Authors: Lisa de Jong
I sped through each one that wasn’t Vanessa, for the first time in my life wanting to hear her voice. Nine messages in, she was there.
“My water broke. I’m going to the hospital.”
“Fuck!” I screamed into the phone, replaying it so I could hear when she’d called. The message had been left Saturday morning. Two days ago.
My stomach twisted in knots. The first wave of concern I’d ever felt for the child flooded me. Images of Eva’s tiny body flashed through my mind—the wires and needles and suffering she’d only known for the two short days of her life.
I skipped forward through more messages, riddled with guilt when Vanessa’s voice came on again. “Daniel, the baby’s coming. Where are you? Please...call me...I’m scared.”
On the last message, no words were said. There were only the soft sounds of a woman crying, familiar enough that I knew it was Vanessa. It had come in late Saturday night.
“Vanessa!” I screamed as if she could hear me yelling at her through the message.
I frantically dialed my father.
“Dad.” My voice shook with emotion. There had been too much pressure, first Melanie and now this.
“Daniel?” he asked. “Calm down. Tell me what happened.”
“It’s Melanie’s. She’s hurt.”
“What?” His voice rose. “What the hell happened?”
“Nicholas.” It was all I could get out, but all he needed to understand.
“Damn it,” he swore under his breath. “Is she okay? Where are you?”
“Uh...I’m,” I took a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. “I’m following the ambulance. I think she’ll be okay...but she’s beat up pretty badly.”
I could hear him shuffling around, his keys jingling as they scraped across his desk. “I’m leaving right now. I’ll meet you there. Which hospital?”
“Mercy. Dad...I...there was a message from Vanessa. I think she had the baby. Dad—” The pall of high anxiety I had experienced spread out, falling over me in a blanket of quiet dread. “He’s early.”
I felt Dad’s pause, his breath absent for a brief moment. When he returned, his voice was soft. “Son, it’s not the same. He’s just a little more than three weeks early. He should be fine.”
“Can you check on them for me? I...I just can’t handle all of it right now. I have to take care of Melanie first.” Melanie would always be my first priority. And beyond that, I just wasn’t ready to face that reality yet.
“Sure, son. I’ll take care of it.”
The rest of the trip was a haze. The fifteen minutes seemed like a lifetime, my mind trapped in a sea of memories. So much love, so much loss, that familiar pain so prominent, that pain always present when I saw Eva’s face.
And, Melanie. I was a fool to have let her go back there alone.
The ambulance pulled into the circular drive in front of the ER, and I found the closest spot I could. I ran across the parking lot and got there just as they were pulling her out.
She was awake.
Relief crashed over me, nearly knocking me to my knees.
Her eyes were glassy, but her soul was alive in them, locking with mine even in their muddled state.
She was going to be okay.
Dad came rushing out the sliding doors of the ER. He was agitated, his graying hair sticking up from where he’d run his hands over his head. The agitation lining his face eased when he saw us. We followed the paramedics inside, and they took her straight to a curtained room and transferred her to the bed.
Dad tugged on my arm, pulling me back into the hallway while they worked around her. He whispered cautiously, “Daniel, the baby...he was born Saturday night. They’re here…in this hospital.”
My hands went immediately to the sides of my head, trying to force the alarm from my mind.
“He’s fine. He’s upstairs, in the regular nursery.” He lowered his voice even further, unsure of how much information I could handle. “He was five pounds, two ounces, perfect health, no complications.” His hand was on my arm, firm, offering reassurance.
I exhaled the breath I’d been holding, looking at the ceiling as I released the fear, the baby’s health my solace.
I might not be able to love him, but I couldn’t tolerate the thought of something bad happening to him.
“And Vanessa?” I was more than shocked that I cared anything about her condition, but I did.
“She’s fine. She had a C-section so they kept her for three days. They should both be released tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you going to go up there?” He cocked his head upward.
I shook my head, glancing at Melanie’s room and back to him, ashamed. “I’m not ready yet.”
