Cancelled (27 page)

His face made an involuntary expression of disgust. He checked it right away. “No. I haven’t seen Kellie since over a week ago. After her doctor’s appointment.”

“We’re done here, but I need you to be patient for a little longer. Okay?” Johnathan nodded like a child waiting for instructions to go ride a carousel. “It’s just a formality, but I need you to consent to a drug test. When it comes back clean, and I will put a rush on it, you can see your daughter. Probably another hour, tops.”

Johnathan rigidly reached for the door. Just as he was going to rejoin Anna in the waiting room, Lynn Carson added one more thing.

“Mr. Michaels?” Jonathan turned around, completely despondent. What more could there be? “You’ll be able to hold her.” Lynn Carson was rewarded with a million-dollar smile, a rare farewell from the people leaving her office.

In the early hours of Monday morning, Johnathan was finally led back to see his daughter. After following hospital protocol to enter the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, he stood in front of an incubator with dozens of wires going to the small baby inside. A small bracelet around her tiny right ankle matched the bracelet a nurse put on his own arm after his drug test returned negative.

For a few moments, his emotions threatened to overwhelm him. He thought he had done enough by requiring the drug tests, but here was his daughter, fighting for her life because of her mother. He had failed to protect her, and the guilt was unbearable.

“Mr. Michaels?” The nurse beside him whispered in a low tone. “You can talk to her and touch her. It's good for her.”

“Are you sure?” At the sound of his voice, Charlotte startled and turned her head towards them. Johnathan took it as a sign she recognized him. It was all the encouragement he needed.

His large hand barely fit into the hole on the side and he pressed his index finger under her tightly clenched fist. Her fingers unclenched and seized his finger, causing her father to smile in disbelief.

“That's right, kiddo. You show them the tough stuff you're made of. You're a Michaels.”

17

A
hand on Johnathan's shoulder squeezed and released. His eyes popped open and it took him a moment to remember where he was. How long had he dozed in the waiting room chair? He smelled coffee and turned his head to the right towards the heavenly scent.

Alex held a drink carrier of three coffee cups and a brown bag of pastries.

“I grabbed your favorite, La Patisserie.” She placed the bag on the table but used both hands to lower the drink carrier.

Johnathan gently twisted out a white cup with his name scrawled in Sharpie on the side. Taking a jolting sip, he mentally cursed Alex for ordering extra hot.

“Thanks.” He rubbed his neck and stretched. Standing up, he leaned into the hallway and found the red digital time piece. 7:45. A little over two hours since they kicked him out of the NICU for Charlie's examination. He could probably go back there now.

“Do you want to go see her?” Johnathan inspected the inside of the pastry bag and found a cheese danish to recharge his batteries.

“I probably shouldn't.”

Johnathan stopped eating. “Why not? I'm going to end up with full custody of her. We can raise her as our own.”

Alex frowned. She pulled her locks into a pony tail with the elastic around her hand.

“Stop...stop pretending last night didn't happen. You left, Johnathan. You haven't treated me like an equal partner since the day you aske me to marry you. And I can't—” she shook her head slightly to reinforce her words. “I can't marry a man like that,” she said, staring him directly in the eye with a stony expression.

Johnathan wracked his brain. Was she right? True, he didn't tell her about Kellie's pregnancy right away, but he didn't know for sure if he was the father. He also didn't tell her about the fight with his mother until weeks later. Then there was their relationship. Even he recognized the last few months were more work than pleasure; not what he expected to feel leading up to his wedding.

“You're sure?”

“I am. I don't want to marry you and constantly worry if you're telling me everything or not. I'm sorry, but it's better we fix this now than six months from now.” Alex reached into her purse and handed Johnathan a small black box. He reached out and took the rejection in hand, hurt, but a miniscule part of him felt thankful for the reprieve.

Their uncomfortable silence was interrupted by Johnathan's phone. As he moved to answer it, Alex started to walk away.

“Wait. It's my lawyer, I have to take this.” Johnathan flicked the phone open and answered.

