Brooke stayed in the room while the monster had its turn. She remained standing, stoic in the trappings of her authority, the white coat, the stethoscope, ready to answer any questions the family might have as they dealt with the situation.
The family, in this case, was a new one that consisted of Zach and Zoe.
The grief wasn’t for the death of a loved one, but for the end of life as it had been. Zoe was devastated that her grandma’s paperwork had arrived, but that her grandma was still somewhere far away. With a child’s logic, she had assumed her grandma would give the doctors permission to fix her arm by coming to see the doctor here.
Zach’s grief was harder to pinpoint. There was a physical tension in his body that matched his evident mental tension as he considered everything he said, every paper he signed, and every decision he made. Each decision seemed to cause him pain.
Brooke wished she could do more, but she wasn’t the one who could make people relax and laugh; that was his specialty. Hers, Zach had said, was to maintain a cool professionalism in stressful situations. So she stayed present, stayed calm, and refused to give in to the monster that wanted so badly to make her crack.
Because she was grieving, too. The life she and Zach had begun making, the happiness that she’d just started capturing, was not going to be. Zach had said her heart was safe with him, because he wasn’t fragile. That was before he’d known Zoe existed. Now, if anything happened to Zoe, Zach would suffer. Zoe made Zach as vulnerable as the child.
Brooke had seen, firsthand, what happened to fathers who lost the love of their life, when the love of their life was an innocent four-year-old with golden curls.
Ashes.
The monster had his way. She’d loved her father, but it hadn’t been enough reason for him to keep living after Chelsea died.
She loved Zach, but that didn’t mean she’d be able to save him, either. She simply couldn’t let anything bad happen to Zoe.
Ever.
* * *
“Kids need naps.”
That was Jamie’s parting advice in the curtained cubby as Zach and Zoe, with his sling and her pink fiberglass cast, got ready to leave.
“And snacks,” Jamie added, in a critical discussion with his former football teammate.
If Brooke hadn’t been able to hear what they were saying, she would have assumed they were two athletic men huddled to talk sports. Instead, they were having a serious discussion about child care.
“If we don’t feed Sammy every couple of hours, there’s hell to pay. And once they get this tired fussy thing going, just give up and go home and put them down for a nap. Leave the store, leave the restaurant, whatever. Naptime is sacred.”
“Got it.”
“I’m not saying I’m an expert on anybody else’s kid, but someone looks like she’s heading for a meltdown. I suggest you go straight home.”
Zoe was rubbing her eyes and getting her own fingers tangled in her hair and twisting herself around in Zach’s arm in general irritability.
“You better go,” Brooke said, and she pulled the curtains back.
“Thanks again, Jamie. For everything.” Even with Zoe in the crook of his right arm, Zach was able to extend his hand to shake Jamie’s. He turned to Brooke. “I’ll see you tonight.”
It had been her idea for him never to engage in public displays of affection at her job, but as he walked away, she wished he’d kissed her anyway, with Jamie standing there and Zoe in his arms.
Zoe was looking over Zach’s shoulder at Brooke as he carried her down the hall. Her head dropped onto Zach’s shoulder and she did the slow, sleepy blink, but she waved bye-bye at Brooke.
Oh.
It was so special to have a child notice her. It was Chelsea all over again. Even at age twelve, Brooke had understood why her father had loved Chelsea the most, because she’d thought Chelsea was extra lovable, too. It made sense that the baby was Daddy’s favorite, because the baby was Brooke’s favorite.
And now the baby was Zoe. If Brooke was touched by Zoe’s little wave, then Zach must be head over heels in love with his daughter already.
Zoe was now the most important person in his life. It made sense to her. That was the way things should be.
Jamie took the films off the light box and returned them to their envelope. “I owe you an apology. Zach asked me to help him find a way to take you somewhere private before you saw Zoe. He really wanted to tell you himself.”
“He did tell me.”
“I mean alone. We had a call in to the day care center to see if they’d watch Zoe after we put the cast on her, and I was trying to keep him out of the way until then.”
“You were hiding him? That only works in movies.” She wasn’t trying to make a joke.
Jamie looked a little sheepish. “I’m sorry you got such a surprise.”
“I’m fine, Jamie.”
“For what it’s worth, I thought you handled it really well.”
The day care center he’d just mentioned was part of the pediatric ward, for use by children who were recovering from non-contagious conditions. Hospital employees could use the center for their children a certain amount of days per year. It kept absenteeism to a minimum.
