Another Man's Child

“Her counts have been out of the danger zone.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” He grabbed Lisa up and swung her around.

She noticed a new bounce in his step as she followed him out to the enclosed back patio for a quick cup of tea. It had been years since she’d seen her father look so happy. She was glad to see that he was finally getting over the loss of her mother.

“Guess what else?” Lisa asked, sipping her tea.

“What else?” her father asked, mimicking a game they used to play when Lisa was a little girl.

“I held her today.”

Oliver’s mouth fell open and he sat forward, taking Lisa’s hands in his own. “You took her out of her bed?”

Lisa’s eyes brimmed with tears as she nodded. “For ten whole minutes.”

“That’s great, honey. That’s just great!” His eyes were moist, too, as he shared her joy. Other than herself, Oliver was Sara’s only living blood relative. It did her battered heart good to know that he cared for her daughter as much as she did.

“I imagine Marcus was standing in line to hold her,” Oliver said thirty minutes later as he and Lisa walked back through the house to the front door. He had his meeting to get to, and she had a husband who’d be waiting for her at home.

Lisa stopped, unwilling to face that part of her life, but knowing she couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Marcus doesn’t know, Dad. He hasn’t had a thing to do with the baby since the day she was born, or even before, really.”

Oliver stopped in his tracks. “Nothing?” He frowned.

“He says he can’t pretend.” Fresh tears gathered in Lisa’s eyes.

“Oh, honey, still?” He pulled her against him. “I’d hoped he’d worked his way through all that after Sara was born. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I kept hoping he’d come around, too,” she said. It sounded so feeble when she said it aloud, but that tiny thread of hope had been keeping her going for months.

“I’m sorry, honey. So sorry.”

Lisa squared her shoulders. “If Sara lives, I think I’m going to have to leave him, Dad.”

Oliver nodded, the happiness in his eyes dimmed. “I understand. You can’t bring the baby home to his house if he doesn’t accept her.”

Hearing her father say the words made them all that much more real to Lisa. Had she been hoping he’d disagree with her, try to talk her out of it?

“Can I bring her here, Dad? Just at first? Just until she doesn’t need round-the-clock supervision?” Lisa hated even having to ask. Moving home was the last thing she wanted to do.

“You bring her here and stay here, young lady. I’ll not have you off someplace caring for her all by yourself. You, me and Sara, we’ll make a great family.”

“I’ll need to get a place of my own at some point.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Oliver said, dismissing her concern. But Lisa promised herself she’d start looking for a home for herself and Sara right away. She’d stay with her father as long as the baby’s safety depended on having extra ears and eyes around, but she was going to have a home waiting for them when they were ready. She had to if she was ever going to believe that her marriage to Marcus was over.

“I can’t imagine that Marcus is taking this sitting down,” Oliver said, walking with her out to her car.

She took a deep breath. “I haven’t told him yet.”

Again Oliver nodded as if he understood. “Time’s getting close, though,” he said, echoing the thoughts she’d been trying not think ever since she’d left the nursery several hours before.

“I know.” Lisa was filled with a sudden urge to get home to her husband, to grasp whatever last minutes she could with him.

“YOU OKAY?” Lisa asked Marcus over the pizza they shared later that evening.

He’d had the idea on the way home to take her to their old stomping grounds, the pizza parlor they’d frequented during their years at Yale. They had something to celebrate, even if she didn’t know he knew that.