He nodded in understanding but couldn’t hide his disappointment. “Okay. Go take care of Melanie. I’m going to call your mother and sister. Neither of them have any idea what’s going on. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Okay. And Dad...could you call Peggy and let her know what happened? I don’t want to leave her in the dark again.”
“Sure.” He smiled in reassurance, before turning and walking away.
I pulled back the drape to Melanie’s room, standing awkwardly in the corner, trying to stay out of the way as the EMTs finished their job and the nurse took over. I wanted to be the one by Melanie’s side, the one to fix her, to make up for being too late. I felt useless as they worked over her. The only thing I could do was comfort her from afar. I felt the intense pull as her heart called for mine, her eyes wide with her love but shadowed with the fear that still controlled her nerves. The EMTs left, and the nurse hooked her to a monitor, taking her vitals, scribbling things down in her chart, finally allowing me the room to get to her side.
“Oh, baby. It’s okay, sweetheart,” I murmured, running my thumb over her cheek.
Her voice was hoarse and low, the narcotics coursing through her veins, ebbing the pain but also her coherency. “What happened to Nicholas?”
“He’ll survive.” Unfortunately. I looked at the floor before turning my gaze back to her, making a promise I was sure of, though I didn’t really know why. “He’ll never hurt you again, Melanie. It’s over.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. Even though she was slowly sinking into oblivion, her eyes were intense and without disillusion. “I heard you.”
She heard me.
I called out my own appreciation to whatever power it was that led us and brought us together the first time and then again. The one that bound us, the energy that fought for us no matter what obstacles we had to overcome.
I smiled down at Melanie and squeezed her hand, knowing I would never be able to grasp the depth to which I was bound to this woman. “I heard you, too.”
Her eyes fluttered closed, though her grip remained firm in mine.
The curtain rustled and a doctor emerged, introducing himself as Dr. Anderson. He was tall and thin, his dark brown hair meticulously combed to the side, his eyes framed by metal-rimmed glasses. Melanie never stirred during his examination. I watched over his shoulder, clearly making him nervous, but I was certain he would be more thorough if he knew I was paying attention to everything he did.
“I’m going to have a plastic surgeon come down and suture these two lacerations,” he said, pointing to the one on her eyelid and the one under her chin, “and I’ll suture the one in her mouth. The rest are just superficial. We’ll also get a CT scan to make sure she’s not having any swelling from the trauma to the back of her head and an x-ray of her chest and upper extremities, but from my exam, I’m guessing they’ll be negative. Other than that, she looks okay.”
The whole time they worked on her, I stayed by her side, her small hand held in mine. My spirit sang with hers, calming her, promising her she was safe, assuring her she would be fine.
I was certain Melanie’s body would heal easily but feared her worst scars would be from the emotional damage Nicholas had inflicted on her over the last nine years.
When they wheeled Melanie’s sleeping form out of the ER and down the hall to get her CT and x-rays, I sank heavily down in the chair, resting my head against the wall with my eyes shut. I was absolutely exhausted. I began to doze when a light tapping on my shoulder startled me. The same nurse who had tended to Melanie looked down at me apologetically. “Sir, there are police outside who need to speak with you.”
I raked my hands over my face, trying to wake myself. Two officers stood just outside Melanie’s room, talking quietly as I approached them. “I’m Daniel Montgomery. You needed to speak with me?”
“We need to ask you a couple of questions.”
I answered each of their questions as honestly and as straightforwardly as I could, feeling only slightly uncomfortable when they asked about my relationship with Melanie. I could only imagine what they were thinking when I told them of our affair and the events that had led up to this afternoon. They had no idea about our past. They knew only that Melanie had been unfaithful to her husband. No matter what the circumstances, though, Nicholas had no right to hurt her, so I just answered the detectives and hid nothing.
Thankfully, they saw it the same way, another cut-and-dry case of domestic violence. It was obvious who the aggressor had been in the situation, and they promised me Nicholas would be charged as such.
I wandered back to the chair, finding a few moments more rest before they brought Melanie back. She was alert, one side of her face drawn in a small smile when she saw me, though she held herself rigid, guarding herself from moving in a way that would elicit a reaction to her wounds.