Zach’s medical leave ended in four days. What would he do with a child when he had to work?
“Do I have to be married to Zach in order to put Zoe in the day care center? Is it enough to just be living together?”
“I didn’t know you two were living together.”
She felt as if she’d been caught in a little white lie with Zach’s friend. “We haven’t really discussed it, but it wouldn’t be a stretch if I checked the box that said we were cohabitating.”
“I think they’ll allow any minor that lives in your household. The hospital just doesn’t want you to miss work because you couldn’t find a sitter. Listen, it’s so slow here, you should end your shift now.”
It was exactly what she’d planned to suggest before she’d met Zach’s new daughter.
He has a daughter.
There was a jolt every time the reality hit her. It was a monumental change.
She hesitated. “The two of them probably need time alone. I don’t want to get in the way. I don’t think she needs another stranger around.”
“If you two want to talk as adults, naptime is just about the only time you won’t have an audience.”
“It will jinx you if I leave. You’ll be flooded.”
“Zach will owe me one, then. Go.”
* * *
“How many tortilla chips can I feed her before I’m officially a bad father? We finished the whole bag yesterday when we came home from the hospital.”
They were in the kitchen, starting a pot of coffee and getting out cereal bowls. Zach was free of the sling today, and Brooke had been silently assessing how he used his arm. No problems, so far.
He held up a plastic chip bag that had nothing but crumbs in the bottom. “Make that two bags.”
Brooke started to laugh, but Zach didn’t laugh with her. “Wasn’t that a joke?”
Zach glanced into the living room, where Zoe was playing with a dollhouse app on Zach’s phone. She wasn’t listening to them.
“I did it again. I keep referring to myself as her father. What if I’m not?”
“So you want the answer to be yes?”
He answered her with a groan of frustration as he pulled her into his arms in a giant bear hug. They stood like that for a long moment, and he rested his cheek against her. He’d given Brooke bear hugs like this before, enveloping her in security when she was vulnerable. She thought this might be a little different. Maybe in this hug, she was the bear. She squeezed him harder with both arms.
“I didn’t know she existed until yesterday, but if the lab says no and I have to send her back to Alabama, to a grandmother who is tired of being stuck with her while her mother ignores her, I think it will tear me up.”
He squashed Brooke a little tighter to him. If she was the bear, then she was a teddy bear. Teddy bears didn’t need to talk to provide comfort, which was good, because she didn’t know whether to encourage his hopes or temper his dreams or offer some platitude when she’d never been in his shoes.
“I’ll still be here,” she said, “either way.”
It hadn’t comforted her parents much when they’d lost their daughter, but it was all she had.
“And as a doctor, I can say with authority that there is no scientific evidence that a one-day diet of tortilla chips will cause permanent harm to a child.”
“Hey, Brooke?”
“What?”
“I love you.”
* * *
It was pouring rain during naptime. Zoe was tucked into her bed, which for now was a futon from Zach’s long-ago first apartment. It had been serving as a gamer’s couch in the spare bedroom, where his video games were now stacked in a corner to make room for a pink suitcase’s contents.
Rain often brought hail and flash floods to Central Texas, but on this afternoon, it was soothing, so much so that, despite being on edge over test results, Zach and Brooke were sound asleep together on the living room’s couch when the cell phone rang.
It was Jamie with the lab results. Zach was the father.
He hung up the call and stayed where he was, flat on his back, motionless. Brooke sat up and stayed on the edge next to him, listening to the rain.
“Are you happy?” she asked tentatively, when the silence stretched on. He looked a bit like a boxer who’d been knocked out in the ring.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“But you will.”
“I’m not qualified. I’ve been given this life, this human being, and I could screw it all up.”
It was overwhelming. Brooke couldn’t lie and say it wasn’t, so she told him something else that was also true.
“Yesterday, do you remember how the lab tech swabbed your cheek for the test first? He wanted to show Zoe that it wouldn’t hurt, and then he started giving Zoe that pep talk, the one we all do sometimes. I was thinking that the tech was making it sound like having her cheek swabbed was going to be the best thing that had ever happened in her life.
“But then I looked at you, and I realized the tech wasn’t exaggerating. If this paternity test proved that you were the father, it really would be the best thing that could happen in that little girl’s life. It might be throwing you into a tailspin at the moment, but you’re going to be an excellent father.”
