Chapter 32
Chapter 32
Gray
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Shhh…” I stroked Ella’s hair and swayed back and forth with her until her cries began to slow. The front of her hair was soaked with the tears she’d shed. It killed me to see her so upset. And I didn’t like having her in a germ-infested hospital waiting room while doctors finished with Max’s tests. But what choice did I have at one in the morning?
Layla had come with me, even though I’d told her it wasn’t necessary. Looking at her face, I wished I’d tried a little harder to get her to stay. She looked freaked out, and I couldn’t blame her. I was fucking freaked out, too.
When we’d arrived at the Emergency Room, the ambulance had already brought Max in, and a woman from Social Services was sitting with Ella. Max had stopped breathing twice in the ambulance on the way over—completely flatlined. They were able to revive her, but the reality of the situation smacked me right in the face. This is really happening. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But soon enough. And I wasn’t ready for it. Neither was the poor little girl in my arms.
“Mr. Westbrook?” a doctor in blue scrubs called from the doorway of the waiting room.
“That’s me.” I walked over, and Layla stood and joined me.
“I’m Dr. Cohen, one of the oncology surgeons on staff here. Your wife is stabilized now. We’ve inserted a tube down her throat to help her breathe. One of her tumors is located near the esophagus, which caused some food particles to get stuck. Over time they’ve built up and caused swelling, which further compromised her air passage.”
“So she’s going to be fine?”
The doctor frowned. “For today. We’re hoping now that the passage has been cleared, her swelling will go down, and the tube can come out in a day or two. But I must make you aware that it’s just a Band-Aid, Mr. Westbrook.” His eyes drifted to Ella in my arms.
Her eyes were wide open, but she was just staring into space without blinking. I wasn’t sure if she was listening, much less comprehending what we were talking about, but he obviously wanted to be frank and felt he couldn’t.
I flashed my eyes to the doctor, then Ella, then back to him, acknowledging that we’d do our best to speak in code. “Can the blockage be cleared permanently?”
“She has an advanced directive. The typical methods we might try are not available to us.”
Translation—Max had legally called it quits.
“Okay.”
“We have had some success with PDT—photodynamic therapy. A light-activated drug is injected, which collects more cancer cells than normal ones. Then a scope is put down the throat and into the lungs, and a laser light kills the cells we’ve collected. A few days later, we go back in and collect those dead cells. It’s an option, but as of now, not one we have consent for. Perhaps you can talk to her about it once she’s off the ventilator. For now, we’ll need to take it one day at a time. As I said, your wife is stable, so you should probably go home and get some rest. She has some personal belongings with her that you can take or have locked in the hospital safe before you go.”
“Max is my ex-wife. But thank you for everything, Doctor.”
After he left, Layla looked down at Ella in my arms. “She fell asleep during that.”
“Oh good.”
Layla kept staring at Ella while shaking her head. “I knew it would be tough on her. But seeing her today…” She paused. “She’s going to be devastated. You’re going to become her world, Gray.”
The contents of that damn notebook flashed back to me.
Never really wanted kids.
I’ll never be his priority.
I looked down. “I know.”
I checked in on Max one more time and picked up the few personal items she had with her—house keys, a small wallet, and a necklace they had taken off of her neck. After the last few weeks, I didn’t think anything could shock me anymore. But holding what Max wore around her neck left me speechless once again. Her wedding band. We’d bought matching ones from the guy who’d married us down in the DR.
After, we hailed a cab, and I managed to climb in without waking Ella. All three of us were quiet as we pulled away from the curb. The weight of everything was too much to fight my way through for any type of meaningful discussion.
“I’m thinking I should take her to her house to sleep. She’s never been to my place, and it might help if she wakes up in her own room. Max’s house keys were in the envelope with her other belongings.”
“Oh. Yeah. That’s a good idea.”
The last thing I wanted to do was separate from Layla. I could feel the distance between us in the backseat of the cab, even. Physical separation would only make it worse—give her time to think about how fucked up her life would soon be if she stuck with me. But asking her to sleep at my ex-wife’s house was a lot.
I treaded lightly. “Should we drop you off?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
The quiet stretched the rest of the drive to Layla’s. Her hand was on the door handle before we even pulled to the curb.
“I have a meeting tomorrow in Connecticut. But let me know how things are.”
“Will do.”
She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. It wasn’t like I could move with a tiny human wrapped around me. “Goodnight.”
Layla was halfway out the door when I started to panic. “Layla, wait…”
Turning back, she looked at me. If I’d had any doubt that I loved her before, I was damn certain in this moment. For some reason, it felt like I shouldn’t let her get out of the car.
Remind her you love her.
Remind her you love her, you pussy.
“I…I…Thanks for today. And tonight. I appreciate you sticking around with me at the hospital.”
She smiled sadly. “Of course.”
“Good night, Freckles. Flick the bedroom light on so I know you’re in okay.”
I made the driver stick around until the light turned on, and then I did something I never dreamed I’d be doing.
I took my daughter home to sleep in my ex-wife’s house that she’d bought with money she stole from me.
***
“Can I help you?” I’d run to the front door without a shirt on when the bell rang, not wanting it to wake Ella. Actually, terrified that it would. Whatever. Semantics.
“I’m Paula.”
“Can I help you, Paula?”
“I take care of Ella.”
I’d completely forgotten that Max said she had a nanny for the mornings when she worked.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Gray.”
Paula’s face dropped. “Oh. Is everything okay with Max?”
“Why don’t you come in?”
I grabbed my T-shirt from the living room and threw it on, then spent ten minutes bringing Paula up to speed on Max’s current health. Apparently, Max had filled Paula in on the situation with me already. She knew I was Ella’s father and that Max had kept it from me. I wasn’t sure how much further Max had gone into our history.
“So you watch Ella in the mornings? Even now that Max isn’t working anymore?”
“I was watching her from seven until noon, but Max asked me to start staying until five last week. Afternoons get tough for her now.”
I nodded. “Can you keep that schedule for me? I think it would do Ella a lot of good to have as much of her routine unchanged as possible while Max is in the hospital. That’s why I stayed here last night with her.”
“Of course. Max and I have already talked about me staying on…after…” Her face fell, and then she thought of something that sent the corners of her lips toward a smile. “I’ve been with Ella and Max since Ella was born. She jokes that I’ll be left to you in her will.”
It was a giant damn relief to know I had some help—at least until I figured things out. When Ella woke up and raced into Paula’s arms, my neck unknotted for the first time in two days.
I rubbed the back of it and watched the two of them interact. It took a minute or two for Ella to even notice someone else was in the room. She crinkled up her little nose at me, but smiled. “Did you have a sleepover?”
“We did.” I tapped a finger to her nose. “But you fell asleep for it.”
She giggled. “Is Mommy still in the hospital?”
“She is, sweetheart.”
“Is she getting fixed?”
My eyes flashed to Paula. “Yeah. She’s getting fixed.”
“Are you going to stay with me until Mommy comes home?”
“I was planning on it. I thought maybe you could come stay at my house one night.” I leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “I have a dog.”
Her eyes widened. “Can we go now? