PIERCE DIDN’T LIE DOWN. He knew he wouldn’t sleep. Knew he didn’t want to. The exercise would be a nightmare in waiting. He had things to work out.
Within himself and with others.
Sitting on a balcony identical to the one he’d shared with Liza the week before, he thought about the conversation he’d had with the department psychologist he’d been speaking with for the past couple of years.
He was on track. Doing the right things. Taking responsibility for his own mind. Taking charge. He could have a prescription if he wanted one. They both knew he didn’t.
The only way he was ever going to be able to get over his aversion to being a father was to forgive himself.
It was a battle only he could fight. Only he could win.
There was no pill that would do it for him.
There is no right or wrong here, Pierce. He’d been told again that afternoon, during phone counseling, but many times in the past, too.
It didn’t matter that he’d been a great soldier, wouldn’t matter if the President himself gave him a Purple Heart. If he couldn’t forgive himself, the demon wasn’t going away.
He couldn’t forgive himself. Lord knew, he’d tried. Tried to find some way he could understand what he’d done in a different way.
His mind wouldn’t let him.
And no one else could make it happen; it was between him and his psyche.
And now there was a grandchild. A grandson.
One who needed Eliza.
He was going to have to let her go.
* * *
ELIZA TOLD DANIEL that she had to speak with Pierce. The boy nodded, his gaze serious. Not hopeful. But not lacking in hope, either.
She wanted to hug him. To pull him to her heart and never let him go.
He needed more than hugs.
She couldn’t make promises to him without Pierce’s input. Without him knowing. He was her husband.
“I am not going to give you up a second time.” She looked him straight in the eye as she made the one promise she could in that moment.
He seemed to understand. Wise beyond his years. His gaze moistened, though there were no tears. He nodded. Stood.
“I have to get to the hospital. I like to spend more time with him on Saturdays since I can go for only half an hour before school, and then in the evenings,” he said.
She nodded. Had seen pictures of Daniel holding his tiny son. And had sobbed right there at the pool, too.
“Is it okay if I join you there later?” she asked him, also standing. Her grandson was just a few miles away.
“That’d be awesome.” Daniel nodded. Kind of smiled. And then, leaning over, he gave her a loose hug. All in all, it was a little awkward. Arms not sure what to do and a lot of distance between their feet.
For Eliza, it was all the impetus she needed to do what had to come next.
And balm to a very pained heart, too.
* * *
PIERCE DIDN’T WANT to interrupt Eliza’s time with Daniel. He had some things to say to the boy. But they could wait. He needed to take care of his wife first.
He needed to free her to take care of the children…
Yet when he heard her key in the door, he knew he wasn’t ready.
Grabbing the keys, he met her at the door. “I was just heading down,” he said. A complete fabrication.
A sign of what was to come? The two of them speaking in platitudes instead of truths?
“Are you sure, Pierce? Did you rest?”
He told her about his phone call. Or rather, that he’d made it. And that he was okay.
“In that case, I need you to drive me to the hospital,” she said.
His first thought was that she was in physical distress. And then it hit him… “To see the baby.” He understood. Knew, too, that she’d worded her request the way she had on purpose—to make it about her. Not him. Or anyone else. She didn’t expect any more out of him, wasn’t asking any more out of him, than a ride there and back.
Watching him, she nodded.
He wanted to give her the truth. “I can’t see him.”
“I understand.”
She took his hand. Squeezed it. And then kissed him.
* * *
ELIZA HAD TOLD herself that she was not going to meet her grandson for the first time without Pierce present. They’d missed their only child’s babyhood. Separate and apart. They would begin their second chance side by side.
Just as they’d found out Daniel was their son. The two of them. Side by side. Together.
That couldn’t have been a mistake.
She took Pierce to a family waiting room just down the hallway from the NICU. Daniel had told her where to come, to text him when she got there and had said he’d come get her. The room wasn’t big. Daniel had told her it was usually used for families in crisis.
She didn’t ask what that meant. Her imagination filled in those blanks.
And yet, if ever there was a family in crisis, it was theirs.
They’d passed the larger waiting room, with children’s toys and activities, magazines and a couple of couches, closer to the elevator. “I should wait down there,” Pierce said when she turned into the vacant room.
She shook her head. “He said this one would be more comfortable,” she said.
He nodded. Squeezed her hand. And let her go.
Tearing up again, Eliza slipped out the door, closing it behind her as Daniel had told her—except that he’d told her to wait on the inside, where Pierce thought he was waiting for Eliza to be done. The closed door indicated to hospital personnel that the room was in use.
She hoped she was doing the right thing. Knew she was taking the risk of her life.
Because she had no other choice.
She texted Daniel. Told him she was there.
And then she walked down the hall.
Sent one more text.
And prayed.
It’s a matter of life or death, Pierce. Talk to him. For me.
Pierce read the text once. And then twice. It came in under Eliza’s number. She was the least dramatic person he knew. Yeah, she’d been emotional that day—who wouldn’t be?—but even on the way to the hospital she’d been calm. Nurturing.
