by Parker, Ali
Everyone laughed. I felt so light and truly happy in that moment, and it had been far too long since I had allowed myself to feel that way. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do next, maybe head out for some lunch together, and then I could take Winnie and Raina back home while Yara headed off home with her new best friend.
Before I could get started on any of that, my phone rang in my pocket. I knew as soon as I felt it buzzing against my hip that it was going to be bad news.
I stepped out to take the call, and I didn’t recognize the number. It took me a second to remember that I had given it to Allison before in case something came up with her and she needed to get in touch with me. I answered the call, and as soon as I heard her breathless voice down the line, I knew that this was some seriously bad news.
“Harry?” she gasped, and it sounded like she had been crying.
“It’s me, it’s me,” I assured her. “What’s going on?”
“How soon can you get to the Mercy’s Heart hospital?” she asked. “I need you here. Now.”
“What’s happened?” I asked, rubbing my hand over my face.
“It’s Nico,” she replied. “He took a turn for the worse. They needed to admit him. He’s under observation now, but he’s sedated, and they want me to make a call on what to do with him now.”
She caught her breath, her voice shaking. I didn’t blame her. A hole seemed to open up below me, consuming me, dragging me down and in.
“I need someone else here to help me,” she said. “You said that you wanted to be a part of this. This is your chance.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I promised her. “Just give me a half-hour, all right?”
“All right,” she agreed. “Please, Harry, please... just hurry.”
I hung up the phone and stared into space for a moment. But I couldn’t just stand around. I needed to launch into action, and I needed to do it now, before anything else could happen to my son.
“Hey, Harry,” Raina greeted me as I entered the room again. But when she saw my face, hers dropped.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, coming to my side at once.
I lowered my voice, making sure Winnie couldn’t hear me. “Nico’s in the hospital,” I explained, and I looked to Yara. “I need to go be with him. Do you think that you could take Winnie for a little while longer? I’ll be back to pick her up as soon as I can.”
“Take all the time you need,” Yara replied at once. “No rush. Seriously.”
“I’ll come with you,” Raina said.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to put you through this.”
“All you ever asked was that I didn’t let you go through this alone,” she reminded me. “And I’m not going to let that happen. Come on. Let’s get out of here. Your son needs you.”
I was so glad that she said that. There was a stupid part of me that wanted to be a big man and do this without anyone’s help, but I knew that wasn’t how it worked. I needed her. I needed someone.
Without saying another word, I hugged Winnie goodbye, and we headed out to the car. As we drove through the city, Raina held my hand tightly. And I knew that she was trying to convince me that this was going to be all right, that everyone was going to make it through this unscathed.
I just had to hope against hope that she was right, and that everything was going to be just fine.
Chapter 60
Raina
I had never felt my heart actually ache for someone before this moment, but looking at Harry, it couldn’t do anything else. Every inch of my body ached for him, and every part of my mind wanted nothing more than to find some way to make this easier, but that wasn’t how this worked.
I had to just be here for him, no matter how hard it was, no matter how frustrating it turned out to be when it came to all of this. I wanted to be able to do something practical, but the most I could manage was just my presence.
We headed into the hospital, and I hung onto his hand. I wasn’t going to let go of him. I loved him too much for that. When he had asked for my help in this, all he had requested was that I don’t leave him to deal with it alone. And I wasn’t. I never would. Not in a million, million years.
We were led through to the room where his son was waiting for him. It would be the first time I had ever laid eyes on the boy, and my heart ached in my chest when I saw him lying there. He looked so tiny, so vulnerable. I wanted to scoop him up in my arms and heal him somehow, find some power in me that I had to make things better. I knew I couldn’t do that, even if I wanted to, and instead, I just stood there in the doorway.
“Harry,” a woman’s voice drew my attention, and I looked over to see who I assumed was Allison sitting next to the bed. There were dark rings under her eyes, and she looked gaunt and exhausted, like she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. How could she when her son was as sick as he was?
“Allison,” Harry replied, and he went over and put a hand on her shoulder.
God, I wanted to make things better for all of them. I just wished there was something I could do. I hung back in the doorway, not wanting to get in the way of anything but not wanting to leave Harry feeling like he didn’t have anyone on his side either.
“This is Raina,” Harry said, apparently remembering that I was in the room.
Allison smiled. “I’d get up and shake your hand, but I’m not sure that my legs could take it right about now,” she explained.
I shook my head. “Stay right where you are,” I assured her. I glanced over at the boy again. I could see why Harry had been so dead certain that he was his. One look into his sweet little face was enough for me to believe it. Even though he was asleep and a lot of his body was obscured by IV lines, he still had something of Harry to him.
“Do you know what happened yet?” Harry asked.
Allison nodded. “They think it was a bad reaction to new meds,” she explained. “They’re trying to get them cleared out of his system now, and once that’s done, they can take a step back and look at where to go next. But they were hoping that this might push back more invasive treatment a little longer.”
