeze.
I wish I could be more like a six-year-old. I’m still kicking myself for agreeing to this little adventure with my sister. When Stella found out she could meet princesses and Mickey Mouse, the battle was more than I could handle. I mean, Stella’s puppy-dog eyes and Mickey Mouse? My sister knew I wasn’t going to win this time. I like being in control, and I lost control to Mickey Mouse of all people. Darn that rodent and his high-pitched voice.
“I know. It’s the original park. The one in California near where Aunt Diane lives. You’re going to have so much fun.” My sister fell in love with a movie producer eight years ago when he was in town filming an episode of Nashville. Within three months, they were married and living happily ever after in Los Angeles. I do my best, but sometimes, my fifty shades of green peek through. But Stella’s time away might give me time to formulate a “meet your daughter” event.
“What did you do today at work?” she asks.
She always wants to know all about work—every detail of everything. She can finish the game of Twenty Questions before breakfast every morning. Mrs. Silva says needing to know every single detail of everything is a sign of intelligence. Stella must have inherited that curiosity from her father, because she sure didn’t get it from me.
“Well, I took the day off because… I wasn’t feeling well, but yesterday was very busy. You know I work at a teaching hospital, so every year about this time, new doctors come to work at the hospital to finish their training. They’ve finished school but need to learn all the skills that go with it. Miss Shelby, Uncle Isaac, and I help to make sure they’ve had all their shots, check their cholesterol, blood pressure, stuff like that.”
She giggles as she grabs two paper plates and places taco shells on them. “Uncle Isaac’s funny.”
He hasn’t been recently.
“Do you like him?” she asks.
I stop chopping vegetables. “Of course I do. We’ve been buddies for as long as I can remember.”
“Do you want to marry him?”
“I love working with him, but he’s more like a brother to me. And he’s been a bad boy.”
“Did he spit food on somebody?”
I laugh out loud. “No, but I’m sure he’s done that at some point.”
“Kade does that sometimes in the cafeteria. It’s gross. And you can’t marry Uncle Isaac. When Daddy comes home, you’ll want to marry him.”
God love her. “We’ll see.”
We inhale the tacos and lounge on the couch, downing chips as we watch a movie. Yeti sits at our feet, expecting every third chip to be tossed his way.
The doorbell rings, causing Yeti to go ballistic. Good thing his bark is louder than his bite. He may only be a ten-pound Chihuahua, but if anyone tries to take his treat away from him, he transforms into a Doberman. He runs to the door, doing circles as if he’s rallying the troops for battle.
Stella sprints to the door. “I’ll get it.”
“No, I’ll get it. You can’t even see out of the peephole.” I scoot her out of the way and peek through to see Isaac’s eye. It’s creepy. God, I hate when he does that. At least it wasn’t his tongue this time.
As soon as I open the door, Isaac says, “Romeo, oh, Romeo. Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” He’s still dressed in his khakis and polo shirt, looking as though he came straight from work. Oops. I guess my faux illness caused him to work overtime in order to get all the data from the physician screening entered into the database. I should apologize, but he’s in the doghouse, so I don’t feel too bad. Yeti barks at Isaac as if to say he’s glad some other old dog has entered his home.
“Down, Bigfoot,” Isaac says, petting the top of Yeti’s head.
Stella bounces up and down. “Uncle Isaac. Uncle Isaac.”
He plops his messenger bag by the door and scoops her up to run through the living room with her on his back, sliding on the fake Oriental rug in front of
the fireplace. Both of them scream, “Whee!”
When Isaac visits, it’s like having two children in the house. He and Stella play so well together that it’s sometimes hard to remember he’s not her age. At least Stella can hit the toilet when she goes to the bathroom, which is more than I can say for Isaac.
“What did you bring me?” Stella asks.
“Stella,” I scold. “Manners.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I would never drop by without something.” And when Isaac wants the scoop, the “something” he brings is usually really good. He backs up toward the front door and points to his messenger bag.
Stella bounces again from one foot to the other.
“I’ve got… cookies from Becca’s Bakery.” He takes out a big paper sack from his messenger bag. At least it’s not a pony.
Stella squeals again. Oh, he has brought out the big guns. If he splurged for Becca’s Bakery, I know he’s serious. He holds the bag a bit higher than Stella can reach. She jumps for it over and over but never quite gets it.
No matter how mad he made me earlier, I know he would never do anything to hurt me, not on purpose, anyway. It’s time to get him up to speed on some details I’ve kept from everyone, even my best friend.
Stella reaches for the bag. “Mommy said you spit food on somebody today.”
He cocks his head to the side. “What?”
While Isaac is distracted, I snatch the bag from him and run into the kitchen. They both chase after me and tackle me to the ground. Yeti jumps in on the action.
The three of us settle in on the couch to watch Stella’s favorite movie, Finding Nemo, and munch on cookies dunked in milk. This is my slice of heaven. I can forget all my troubles because all I ever need is right beside me on this couch.
“I love this movie,” Isaac says.
“Are you going to cry?” Stella asks.
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