Another Man's Child

“Lisa was in the nursery with her?” he asked, wishing he could have been there to see Lisa’s face. To share her elation with her, just as, together, they’d shared so much sorrow.

“Yep.” Regina nodded. “From what I heard, she was standing there talking to her like she usually does, and suddenly the wee one just opened her eyes and stared straight at her.”

Looking at Lisa’s baby through the window, Marcus could feel Lisa’s excitement almost as if it had happened to him. “Was she awake long?”

“I guess it was only for a minute or two, but Dr. Cartwright carried on like her kid had just graduated from Harvard. Not that I blame her, of course. I’d have done the same thing, and the mite isn’t even mine.” She leaned her head a little farther out the nursery door. “I’ve been watching her ever since I came on shift, hoping to catch a glimpse of it myself. But so far she’s sleeping tight. My luck, she’ll wake up when I’m at dinner.”

Marcus chuckled, but his eyes never left the baby in her funny little bed. He, too, had a surprisingly strong urge to witness the phenomenon. To look into the child’s eyes, to see the little person who’d been living so silently in a world of her own.

He stayed an extra half hour that night, on the off chance the child would wake up. He knew he should go, that Lisa would be waiting at home for him, but like a gambler mesmerized by the gaming table, Marcus couldn’t seem to tear himself away. He kept thinking that the next minute would be the one.

He took one final look as he was turning to leave, and as if she’d known this was her last chance, the baby opened her eyes. Just like that. With no warning, no fanfare, her little head turned, and she was staring right at him. His breath caught in his throat as he re-. turned her stare, feeling exposed, as if she was taking stock of him, maybe finding him wanting, even though he knew she couldn’t be, that she probably couldn’t even focus yet.

She was more beautiful than he’d even imagined. But there was something odd about her eyes. Marcus continued to stare at her, unable to put his finger on what was wrong. Their shape was perfectly normal, amazingly normal considering the circumstances, nice and round and big. But something wasn’t right.

He felt sick to his stomach when he realized what it was. All along, he’d assumed that Lisa’s baby would one day look at him with Lisa’s warm brown eyes. But Sara didn’t have brown eyes at all. Hers were clear blue, like a bright summer sky. They were someone else’s eyes. Another man’s eyes. Because she was another man’s child.

Marcus turned and left.

AT LISA’S SIX-WEEK checkup, Debbie pronounced her well, even going so far as to say she didn’t expect there to be any problem if Lisa ever wanted to have a second child. Nevertheless, Lisa left the doctor’s office feeling vaguely out of sorts.

Debbie had suggested again that Lisa allow her milk to dry up. And she was beginning to wonder if maybe the doctor was right. Sara was six weeks old and still not taking any nourishment other than the glucose they continued to shoot into her veins. Lisa was throwing away more milk than she was keeping. And while she’d known all along that Sara’s good days would be mixed with bad ones, the ups and downs were getting harder and harder to take.

Debbie also told Lisa that she and Marcus could make love again. Lisa couldn’t believe how much she missed the intimacy with Marcus. Not just, physically, though she was certainly hungry for her husband’s body, but she missed the emotional connection their lovemaking provided. She missed that feeling of oneness, a togetherness so intense it seemed nothing could come between them. A time when only the two of them existed.

A time she knew was slipping away.

Needing a pick-me-up, she detoured from the route between Debbie’s office and her own for a quick stop at the nursery. She’d already spent her hour with Sara earlier that morning, but another dose of her darling baby was just what she needed.

“Dr. Cartwright, we were just calling your office,” one of Sara’s day nurses said when she arrived at the nursery door.

Lisa’s stomach dropped. “What’s wrong?” She knew they’d been toying with the idea of removing the baby’s ventilator for a trial period, but surely they wouldn’t have done it without notifying her.

The nurse grinned at her. “Nothing’s wrong, Doctor. They’re about to take Sara off the ventilator, and Dr. Cunningham said to get you up here.”

“He’ll let me be there?” Randal was a tyrant when it came to playing things his way. And having a mother standing next to him when he was facing a life-and-death situation with a child was something he never allowed. Not even if the mother in question was a damn good pediatrician in her own right.

“Just as soon as you’re scrubbed,” the nurse confirmed, standing aside as Lisa rushed by her.

Lisa’s hands were shaking as she scrubbed them, and she had to accept the help of one of the aides to get into sanitary garb. She’d never been more nervous in her life.

She approached the familiar crib on rubbery legs, for once wishing she could make use of the rocking chair that was kept beside Sara’s bed. Standing where Randal instructed, she watched as a technician pulled the cellophane away from Sara’s body and carefully, slowly, removed the tape holding the tube to the baby’s mouth.

Lisa held her breath, her gaze glued on her daughter, waiting to see if the infant lungs would take over for the respirator. The air surrounding the warming bed was filled with tension as the seven adults watched that tiny body, waiting…

Sara shuddered, her muscles protesting against the hands holding her down. Her big blue eyes were wide open at first, and then they scrunched closed as she objected, silently, to the attention she was receiving.

The tube was taken away, and the machine wheeled backwards. At the sudden silence, Sara opened her eyes again and uttered a small sound. Sara’s muscles twitched, as if she’d surprised herself, and the sound came again. A little louder. A thin wail of disapproval, followed by a sigh.

Sara was breathing on her own.

A nurse slipped a rocker behind Lisa, and she sank onto it, tears blinding her to the smiles on the faces of the other adults. But she heard the relieved sighs of all of them.

Wiping her tears, Lisa looked around her at the staff of medical professionals that had been helping her daughter to sustain life for these six long weeks. There wasn’t a dry eye among them.

“Well, Mama, you ready to hold her?” Randal asked, wiping his arm suspiciously across his own face.

Lisa’s heart thumped heavily. “You’ll let me hold her?”