“Hi.” She reached for me and I wrapped her up in my arms, careful not to cause her more pain, though she seemed to need my touch more than the caution I was trying to impart by not getting too close to her.
“Hey, beautiful. How are you feeling?” I leaned in to kiss her, so lightly my lips barely brushed against hers.
“Sore,” she swallowed, clearing her throat. “But I’m okay.”
We both jumped when Dr. Anderson rushed in. “So, all your imaging was clear. Nothing’s broken and there’s just a small amount of swelling around your brain, nothing to be too concerned about, but we are going to go ahead and admit you so we can keep an eye on you overnight.”
I trailed behind them as they moved her upstairs to the third floor. The sign indicating
Newborn Nursery 5th Floor
jumped out at me among the fourteen others.
I still couldn’t believe this had happened. I thought Melanie and I would have time by ourselves at home, time to talk and decide how we were going to handle this, time to plan. Now I’d run out of time and I was a father.
As much as I needed to tell Melanie, I didn’t have the heart to do it. I could almost see the sadness that would cloud her eyes even though her words would be filled with soft encouragement and hope for my future.
She was falling asleep by the time they had her situated in her room. The words were garbled and slurred together as she muttered, “Love...you...Daniel,” her tongue numbed by the meds, her mind lulled into a false tranquility.
“I love you forever.” I kissed her forehead and drew her covers up under her arms and tucked them tightly around her body, hoping they would provide her some comfort while I was away. With heavy feet and a wary heart, I trudged from her room, knowing I could no longer put off the inevitable. My hand shook uncontrollably when I reached out and pressed my index finger to the five, and I held my breath as the elevator lifted me the two short floors.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It felt as if I were in the middle of a whirlwind when I stepped out onto the floor. Everything was calm and serene except for the funnel cloud that swirled around me as the energy snarled and crackled. It was as if I were walking through a field of land mines, not knowing which step would trigger the end but knowing it would come. Feelings of regret and fear and grief circled in an endless cycle. What made it worse was that every painful memory of my life came back to originate in a place so similar to this.
My legs became weak when the glass window came into view. Infants’ beds were pushed up against it with each baby’s name proudly displayed above its tiny head. I tried to focus on the names, but my vision was blurry, my mind rejecting that one of these children belonged to me.
“Sir, may I help you?” A woman in her late thirties looked at me, concerned. “Do you need to sit down?”
“I, uh...I...” I looked at her with a blank expression, having no clue what my own son’s name was. “I’m here to see Baby Montgomery...or Levy?”
Fuck.
I didn’t even know his last name.
“And your relation to him?”
I choked as I forced it from my mouth. “Father.”
She punched a couple of things into her computer.
“He’s in his mother’s room. I need to see some identification so I can sign you in.”
I handed her my license and watched as she printed out the bracelet and secured it to my wrist. I thanked her quietly and turned away, fingering the label that titled me the father of “Baby Boy Montgomery.”
I plodded down the hallway, each step forced. I felt ill as I stood in front of Vanessa’s room. Using my hand to brace myself against the wall, I tried to come to terms with meeting a son I did not want. It was time to be the man my mother always praised me to be—the man my father had taught me to be—no matter how much I wanted to neglect this responsibility. I took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
I stood in the doorway unable to move as the shrill cries of a newborn infant hit me full force. The child was on his back in the small plastic hospital crib, screaming uncontrollably. Vanessa was in bed, a pillow over her head, trying to drown out his incessant call.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I spat out, almost unaware I had taken the four steps needed to bring me face-to-face with my son for the very first time.
I barely registered Vanessa’s voice as she whined, “He won’t stop crying,” this tiny person demanding all of my attention. He was dressed in a little white shirt that wrapped around him and snapped in the front, the long sleeves covering his arms. In his hysterics, one hand had broken free of the folded end meant to cover it. His face was pinched and beet red—and absolutely beautiful. The reality of who he was knocked the air from my lungs.