by Dianne Drake
“Of what?”
“That you’d take him from me. Especially once you knew that he’s...” She’d said it too many times, explained it too many times and now, when she most needed to say the words, she couldn’t. Because this was the one time that mattered above all others. The time that could affect her and Riku for the rest of their lives.
“He’s what, Michi? Tell me. What’s going on?”
“Sick, Eric. Riku is really sick, and the real reason I’m here in New York is so he can have surgery. What you saw weren’t cold symptoms. They were...” A lump formed in her throat as she struggled with the word. “They were the outward symptoms of his heart defect.”
Eric blanched. “What?” he gasped.
Michi shook her head, then bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep herself from crying. “He has...” She drew in a deep breath. “He was diagnosed with truncus arteriosus with a ventricular septal defect. And, yes, I know that’s your specialty. But since you couldn’t be involved my aunt set it up with the doctor who will be performing the surgery. Dr. Anjali Kapoor.”
“You asked her without consulting me first?”
“I’ve done a lot of things I should have done differently but, yes, I did. Now that you’re not practicing, she’s considered the best surgeon for Riku’s condition, and I was lucky she agreed to do the surgery. With one less of you in the field, she’s very busy.”
“You let other people help, but not me? Why, Michi? I don’t understand what made you think I’d take him away from you.”
“I didn’t think that...well, not seriously. But I’m so used to protecting him from everything now...”
“Including his father.” He sighed. “Did it ever occur to you that my son might need me? That I might have an opinion on his surgery based on how that was my specialty when I practiced?”
“But you as good as told me you didn’t want anybody in your life. That’s all I could think of, Eric, as I went through the steps I had to take to make sure Riku was getting everything he needed. All I knew was that Riku had a mother who would give her life for him and a father who’d said he didn’t want to be involved. There’s a wide gap in there, and I simply didn’t have the emotional stamina I needed to bridge it.
“I tried getting hold of you during my pregnancy and even after Riku was born, but I couldn’t, and I didn’t have the energy to keep trying. And before you ask why Agnes didn’t try...she didn’t know you were Riku’s father. Not until much later. Not until his doctors had determined he would need surgery. By then...all I can say is I’m sorry. I could have tried harder, but everything I had in me went to Riku and there was nothing left over for anything else.”
Eric opened his mouth to say more, but no words came out. He looked so angry and hurt. To find out he had a son, then shortly after to be told his son was ill—her heart did go out to him as the pain she saw on his face was what she’d put there. But it was done, her choices made, and she couldn’t go back and change things, not even if she wanted to. “I wish we could have done this better,” she said. “I’m sorry you found out about Riku this way.”
Eric nodded, but still didn’t speak.
“Oh, and in case you’re wondering why I didn’t have the surgery done earlier, Riku’s cardiologist back home advised that since the surgery would entail two different procedures, we should wait until he was a little older, and a little larger. Otherwise I’d have had it done a long time ago. I know it’s usually done early on, but I wasn’t negligent about this, Eric. He’s had good medical care since the day he was born.”
Eric walked over to the cafeteria window and looked out on the parking lot. It was not yet morning, but the day shift workers were beginning to appear. Parking their cars, heading into the hospital. Reporting for duty. Business as normal, except for him. Because now nothing was normal. His life had just changed, and he didn’t know what to do about it yet. There were no rules or guidelines for this sort of thing. And right now, he was feeling so...lost, like the way he’d always felt after one of his father’s rejections. Lost, bewildered, scared. “How bad is he?” he asked on a discouraged sigh. “And don’t hold back, Michi. Not this time.”
She took a sip of her tea, now cold, and bit her lower lip. “He’s a little behind in some of his development like speech, but overall he’s been good. It’s only been in the last few weeks that I’ve noticed any real physical changes in him. You know, the intermittent oxygen when needed, a little less energy than before, lack of appetite.”
He turned his back to the window to face Michi. “I might not have done anything differently for Riku than you’ve done, but I could have supported you...assured you that you were doing the right things. So why, Michi? I know you had serious problems, but I still don’t understand why you didn’t try harder once he was born.”
“Why?” She drew in a deep breath. “Why didn’t I try harder? Because of you, Eric. You, better than most, know the kind of care that he’s required. It’s twenty-four seven. You move from one thing to the next without getting a break in between. But I’ve never minded any of that. Not one minute of it. But you...you didn’t want the commitment. No strings attached. Sure, you might have jumped in at the start, but I wasn’t convinced you had the long haul in you. Riku’s care is the long haul now, and even after his initial surgery, all I could think of was what would happen when you decided it wasn’t in you any longer to make the commitment to his care.
“Personally, I didn’t need that kind of rejection but, more, Riku didn’t need it. He needs people around him he can trust, and he’s old enough to make those distinctions. But his daddy...” She shrugged. “The whole situation scared me. You scared me.”
“Based on what?”