“So what’s the best course of action now?” Harry asked.
I pulled him to sit down in the hard plastic chairs placed around the bed. They were hardly comfortable, but if they kept him from pacing obsessively and wasting all his energy on that, then they would do.
“Sitting and waiting,” Allison replied. “We just have to see how long it takes to get all of this out of him, and then from there, we can work out where we want to go.”
Her head sagged down, and she looked like she could have fallen asleep right on the spot. She was dealing with her own sickness, too. I couldn’t imagine the nightmare of knowing that your child was sick right as you were diagnosed with something that could take your life.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Harry promised her. “If you want to go home and get a little rest, you know you’re more than welcome.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I get to see him awake again,” she replied firmly, and it was clear from the tone of her voice that there was to be no arguing with her.
Harry smiled at her a little sadly. “You’re a great mom, Allison.”
I nodded in agreement. She really was. She’d been thrown the mother of all curveballs, and she was handling it with more grace than most would.
I figured I should give them a little space to talk. As much as I wanted to be there for Harry, I also didn’t want to intrude on the time that he had with Allison. They likely had a lot they needed to go over, just in practicalities if nothing else.
“Should I go grab us some coffees?” I suggested.
Harry nodded and smiled at me. “I think that’s just what we need right now.”
I took that as my cue to go.
The hospital was a bit of a labyrinth, and I had to wander around for what felt like forever before I found what I was looking for. The café wasn’t much, but it would do for now. I grabbed a
selection of coffees as well as some pastries so that we could get some food inside us, and I made my way back to the room with it.
I couldn’t help but wonder, as I walked, if I should have felt jealous of Allison. Yes, she was in a totally unenviable position in a lot of ways, but she also had a child with the man that I loved. When I had first found out about her, I had been a little thrown by the thought of her existence.
It was a lot to take in, knowing that Harry had a past that I would never have as long as I was with him. I had been single for a lifetime before he had come along. He was my first everything, and yet he had a whole history behind him that had nothing to do with me. I would have been lying if I’d said there wasn’t some part of me that found all of that a lot to take in.
But I could say without a shadow of a doubt that when I looked at Allison, I felt nothing in the way of jealousy. The fact that Harry was so happy to go rushing to her side and not to hide it from me told me that there was nothing to fear. He just wanted to be here for a woman who needed him, and there was nothing that I was going to do to get in the way of it.
If all of this panned out, if they both came through this with their health and their lives, then I would want to make sure we were all on good terms so I could make them a part of my life too.
By the time I arrived back in the room, Harry and Allison were talking quietly next to the bed. They both looked up as I entered, and I handed Harry the tray of food and drinks. He gave me a kiss on the lips.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Allison smiled her own thanks at me, too exhausted to so much as open her mouth.
“This isn’t exactly how I pictured us meeting,” I said to Allison, hoping at least I could make her laugh.
I got a chuckle for my troubles. “Yeah, I had hoped I might at least have had a few hours sleep,” she joked back. “I’m sorry you have to see me looking such a mess.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I assured her. “You’re here for your son. I can’t think of anything much more impressive than that.”
“That’s sweet of you to say,” she replied, and she closed her eyes for a moment.
I was glad that she was so easy to talk to. I had feared that she might be unhappy about me being around her child, even if I knew I was just there to support Harry any way that I could. But she didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps she was just far too exhausted to bother with anything else.
Harry took his son’s hand and watched him as he slept fitfully, and I rubbed Harry’s back gently and watched the furrow in his brow grow deeper. It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair that he’d had to go through all of this with his sister, and now he was struggling with it when it came to his son, too. It was even less fair that he never would have found out that this kid existed if he hadn’t gotten sick. I knew that Allison had just done what she thought had been best for her child, and sure, Harry might have changed a lot in between their encounter and now, but I still felt bad for him, that he’d had to go so long without this kid that he so clearly adored.
Allison stirred next to the bed and looked over at us. I took Harry’s hand. It wasn’t a gesture of possession but of comfort. Allison smiled when she saw us together and nodded down at our linked fingers.
“You guys been together long?”
“Just a few months,” I replied.
“Oh, I would have guessed way longer,” she remarked.
I felt a little flutter in my chest. It made me happy to know that she looked on us as a solid couple, hopefully solid enough to help with raising her child when the time was right.
“It feels like a lot longer,” I agreed.
Harry looked over at me and laughed. “I know what you mean, but damn, you managed to make it sound like an insult,” he teased.
Allison and I shared a glance of amusement, and I knew for sure that I was never going to have to worry about feeling jealous of this woman. She was just doing her best. She wasn’t here to try and get her claws into my man.
“So, how did the two of you meet?” she asked.