Alex slowly wandered over to the window and appreciated the hospital courtyard designed for the family members waiting for new life. The purples and greens of the bushes made the wooden benches outside a safe retreat. She saw Johnathan still talking, so she casually leaned on the door's push bar, gaining access to fresh air.

“That's great, Mr. Simms. Yes, start the filing for full custody, no visitation. I don't want this woman anywhere near Charlotte. Thanks.” Johnathan ended the conversation releasing a happy sigh. He saw Alex outside and burst through the door to join her.

“The judge ruled in my favor! I have full custody until a final hearing in a few weeks.” Johnathan's face reflected the sun. Alex's breath caught in her throat.

“That's great. You'll be a good father.” Alex fingered a manila folder sticking out of her purse. She pulled it out and stared at the blank cover for a moment, visualizing the documents she knew it contained. The sunrise began to shine over the top of the women's center ward of the hospital and filling the courtyard with orange glow.

“Please understand, this is for the best. You can take care of your little girl and you and I don't have to pretend to get along at work.” Alex handed the folder to Johnathan and didn't wait for his reply. She had her hand on the door granting access back into the waiting room before he finished reading the first page.

“You're kicking me out of my own company?” Johnathan spun around, demanding with his tone this woman stay and explain herself.

Alex stood in the relative protection of the glass doorway, holding the portal open with her left arm. “Can you honestly say you're 100% committed to AJE Robotics?” Alex waited a beat for him to answer. His hesitation was all she needed. “You can't, because you haven't been committed to anything but yourself, Johnathan, for the last few months. The offer is more than fair, though I understand if you want to counter. Your office is being cleaned out as we speak. I'll have your personal effects delivered to Anna's house.”

Alex walked out a few steps into the courtyard, trying politely to check the smug grin threatening to spread across her face. “Goodbye, Johnathan. I'm really sorry it came to this, but it's better for both of us to have a clean break.”

Jaw set, he took four steps towards Alexis. Looming over her a good three inches in spite of her heels, Johnathan seized the final word.

“You're a cold-hearted bitch, you know that? But thanks.” He rattled the little black box up by her ear, then marched past her.

Johnathan wanted to see his daughter. Alexis had the nerve to steal his company! She would be nothing without the $100,000 he had invested . She'd still be writing briefs in a partnership somewhere, calculating who to let in her panties next on her trek to partner.

And Eric! Johnathan had covered for him when he was nothing but a strung out engineer looking for his next high. This was how he repaid him, by stealing his company and probably his girl right from under his nose.

Johnathan's long strides carried him to the nursery with determination. He waited outside of the cross-hatched glass and felt immediately drawn to his daughter inside. He needed to push his anger out of his mind so he could focus on her. Now that she was stronger, Charlotte didn't have all of the tubes and wires from earlier this morning. He thanked God in his heart for his healthy little girl and that most of the equipment was precaution rather than necessity.

Anna cradled his Charlie and nestled her nose down to his daughter's face. He observed Anna sway in place with a hypnotic, natural rhythm. Briefly, he plotted the infinity-shaped curve her hips followed and envisioned a mechanical soother simulating a mother's standing rock.

Resting his forehead against the glass, the full weight of losing Alexis pressed on his shoulders. How was he going to raise this baby by himself? Sure he had Anna, but he couldn't expect his stepmother to give up her life to play surrogate mother to her granddaughter.

Movement in the glass on the other side caught his attention and a ghost in a pale pink robe stood with flat palms on the glass. Her blonde hair fell to her shoulders in limp, scraggly strands. The apparition's mouth twisted in a wide-howl and her sunken, reddened cheeks shined with a slick of cascading tears. He almost couldn't recognize Kellie.

Watching Kellie's raw anguish over the baby she had nurtured in her womb, yet had never held in her arms, paralyzed Johnathan. The pure emotions he could read on her face as a nurse tried to coax her back to her room forced Johnathan to confront his notions of overruling nature's plan for a mother and child. He focused back on his daughter and Anna, both oblivious to the world outside of the nursery's walls.

