The Boss Project(89)
“Yeah, because the team of doctors treating her recommended it. I know you’re a smart dude, but you didn’t go to four years of medical school and do eight years of residency like the neurologists did. Not to mention, there’s no proof that the medicine caused her to go into labor early. Her body was giving out long before that.” He shook his head. “Things happen. Women who aren’t in plane crashes go into early labor and have babies with far more issues. There’s shit in life we can’t control.”
I heard Will talking, but I was too distracted by the memories flashing through my mind to really listen to him. One, in particular, was the hardest to tune out. It was the day I’d found out my daughter wasn’t my daughter. I’d left the hospital to wallow in self-pity marinated in vodka and come back to an empty bed.
“I didn’t say goodbye to her,” I choked out.
Will stared at me as tears rolled down my cheeks. “What do you mean, you didn’t say goodbye? I was outside the room when you held her—” He stopped abruptly. “Shit. You don’t mean Eloise, do you? You’re talking about Amelia. This isn’t just about the baby.”
A few minutes passed without either of us talking. Eventually Will sat up. He took his feet from the coffee table and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Do you love Evie?”
I wiped my tears and nodded. “I do.”
“Then you need to figure out a way to move on.”
I thought I had moved on…until I saw Eloise’s sweet face. “How do I fucking do anything now?”
“You stop letting things from your past destroy your future. I’m no shrink, but I think the first step is letting it out. It’s been three years, and this is the first time you’ve let the emotions in. After Amelia died, you came back to work a few days later like nothing happened. You can’t erase people from your heart to move on.” He tapped his fingertips to his chest. “You have to accept that they’re always going to have a piece and let it heal as best it can. A person who loves you will take your heart, scars and all.”
CHAPTER 31
Merrick
Three years ago
“Mr. Crawford?”
I looked up from the rocking chair. I’d been sitting and staring down at my little girl for the last hour. She was five days old today, and it was the first time she’d been stable enough to come out of the incubator.
The NICU nurse who’d handed her to me was standing at the door with another woman I didn’t recognize. She wore a suit, rather than scrubs like everyone else. The nurse walked over. “We need to put Eloise back in now. It’s important she gets sufficient time under the lights for her jaundice.”
I nodded and leaned down to kiss my daughter’s forehead. She was tiny, so freaking tiny.
When I was ready, the nurse scooped the baby from my arms and set her back in the incubator. She smiled warmly at me as she pointed to the woman standing in the doorway. “Mrs. Walters would like to speak to you. She’s the hospital’s in-house attorney.”
My eyes jumped to the woman. I guessed they’d sent in the big guns since I’d refused to sign the DNR for Amelia so far. I nodded and stood. “Can I hold the baby again later?”
“Of course. We’ll just do it in short sessions.” She looked at her watch. “It’s three o’clock now. Maybe around seven?”
“Thank you.”
The attorney stepped outside the nursery and waited for me to join her. “Hi, Mr. Crawford. I’m Nina Walters from the hospital’s legal department. Would it be okay if we went somewhere to talk for a few minutes?”
I looked back at the incubator, at my daughter safely sleeping inside again. “Sure.”
We walked to the waiting room, which was empty, and sat down.
“Your fiancée’s medical team has filled me in on everything that’s transpired over the last few months. I’m very happy Eloise is doing so well.”
I nodded. “She failed her hearing test, but they said that was common and may work itself out.”
My little girl was tough. She had some fluid stuck in her middle ear, and they couldn’t guarantee there wouldn’t be developmental issues as time went on, but she was one hell of a fighter, born at only twenty-nine weeks.
Nina took a deep breath and exhaled. “You’ve been through so much already. I hate to even talk to you about this, but the hospital received a court order today.”
“Because I didn’t sign the DNR? From who? Amelia hasn’t spoken to her mother in years.”
The woman shook her head and held out some official-looking documents with a blue back. “This isn’t related to your medical decisions for Amelia. The court has ordered the hospital to collect DNA from Eloise for a paternity test. The petitioner is someone named Aaron Jensen.”
? ? ?
The following afternoon, I was sitting in Amelia’s room when the monitors suddenly started going off. I stood and watched the normally steady lines start to jump all over erratically. But Amelia hadn’t moved a muscle. A nurse ran into the room, took one look at the screen, and yelled back to the nurses’ station.
“Code blue! Grab the crash cart!”
A half-dozen people piled into the room in the next thirty seconds. The doctor listened to Amelia’s heart, while another nurse grabbed an arm and counted the heartbeats from the pulse on her wrist.