“And I’m going to finish it.” Only because someone had to. “I called to talk about Jessie. To try to sweet talk you into sharing some more helpful hints on improving communication between us, because the direct approach is not working.”
“Too bad. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to having phone sex.”
Did he detect a hint of disappointment? “Oddly enough, me, too,” he admitted. And why did he feel so comfortable sharing that tidbit with a woman he hardly knew?
“You know you’re putting me in a tough spot,” Scarlet said, her voice serious. “I can’t betray things Jessie has told me in confidence. She really needs a friend to talk to, and right now I’m it. It took me a long time to get her to open up.”
He wanted to ask how she’d managed that, but decided to start with, “Would you at least tell me how you met?”
She took so long to answer Lewis had started to worry she wouldn’t.
“That I can do.” It sounded like she repositioned herself in bed. Again. “I work late on Tuesdays and Thursdays to spend some time with my night staff. So I take a break at three.”
“Right around when I send Jessie down to get a snack after school.”
“The cafeteria isn’t usually busy at that time so I noticed her, always sitting there by herself with that ‘don’t talk to me’ look.”
Lewis hated that look.
“I saw a lot of my thirteen-year-old self in Jessie. Mad at the world. Too much time alone and unsupervised. Do you honestly think she’s safe wandering around alone in a city hospital for hours waiting for you to get off work?”
Lewis did not appreciate the censure in her tone. She had no idea how hard he’d tried. “That was her doing not mine. I told her what would happen if she made one more babysitter quit. And she’s not supposed to be wandering around alone,” he pointed out maybe a little too forcefully. Calm it down. “She’s supposed to be in my office doing her homework.” Except his little Houdini always managed to sneak out without anyone seeing then show up hours later when it was time to go home. “What do you suggest I do? Let her stay at my condo all alone until I get home, like she’d prefer? Maybe some thirteen-year-olds are ready for that. But in my opinion Jessie isn’t.” And his opinion was the one that mattered.
“I agree,” Scarlet said, surprising him. “But it’s a moot point since I’ve got her spending her afternoons up in the NICU wing now.”
“Where?” Why?
“We have a family lounge. It’s geared towards the siblings of our babies who are often overlooked while their parents focus their attention on their sick infant. So we made them a special place with video games, toys, computers to do their homework, a television and a kid-friendly library that holds everything from picture books to young adult novels. Jessie comes up to read every afternoon.”
Jessie liked to read? They actually had something in common? Yet in the nine months she’d been living with him he’d never seen her with a book.
“I’m sorry. I assumed she told you.”
“Aside from mostly no’s and the occasional yes, she hardly speaks to me. I do get a lot of shrugs, exasperated breaths and eye rolls, though. And when she does surprise me with a full sentence, it’s usually to tell me how much she hates me, that she knows I don’t want her, or that she wishes I’d died instead of her mother.” Then he’d rather she’d just stayed quiet.
“She has a lot of anger.”
Rightly so. But, “It’s been nine months. Shouldn’t it be dissipating a bit by now?”
“If only time was all she needed.”
“Tell me what she needs. I’ll do anything.”
Silence.
“Please,” Lewis said. “If you want me to beg, I will.” He slid to the edge of the recliner, fully prepared to drop to his knees. “I am that desperate.”
Silence.
Lewis started to lose hope that Scarlet would be the panacea he needed.
Then she spoke. “If you can slip up to the NICU family lounge around four o’clock tomorrow you’ll see a different side of Jessie. One that I’m sure will make you proud.”
An opportunity he would not miss. “I’ll be there.”
“She can’t know I told you. Say you came up to check on baby Joey, and my staff told you where to find me.”
“Will do.”
“I’m giving you an opportunity for a positive interaction with your daughter, Lewis. Don’t screw it up.”
CHAPTER THREE
AT THREE-THIRTY on Wednesday afternoon, washed up and gowned, Scarlet opened Joey’s incubator. The baby refused to suck so Dr. Donaldson had placed a naso- gastric tube for feeding. “Hey there, you sweet little girl,” she said softly so as not to startle her. Joey blinked her eyes and stretched in response to Scarlet’s voice.
Good.
Scarlet pressed her index finger against the baby’s tiny palm so she could grab onto it. “I promised your mommy I’d take good care of you.” A promise she intended to keep. She repositioned her many tubes and carefully wrapped her in a baby blanket. “We need to get you drinking from a bottle so you can grow up big and strong.” She lifted her and slowly moved to the rocker two steps away, careful not to pull on the many lines connected to her.
Once situated, she began to rock. Joey made a contented little moan and cuddled into her. “Don’t get too comfortable,” she warned and picked up the little bottle beside her. “We’ve got some work to do.”
Since taking on a management role, Scarlet missed providing direct care to the NICU’s tiny patients. “Open up.” She rubbed the special nipple along Joey’s bottom lip and squeezed out a drop of formula.
So far the NICU social worker hadn’t been able to come up with any information on Holly. Police were reviewing missing persons reports and Holly’s post mortem picture had been faxed to OB/GYN offices, prenatal clinics and schools within a thirty mile radius of the hospital. Scarlet couldn’t help wondering why Holly didn’t want her family to know about the baby. For fear of their reaction to her pregnancy? Shame? Scarlet could relate. But what if there was more? What if her home environment wasn’t safe for her baby? If her parents were unfit to raise a child, like Scarlet’s had been? Or if someone abusive would have access to the baby?
And what if Holly was never identified and her family never found? What then? Joey would wind up in an over-burdened, flawed child welfare system. Helpless and vulnerable.
Promise me she’ll be okay. Promise me you’ll find her a good home. A dead mother’s final plea to Scarlet, who had absolutely no control over Joey’s placement.
Unless she sought to adopt her.
An absurd notion, considering Scarlet didn’t spend enough time at home to keep a pet alive. How could she work the hours she did and effectively care for an infant? The question that’d been weighing on her mind for months as her biological clock beat out the second by second withering of her reproductive organs.
Baby Joey fell asleep in her arms and Scarlet savored a few minutes of peace in the darkened quiet room, loving the feel of Joey in her arms. Like she did every time she held a NICU patient, she tried to convince herself. But no, it was different with Joey, maybe because Joey’s mom had entrusted her daughter to Scarlet. Maybe because Holly reminded her so much of herself, and Joey, now all alone in the world, had wound up like Scarlet’s baby when she’d been purposely chemically incapacitated.
Regardless,