Johnathan rubbed where his neck met his shoulders with his right hand. He needed to think. Backing away from the nursery, he returned to the waiting room area. Pushing his own emotions aside, he explored his heart for the truths he knew about Kellie.

He knew for a fact she never used during the pregnancy; he had checked the drug test results Dr. Harper took at every appointment. Kellie loved Charlotte as much as he did, probably even more. She had kept herself healthy and until yesterday, he had no doubt she was going to be a great mother. The truth he couldn't deny was the social worker was wrong; whatever happened to bring Charlotte's early arrival was an accident on Kellie's part.

Stepping back out into the sunshine, Johnathan knew the call he had to make. He pressed the talk button and waited for a few rings.

“Simms and Lyle, how can I help you?” said a female voice.

“Johnathan Michaels for Mr. Simms please.”

“One moment.”

Johnathan kicked at a lonely rock lying on the pavers. It skittled down towards the fountain pool on the other end. He hoped he was making the right decision.

“Johnathan! We're working on the final custody paperwork right now. We should make the 3 PM filing deadline with the county clerk.” Theodore Simms said.

“Change of plans.”

“Oh? What's going on?” Johnathan could visualize his lawyer leaning forward over his desk just as if Johnathan was sitting in the chair across from him.

“Wait on filing the other paperwork, at least until I give the go ahead. I need another set of papers drafted and I'll pick them up this afternoon around 2.” Johnathan mentally calculated what time he'd need to leave the hospital to get cleaned up and over to his lawyer's office.

“Alright.” Johnathan could hear Simms rustling through his desk on the other end of the line, searching for a pen and paper. “Tell me what you need.”

Johnathan gave him the terms he wanted and asked if there would be any problems getting a judge to sign off on them. Simms assured him there wouldn't be a problem at all, that judges ate this kind of second chance up, but warned his client to be absolutely sure.

Returning his phone to his pocket, Johnathan finally made good on his initial intention to return to his daughter. Scrubbing his hands and forearms in the sink between the nursery's double door entry, he smiled. Once inside, Anna handed Charlotte to her father and he eased himself into the rocking chair next to her plastic bin.

“Daddy has everything under control.” he cooed. Charlotte squinted her little eyes open in recognition of her father's voice before making a newborn yawn and turning her head further into his chest. Johnathan's mouth remained fixed in a smile. He kissed his daughter's forehead and relaxed his own head back to rest.

Bulbous, constant rain drops clattered on the waiting room's atrium roof, echoing over the nearly empty rows of connected chairs. Johnathan shook his overcoat as he shed his outerwear, returning at 6 AM after getting about 5 hours of sleep at Anna's. He couldn't understand why Anna wasn't coming with him to the hospital, insisting she needed to come later in the morning. He couldn't wait, Charlie didn't have anybody but him.

Holding up his hospital bracelet for the nurse to see, the solid, wooden doors electronically opened to allow him access.

“Mr. Michaels?”

Johnathan stopped walking down the hall and turned back towards where he came from. A nurse he recognized as Rose began walking around the intake desk. She was a manager of some sort with years of experience etched in the faint lines along her face.

“Your daughter has been moved to the regular nursery. She had a great night.” The older woman continued to walk towards him.

“Thank you. I'm heading there now.” He spun around and continued towards the nursery door. He wondered how much longer they would keep his daughter. Fear gripped him at the thought of taking home a newborn. It had been years since he had helped care for his siblings. And this was different.

“Mr. Michaels?”

Once more Johnathan stopped. “Yes, is there something else wrong?”

“Forgive me for intruding, but could I talk to you for a moment about the mother of the baby?”

Johnathan set his jaw. He knew he was going to have to confront Kellie eventually, but first he wanted to see Charlotte.

“Is she alright?”

“No, Mr. Michaels. She's devastated. Physically, she is recovering fine from the birth, but emotionally...I am concerned.”

“What can I do about it?”

“Please, I understand you have custodial care. Is there any way you could allow Ms. Szachowski to hold her daughter? It would mean the world to her.”

Johnathan inhaled deeply and held it. Anger, fear, and finally sadness washed over him. The situation was a mess, but he had to protect Charlie first.