His knockout didn’t last long. Restless, he got to his feet. “I’ve done a great job so far. Just great. I spent four years being oblivious to the fact that she even existed.”
“How could you have known?”
“I should have checked. I should have followed up, even though Charisse was on the pill.” He drove one hand through his hair in that way Brooke found so achingly familiar. “I don’t have any other bastard children running around. I’m sure of it, and not just because I take precautions. Every other woman I’ve been with, I’ve stayed on good terms with. We’ve got mutual friends. I see them around. I know nobody’s had a baby. But Charisse, the one I actually got pregnant, is the only one I never saw again. Damn it. Damn me.”
Brooke pushed aside the jealous pain at the idea of the women who’d come before her by using cool logic. He hadn’t known Brooke, so any women before her had nothing to do with her. There were no other women now that she was his girlfriend.
Maybe cool logic could help him forgive himself for not knowing Zoe had been conceived. “Let’s suppose you had followed up. You saw her get married. If you’d managed to run into her again and seen her with a baby, what would you have thought?”
He considered seriously. “That she and her husband had a baby.”
“That’s what she would have told you, too. She wouldn’t have risked a thing.” From the conversation Zach had relayed yesterday, it was obvious that Charisse did whatever was best for Charisse.
Zach dropped into the armchair facing her. “But she knew. Her doctor told her she could have gotten pregnant any time that month. She should have had a paternity test the day the baby was born. Four years, she took away from me. I missed all of it. I missed the whole baby thing, the first steps, all of it.”
Had she ever thought Zach Bishop was not a serious man? She’d been as wrong about him as he’d been about Charisse. He’d been lighthearted not because he lacked depth, but because he chose to live his life with a positive outlook. She’d wasted a lot of time, ignoring him simply because he chose happiness.
He’d be happy again. He had a daughter who was going to bring him joy and love, like Chelsea had brought joy and love into her family. Brooke just needed to help Zach get through this dark period. She’d seen what bitterness had done for her mother. She didn’t want that to take hold in Zach.
“Charisse was wrong, but it would have taken a lot of courage for her to risk her new marriage by confessing there was a chance the baby wasn’t her husband’s.”
“She’s not the courageous type.”
“Zach, not many people are that courageous.”
“You are.”
She shrugged off his compliment, but it was a wonderful, warm feeling to hear his unconditional confidence in her. “You never know what you’ll really do until you are in the situation yourself. I don’t think I’ll ever be called upon to show that particular kind of courage.”
“You’re already showing courage, just by being here.”
“With a handsome man and a cute kid? It’s not that tough.”
“It is for you. You had a nightmare last night, baby. Do you remember?”
She did. It had been the most vivid recollection she’d had in a long time.
The accident in real life hadn’t been gory. In fact, everyone at the time had thought her sister had been lucky and merely knocked unconscious, until it became clear at the hospital that she was in a coma. What made last night’s nightmare so vivid wasn’t blood or gore.
Before bed, Brooke had helped Zoe put on her pajamas and brush her teeth. The sensation of little arms hugging her, the feel of baby-smooth skin as she kissed a cheek good-night, these were the things that had made memories of Chelsea more vivid. In her nightmare, Chelsea always disappeared without warning. Last night, the sudden, sucking loss of hugs and cuddles had felt as fresh as when Brooke was twelve.
She dashed the back of her hand across her cheek, but it was dry. Relieved, she attempted a smile to fool Zach. “It wasn’t so bad. Probably just a leftover effect from last weekend.”
Zach left the arm chair to sit with her. He kissed the corner of her eye. “Baby, you aren’t a very good liar. Talk to me. What do you think about all this?”
“I told you the truth. I think it’s the best thing that can happen for Zoe.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He cupped her jaw in one hand and rested his forehead against hers. “You don’t have to be calm. You’re not on duty. Being around Zoe has to be hard for you.”
“I’ll adjust. I had nightmares before Zoe, too.”
“I made you a promise when you sewed me up. I said I would never deliberately do anything to cause you pain.”
“But you didn’t do this deliberately.”
“But the pain is the same for you, anyway. Brooke, I’m so sorry about all this. I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe you should ease yourself into the situation. Sleep at your own place for a while. God knows I’ll miss you, but God knows I don’t want to see you hurting, either.”
She remembered her nightmare, that keening loss of a child’s love. She’d do anything to prevent that from happening to Zach. Anything.
“I’ll be happier if I’m here with you.”
Or she would be, as long as she could keep Zoe safe.