Starting Now (Blossom Street #9)(87)

“She should have told me.”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Libby said, feeling sorry for the youth.

“I suppose,” he murmured, but he didn’t sound convinced.

The elevator doors opened and they stepped out. Peter went right away to the nursery window. His hands remained in his pockets. Libby noticed the sheen in his eyes. “Would you like to hold her?” she asked.

Peter looked away from the nursery and then slowly nodded.

Chapter 32

Peter Armstrong, dressed in a protective gown, looked strangely out of place in the nursery. He wore ragged jeans and beat-up tennis shoes with untied laces. Tall and lanky, the fifteen-year-old’s prominent Adam’s apple wobbled up and down as Libby had him sit down and then handed him his daughter.

The teenager looked down at Amy Jo for several seconds before he spoke. “She’s so tiny.”

“She’s a fighter; she’s already gaining weight.”

“How come she’s still in the hospital? Ava’s at home.”

Libby stood behind him and looked down at her daughter. “Amy Jo had a few problems breathing on her own at first; that’s why the doctors are keeping her, to make sure her lungs develop more before she goes home. We can take her out of the incubator for short periods of time.”

He twisted around to look up at Libby. “She won’t die, will she?”

Life held few guarantees, but according to all the information Libby had received, the baby should do well. The fact that Amy Jo was an enthusiastic eater encouraged Libby. “She’s doing great, so you don’t need to worry.”

Peter continued to hold the infant, although his arms were stiff and his back unnaturally straight. “I saw Ava. We didn’t talk. I didn’t know what to say.”

“In time you’ll find the right words.” Libby hardly knew what to tell him.

Peter rocked for a bit longer. “You named her Amy?”

“Amy Jo. Ava liked it, too. How do you feel about her name?”

Peter shrugged one shoulder. “It’s all right, I guess. I heard … you’re going to adopt her?”

“I already feel that she’s part of my heart.” Libby placed her hand on his shoulder. She knew that the attorney she’d hired had already contacted Peter and his family.

“I … I didn’t think I’d feel anything for her … but I do,” Peter whispered. “I want her to have a good life with a family who will love her.”

“I love her, Peter. With all my heart I love her. She’ll be my daughter but she’ll always be part of you, too.” Libby felt it was necessary to assure the youth that she would tell Amy Jo one day about her young father and how she’d wrapped herself around his heart, too. Libby gently squeezed the teenager’s shoulder. He held Amy Jo for several minutes, and then very sweetly bent down and kissed her brow. He lifted the newborn up and Libby took her daughter and gently set her back inside the incubator. When she looked up she saw that Peter had tears in his eyes.

Reaching out, she hugged him and patted his back several times.

“I … I should go,” he said, sniffling. They broke apart and he ran his forearm below his nose. “I didn’t tell my parents where I was going and it’s past my curfew.”

The irony of that caused Libby to smile. This young man was old enough to father a child and he had to hurry home because of a curfew. “I’ll drop you off,” Libby told him.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I’m headed that way myself.” Not true, but she wanted to see him home.

Once in the hospital parking garage, Peter climbed into the car and closed the door. Libby sat beside him and started the engine. They rode in silence for a couple of blocks before Peter spoke again.

“Before Ava could even tell me about the baby, her grandmother came over and started shouting at my mom and dad and said she was going to have the police arrest me.”

“You don’t need to worry.”

“I know. My dad called a friend of his who works on the police force and he assured my parents that Mrs. Carmichael could threaten us all she wants but she can’t legally do anything against me.”

“Were your parents upset?” Libby asked. She could only imagine how they must have felt, finding out this way that their son had fathered a child at fifteen.

“My mom started to cry and my dad sat me down and we talked, you know, about really serious stuff. He said he regretted the fact that we hadn’t talked like that a lot sooner.”

“That’s important.”

“Yeah,” Peter agreed.

“How’s your mom doing now?”

He shrugged and lifted his shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “She’s still pretty upset. Most of the time she’s been on the phone with her mother and older sister.”

“Moms need time to process things,” Libby told him, knowing how important it’d become to discuss matters with her own support system, especially with all the life-changing decisions she’d made lately.

“I guess. Her and Dad have been talking a lot, too, but they haven’t said much to me. I guess I should be glad they didn’t ground me or send me away to live with relatives, but, you know, I sort of wish they had.”