Another Man's Child
Her stern colleague actually smiled. “Her temperature’s been steady all week. I think it’s safe.” He reached into the bed, careful of the catheter in the baby’s foot, slid his large hands beneath her and gently lifted her.
With quivery arms, Lisa reached for her baby, her heart soaring with a joy she’d never known before, in spite of the danger she knew Sara still faced.
The little girl weighed less than four pounds and was more a warmth than a weight against Lisa’s breast as, six weeks after she’d given birth to her, she held her baby for the first time. The baby snuggled against her, her little chest shuddering again with the unfamiliar burden of breathing. And then, tired out by her new chore, she fell promptly asleep.
THE NURSERY WAS STILL buzzing when Marcus arrived before dinnertime that night. Regina was just coming on shift, and she me
t him at the viewing-room door.
His glance shot immediately to the box that served as a crib for Lisa’s baby.
“Where’s the ventila—She’s breathing?” He stared in astonishment at the almost steady rise and fall of the tiny chest.
“Yep. Has been all afternoon. You can come on in and hold her, but the doctor says only for ten minutes at a time until he’s more confident that she’s maintaining her body temperature on her own.”
Marcus felt something closing in on him. He could hold her. He could take that little body into his arms and make certain that nothing ever harmed it again. Regina said he could.
“Come on, Mr. Cartwright. You’ll do fine. Fathers are always a little timid at first. Especially with the preemies.”
Fathers. He wasn’t one of those.
“I’ll pass.”
“Okay, but I’ll leave the door unlatched in case you change your mind,” she said, turning to go.
He’d disappointed her. “Regina?” he called.
“Yeah?”
“Has Dr. Cartwright held her?” Suddenly it was very important that she had. That the child know she had a parent who loved her unconditionally.
“Yep. She was here when they removed the respirator. They said she just broke down and sobbed, poor thing.”
Marcus stared at the baby, concentrating on containing the emotions that threatened the control he’d been maintaining so carefully since he’d recommitted himself to Lisa and their marriage. “Thanks, Regina,” he said. The nurse nodded and left.
The baby moved her head, looking in the direction of the door as it closed behind Regina. He wished he’d been there that morning, sharing those first moments with Lisa. He wished they were his moments to share. And he was angry with himself for doing what he’d promised himself he’d never do again. Wishing.
The baby moved again, flinging her unobstructed arm up, and Marcus found himself moving to the window for a closer look. He couldn’t tell if she had fingernails yet. He looked at the nursery door. The unlatched nursery door. And looked away. Why did he have to torture himself with what could never be? Was this his fate, to be always on the outside looking in?
Cursing at himself, or the fates who’d played such a cruel joke on him, he yanked open the nursery door, strode to the nurses’ station and asked for instructions on how to sanitize himself enough to be near Lisa’s baby. He didn’t yet look at the child. He didn’t ever intend to touch her. But he wasn’t going to be afraid of her, either. She was going to be living in his home.
He had to know whether or not she had fingernails.
Regina appeared from a small room off the nurses’ station. “Here, put this on—” she handed him a gown “—and come with me.”
She led Marcus over to the sink he’d seen Lisa use the day after the baby was born, waited while he washed his hands, then showed him how to apply the elastic gloves that covered not only his hands, but his wrists. “I’m glad you changed your mind,” she said now, leading him to the baby’s part of the nursery. “It’s really not so bad once you get used to it. Holding her isn’t that much different from holding a football. Did you ever play football, Mr. Cartwright?”
Marcus nodded, though he wasn’t sure what she’d asked. His attention was on the impossibly small body squirming around not six feet in front of him. He couldn’t believe she was that small.
“How on earth does she stay alive?” he asked Regina as they drew nearer to the baby’s box.
The nurse shrugged. “That’s for God to determine. Medical science has no explanation for how she’s managed to accomplish as much as she has so far.”
“Does this mean she’s out of the woods?” Marcus asked. Was this it, then? Had they really made it?
Regina shook her head. “I wish I could say it did, Mr. Cartwright, but there’s still so much that can go wrong. She’s not even eating yet.”
“What’s that she’s listening to?” They’d reached the crib. “That sounds like my wife,” he said, recognizing the soft soothing voice. “Where’s it coming from?”