It was Eliza’s nature.
He didn’t know what she meant. She wasn’t asking him to join her in the unit. Wasn’t asking him to see the child.
Her request made no sense.
Until Daniel walked in the room, stopping when he saw Pierce there.
“Where’s…she?” the boy asked, frowning as he looked around.
In what appeared to be a hospital paper gown over the jeans he’d had on at the studio, the boy looked more like a young doctor than a seventeen-year-old kid. He had a surgical mask resting against his throat as if he’d just pulled it off.
She. He didn’t know what to call Eliza.
The awareness shouldn’t have surprised Pierce. He was good at tuning in. At knowing what people were hiding. Even with this kid, he’d known when he was hiding something from them.
But that was…before.
Everything that had taken place before those irrevocable words, I’m your son, would be forevermore the before in Pierce’s life.
It’s a matter of life or death, Pierce. Talk to him. For me.
“Come in,” he said.
It became clear suddenly that Eliza needed him to tell the boy he was his father. She was asking him to let her off the last hook of loyalty to him.
It was a fair request.
One he’d already planned to honor. He was not his old man. He would not turn his back on his own son.
He respected the boy when he shut the door behind him and stepped forward, his shoulders square, his head high. He was as tall as Pierce.
They met eye to eye.
“Eliza asked me to speak with you,” he said.
Daniel’s lips pursed, his chin puckered. He nodded. “She’s not here, is she?” More accusation than question.
“What? Of course she’s here. She’s Eliza. There’s no way she wouldn’t be here.” He slowed as he realized the boy had no way of knowing what type of woman his mother was.
And the crime in that truth cut through him.
“Your biological mother is the most nurturing, kind woman I’ve ever had the honor to know,” he said, not caring that he sounded like the sap he was where his wife was concerned.
Just as Daniel wouldn’t suffer for the father who’d created him, he deserved to benefit from the mother who had.
Daniel crossed his arms. Still facing Pierce head-on. “So, what’s this about?”
“I expect she needs me to talk to you about your biological father…”
What? “She needs me to tell you that I’m your biological father” was what was supposed to have come through.
“You know about him?” Daniel’s blue eyes were narrowed. Pierce could have been looking in the mirror. Another kick to the gut.
One he withstood. He had a mission to see through. And then he’d be done.
“When she didn’t mention him, you know, back at the pool when she told me the truth about giving me up, about her father and all…she only said she was in love with my father. She didn’t say anything else, except that he left for the army and that her father had told him to stay away from her. I…thought maybe…you know, he hurt her pretty bad by doing that, and she didn’t know for a long time that it wasn’t his fault. I thought maybe it was too painful for her, so I didn’t ask. Do you know who he is? Is he still alive?”
Pierce felt the blip. He blinked. Reminded himself of his mission. Of the goal—doing the right thing. Being a man. Loving Eliza with action.
“I do know him. And yes, he’s alive,” he said. Blipped. Blinked. Blipped. Blinked. “He’s standing right in front of you.”
* * *
ELIZA TRIED TO hang out in the family waiting room. She didn’t make it five seconds. Too many sweet children. Young mothers. Worried grandparents.
She walked instead, and ended up by the elevators, sitting on a window seat in front of a half wall of windows.
Using all her focus, she sent Pierce her energy. Her love. Tried to show him his self from her perspective.
And she saw herself, too. A girl who’d always disappointed everyone. Her parents. Her son. Her mom and dad would be seeing the show soon. They’d asked her not to call them ahead of time to tell them she’d won. They wanted to watch it themselves. Get it all firsthand.
She hadn’t won. She hadn’t wanted it badly enough. What she’d wanted badly enough, the only thing she’d wanted badly enough since she was fifteen years old, was a family with Pierce.
She’d brought this to be.
Yeah, she’d told herself she’d needed to be the best at something, to receive the ultimate recognition as a professional chef to feel like she’d reached her potential. Because she’d known she was good enough as a cook. But her heart hadn’t been about the show. It had been consumed with finding her son. Cooking was allowed. It was something no one would fight her on. Her son had been forbidden on many levels.
She realized something else, too, as she sat there raw and open, where honesty was the only thing she had left.
It wasn’t her father she was worried about disappointing. It had been herself. She’d disappointed herself when she hadn’t fought hard enough to keep her baby.
But seeing him now, seeing the young man he’d become with the love of two sets of parents devoted to him, she wasn’t disappointed in her decision anymore. She’d have been a great mother. But not at sixteen. She wouldn’t have been able to give Daniel all of the advantages, the stability, that his adoptive parents had given him.
She thought about the choices he was making—determined to find a way to keep his son in his life while he did what he had to in order to become an adult who would one day be a great parent, able to provide all of the things that a child deserved.
And she knew something else, too.
She’d come full circle.
There was another baby. Just down the hall. Her flesh and blood. She had a chance to be the mother he needed.
And she had to face the prospect of doing it without Pierce.