“Some of the things you said. But mostly your jump from being a surgeon to a property manager. At the seminar you were excited about expanding your practice. I could see it in the way you took in every last detail of physiatry. And I heard it in the questions you asked. Then, in the blink of an eye, you’d gone off in an entirely different direction. Sort of like the way you left me that night. There one minute, then sneaking off into the night the next.
“And you didn’t even come to my last class, which told me you were already part of my past. Riku needed stability and I wasn’t sure you could give that to him when what I heard from you was how you didn’t want the commitment, then afterwards what I saw said the very same thing.
“With Riku, I needed a commitment. Maybe not a marriage or a relationship with me, but somebody who would stand beside me through all of it. But you were hopping from one thing to another, and in that I didn’t see a man who would stay there for Riku, no matter what. What I saw, Eric, was a man who would go sneaking off into the night again.”
“Did it ever occur to you to give me a chance?”
“It did. But I was...still am overwhelmed and I couldn’t add your commitment problem to my problems. And, yes, it hurt leaving you out, but there weren’t a lot of options available to me—continue to pursue a man who’d already told me he didn’t want a relationship of any kind or concentrate on giving Riku everything he needs. For the sake of my son—our son—I did the right thing. The only thing I could do. Or, at least, the only thing I thought I could do. And I’m sorry I hurt you. That was never my intention.”
As various workers on the morning shift began to filter into the cafeteria for their coffee, Eric took hold of Michi’s hand and led her down the hall to the nearest private room, which happened to be the hospital chapel. Dimly lit and very empty. After they’d seated themselves in the corner of the rear pew, he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
“My dad and I always had a difficult relationship,” he began. “My mother left when I was five. Walked out the door one day and never came back. I never knew why, and I was forbidden even to speak about it. Meaning, at age five, I knew what rejection felt like. So, raising me w
as up to the old man, and all he wanted was an heir, someone to take over where he eventually left off. Since I was his only child, that would have been me. Except that wasn’t what I wanted. Being a surgeon was. That topic opened up more debates and arguments than I can remember over the years, and since my dad already wasn’t a nurturer, and that’s putting it mildly, it simply widened the gap between us.
“As a result, I was raised by a lot of people: teachers at the boarding school where he sent me so he wouldn’t have to deal with me; any number of hired nannies; the school custodian when Dad forget to take me home for a holiday; the woman who came in twice a week to do laundry. I was up for grabs, basically. Anybody who wanted me for a minute or a day or a week could have me. That was my life when I was a kid. I had a father who didn’t love me and, as a result, I was always afraid I’d turn out just like him. Kids do that, you know. Turn out like their parents.”
“Which is why you were so adamantly against relationships?”
“I would never put another child through what I went through. No physical abuse. No deprivation of anything except the thing I wanted the most. So, my no-commitment policy, it protected me, but most of all it protected someone else from me. Someone I might have come to love dearly.” He shifted his position, moved over toward Michi until he was just barely touching her. And she didn’t pull away. Even that simple gesture gave him the encouragement he needed to tell her more.
“Anyway, prior to coming to your seminar it had probably been three months since I’d had any contact with my dad, which suited me just fine as he was putting more pressure on me to leave medicine and join the company. Since I’d lived with that most of my life, I was pretty well able to shut it out. But there was this little boy inside me who always tried to win his dad’s favor, even though he knew it wouldn’t happen. Then the little boy turned into a successful man who’d still never received the approval or even the acknowledgement he wanted. At the time of the seminar we were basically estranged. I’d had enough, and I think even he was getting tired of the back and forth.
“But that night—our night—I got a text telling me he’d died. No explanation, no nothing. Just the words, Your dad has died. Return home immediately to assume control of Hart Properties. From his lawyer, by the way. For all his money, and all his importance, he was alone in the end. But he still got what he wanted because I did go home and took over where he’d left off.
“At first, I kept telling myself it was temporary, that I’d find someone to replace me then go back to medicine. But the people I interviewed...they all seemed like a different version of my dad. And here was little Eric with an entirely different view of the way things should be. So, I stayed. Resigned my position at the hospital and took over the company, probably to show myself I wasn’t my dad. Strange psychology, I know. But parents do shape who their kids turn out to be. Except I had this altruistic view, whereas he was simply about profit and loss.”
“I’m sorry,” Michi whispered, taking hold of Eric’s hand.
“So am I. As much as we didn’t get along, he didn’t deserve to die alone, but he did. Then the thing I’d always told him I didn’t want to happen happened. Everything he owned became mine, including the company...the company that had originally torn us apart. And the first thing I knew, people were counting on me. I controlled their jobs and, essentially in some way, their lives. Hundreds of people. At night, when I’d try to go to bed, I’d see their faces. They needed something from me. Something better than my dad had ever given. Long story short, I gave up me to become a different version of him. And as for the morning I left without saying goodbye... I didn’t even realize I’d done that until I was halfway back to New York.
