The Child Who Changed Them (Parent Portal 5)

Elaina worked her shift later that day, focusing on the patients who needed her, consulting with doctors and nuclear med technicians who required her attention. On her lunch break, she went to the cafeteria where she and Greg had shared most of the meals they’d eaten together, chose from the four food groups, going heavy on the fruit and salad, and headed back upstairs.

She used to always pack her lunch, mostly made up of leftovers Wood had made for dinner the night before. Perhaps she should take up cooking again. She’d done all the cooking when she was married to Peter. Had actually enjoyed it sometimes.

And her baby was going to need to eat.

She wanted to sit together with her child at the table every night for the next eighteen years minimum, share a meal while they talked. About big things, little ones, nothing at all.

She wanted her baby. Did Greg?

Feeling as though her life was on hold—still, even after the revelation—she picked up her phone to call him, and put it back down without doing so. A repeat of an action she’d done half a dozen times since leaving The Parent Portal.

Because she hadn’t been inseminated with the help of The Parent Portal, she no longer technically needed their services. But Dr. Miller had agreed to keep her on as a patient and birth the baby anyway. She and her little one had had an unusual start. And Dr. Miller understood the situation with Greg. Felt for him.

She’d told Elaina that morning that Greg would come around.

Elaina wasn’t so sure.

Nor was she sure she wanted him to do so.

She was thrilled he was her baby’s father, as opposed to an anonymous donor. Maybe even just thrilled that her baby would have his genes, period.

But they weren’t a couple. Never really had been. Not in any facing-life-together sense. They’d had lunch and sex for over a year.

They’d never been on a date or even out together anywhere. They’d eaten in the cafeteria. And when they’d had sex, she’d always followed him to his place after work.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about him. About how he was feeling. What he wanted.

She wanted to wrap her arms around Greg and just hold on. That scared her, too. She couldn’t revert back to her old ways, letting a man prop her up. The fact that she hadn’t known she was doing it was no excuse.

She’d seen the light.

She had to be strong. In body, spirit and mind. She truly wanted to be.

For herself. Her baby. And others in her life.

Holding it together that day because that was all she’d ever known how to do, she finished her shift and drove home. At almost eight weeks pregnant, she had to start making plans. Figuring out the nursery. Shopping. Painting.

Finding a pediatrician. Changing her insurance policies.

Starting a college fund.

Telling Wood and Cassie that they were going to be an aunt and uncle.

She wanted little Alan to know that she’d always love him specially, that she was bringing him a playmate. A family member who would be there for him for life.

She wanted to call her mom. That yearning had never quite left, even after more than fifteen years since the car accident that had taken both of her parents from her.

And then another one had taken Peter, too.

But she couldn’t dwell on that. Couldn’t be the needy woman who’d been so ripe to marry Peter, simply because he’d loved her. Who’d perhaps fallen in love with him, or thought herself in love with him, because of the power of his love for her. Who’d leaned so heavily on Wood for so long, for the same reason.

Her dependence on Peter had eventually led her to believe she couldn’t exist without him. But there she was, still standing. Miraculously standing after being confined for months to a wheelchair.

She could have a baby on her own. Raise that child in a healthy, loving home.

She didn’t need Greg.

Still, her mood shifted, became less rigid, when she pulled down her street and saw Greg’s shiny blue sports car parked on the far side of her two-car drive. The side she didn’t use.