I glanced over at Harry and smiled. “It’s a pretty funny story,” I started off, and I filled her in on all of it. On the first time we met in the clinic, on the little dog he’d brought in with him, on turning up to that blind date to find that we knew one another. To adopting Tink, and actually dating, to everything else that had brought us to that moment.
Her face lit up as she listened to us talk, and she seemed genuinely happy to hear our story. I was happy to tell it. I knew I would be sharing it many times over the course of my life, and it was good for me to get some practice in.
Harry, meanwhile, leaned his head on my shoulder and closed his eyes. He seemed to realize that this was going to be a hell of a long haul. And he was more than happy to let me do the talking for a while as he tried to catch up on some of the rest he was going to need to make it through the rest of Nico’s stay.
And no matter how long it was, I was going to be there. I was going to stick by him.
Nothing was going to change that.
Chapter 61
Harry
I woke with a start and a crick in my neck, letting out a sharp exhale and scrambling to remember where the hell I was.
And then it hit me. I was still at the hospital. With Nico, with Raina, with Allison. I had dozed off in the chair, and I had no idea what time it was.
Raina was asleep in the chair next to mine, and Allison was holding on tightly to Nico’s hand and gazing at him as she waited for him to show any sign of a response. His chest was rising and falling a little steadier than it had been at the start of my visit, so that was something, I guessed.
“What time is it?” I asked Allison quietly, my voice gravelly and raw from tiredness.
She glanced at her watch. “Just past seven in the morning,” she replied. “If you want to go home...”
“No, I’m going to stay,” I replied. “Will the hospital be serving breakfast yet?”
“Probably,” she replied. “Could you get me a black coffee?”
“Of course,” I promised, and she closed her eyes and smiled her thanks. I planted a kiss on Raina’s head and headed out to the cafeteria to get something to eat.
On the way, I dialed up Yara. She would normally have slept in on a Sunday, but with Winnie there, I imagined that she would already have been drawn out of bed.
“Hello?” she answered, sounding about as tired as me. Winnie and Quincy must have kept her up all night.
“How’s it going?” I asked her.
“It’s good,” she replied with a yawn. “You want to speak to Winnie? I need to get a little coffee in me before I get into an adult conversation.”
“Sure,” I agreed, and she handed over the phone to my niece a moment later, and I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as I heard her voice come thru the line.
“Hey, Harry!” she greeted me happily. “How are you?”
“I’m good, honey,” I replied. “How are you?”
“I’m doing so well!” she replied. “Tink and Quincy are getting along so well. They’re going to be best friends.”
“Just like you and Yara,” I replied. “I just wanted to let you know, I’ll be by to visit you at some point today. Take care of Tink for me until I’m back, all right? I know it’s a lot of responsibility, but I’m sure you can handle it.”
“I can handle it!” she replied at once, and I smiled. When the time came for Nico to be a part of our lives, she would be just the best big sister to him.
“Good,” I told her. “Could you let me talk to Yara for a minute? Tell her I don’t care if she’s had her coffee or not.”
A moment later, Yara was back on the line.
“Sounds like you guys are doing well,” I remarked.
“We are,” she agreed. “And she’s right. Quincy and Tink already love each other. They’re going to have a lot of playdates, just some fair warning.”
“I can handle that,” I re
plied, and I took a deep breath. “I’m going to try and get out of here today at some point, but I don’t know how long I’m going to stick around.”
“Take all the time you need,” she replied warmly. “Look after yourself, okay?”
“I’ll try,” I assured her. “And thanks for being there, Yara. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“And I’d ask you to bear that in mind the next time it comes to review my salary,” she joked.
I couldn’t help but laugh. She was always a swindler, to the end.
“I’ll definitely remember,” I promised her. “I’ll speak to you soon, all right?”
After that call, I went to grab something to eat. I picked up a pastry for me, some coffees for all of us, and some chocolate pudding for Nico, just in case he had woken up by the time I got back. I hoped to God he would. I wasn’t sure how much longer Allison could cope with having him out for the count.
I got back to the room, and Raina and Allison were talking away to one another animatedly. It made me happy to see them getting along so well. It was going to make things a whole lot easier to handle, not to have to worry about drama between the two of them. I had never expected it from Raina, but in truth, I still barely knew Allison, and I had no frame of reference for how she might react to this stuff.
“And how long have you been doing that?” Raina was asking with interest.
“About four years now, give or take,” Allison replied, and I realized they were talking about their jobs. I had never even asked Allison what she did. Every time we had met up, there had been too many other things to worry about for me to really focus on her, but I felt guilty for failing to ask for so long.
“I brought coffee,” I told the two women, and they took the drinks that I had brought them. I sat down and joined them. “You guys talking about work?”
“Yeah,” Allison replied with a nod. “I knew that Raina was a vet, but it turns out that we actually work pretty close to one another. I pass by her clinic on the way to work most mornings.”