“I intended to call you, but the instant I stepped out of the corporate jet my new life started, and it overwhelmed me for months. There were several times, during that period, when I thought about calling, but I didn’t because I thought, What’s the point? I wasn’t the man you’d met in Japan. In fact, much of the time I wasn’t even the man I’d always known. And I wasn’t happy about any of it, Michi.
“After that night together, like you, I’d thought we could have more. I wasn’t sure what it would have been since I was still against ending up in a real relationship. But it was the first time in my life I’d ever allowed that thought in, and for a little while I was hopeful. Then after the text, let’s just say that I gave up on anything I might have wanted in order to prove myself to a man who would never know. By the time I’d figured all that out, it was too late to do anything but follow my new course.”
“A course that’s not being true to who you are? Can that ever make you happy, Eric?”
“Well, you know what they say about not always getting what you want. Only in my case I think I was confused about what I wanted. In the end I realized that, after a lifetime of trying to get it, my dad’s approval didn’t matter. Not to him and certainly not to me. But by that time, I had too many people dependent on me for so many things that I couldn’t simply walk away.”
“Sounds like we both went directions we didn’t anticipate.”
“And I’m glad yours was the better direction,” he said. “I’m still angry that you didn’t include me, and that’s something it’s going to take me a while to work through, but you’ve been a good mother to Riku. And now I want to prove I can be just as good a dad.”
Michi brushed back a tear falling down her cheek, and he brushed away the next one with his thumb. “He needs both of us together, you know.” And she truly wanted that to come from both of them. But words and sentiments aside, she still wondered if she could count on him in the long term because if he did back away again, she could take the rejection. Riku couldn’t, though. And he was her only consideration here. Not herself. Not Eric. Only Riku, and she would fight with everything inside her to protect him, even if that meant fighting Eric.
But he seemed to care. That was what she was counting on, and praying her judgment wasn’t being skewed by one night when all her wishes had come true.
CHAPTER FIVE
HE’D HEARD ALL her words and now he was stuck trying to get himself through the maze of uncertainty so he could figure out what to do next. Not only did he have a son—something that thrilled him to bits—but his son was sick, something that scared him worse than he’d ever been scared in his life. Apart from getting Riku through his illness, could he be a good father to him? A real father? The kind of father he’d never had?
Certainly, he’d never had an example to follow, but loving that little boy could make up for everything he’d lacked in his life, if he got it right. That was the big question. Could he? Michi had been right when she’d reminded him of how he’d said he didn’t want involvements. He hadn’t, and he always put that out there first. He knew that and, to some extent, had even worked at perfecting it. Here I am, my terms. Take it or leave it.
Sure, it protected him. Kept him apart from anything more that could let him down. Yet that had changed the moment he’d found out about Riku. Instant love. Total, complete love for someone he hadn’t even properly met.
So, yes, he did understand Michi’s reasoning for keeping Riku a secret. To anybody on the outside, looking in, he was a sleight of hand trick. Here I am but if you take too long to blink, I’ll be gone. But if you were on the inside, looking out...well, who was he kidding? He’d never yet let anybody get close enough to know him on the inside.
Still, to hide his son from him? Sick or not, that little boy was his, and he should have been included in both the good and bad of Riku’s life. Not only because he already loved that kid, but because no child deserved to grow up so separated from either of his parents, the way he’d been separated. His dad’s reasoning he understood up to a point. But his mother’s... That was a wound that had never quite healed, and he didn’t want Riku ever to have to deal with that.
OK, so maybe those considerations didn’t belong here now, wh
en Riku was on the verge of a major surgery, but there were so many different things to think about. Things that had never before entered his mind. His son’s schooling. Would athletics be possible or would Riku be more the studious type? Or maybe an artist or musician? Would he go to university someday, and what would he study? Would he get married? Have a family of his own?
And Michi? What about Michi? He didn’t want to hate her. Quite the opposite. But after what she’d done...
Well, one thing was sure. For now, he and Michi would unite for the sake of their son. Getting him through this surgery was the only thing that mattered. Everything else could be worked out later. “Is he susceptible to colds?” Eric asked, holding her hand, needing the feel of it in a way that was foreign to him. But Riku was having another scan now and all he could do was wait. It was killing him.
“I don’t take him out around too many people because I know his heart condition can suppress his immune system. So, I really can’t answer that because he’s been pretty sheltered so far.”
“And did you choose anyone special to be on the surgical team, or did you leave that up to Dr. Kapoor?” This wasn’t right. This conversation should be between two parents who were frightened for their child. Not one parent who was able to show her vulnerability and one who hid behind his medical knowledge. But it was safe there. Someplace he could count on. Someplace that had never let him down when everything else in his world had.
“Really, Eric. That’s what you want to talk about? The surgical team?”
“My default, I guess.”
“Riku doesn’t need a default. He needs a dad. And, yes, you could argue that I’ve deprived him of that, and you’d be right. But that’s not what it’s about right now.” She broke loose of his hold and walked over to the crib where Riku would be returned shortly. It was midmorning now, and the hospital was in its full daily swing.
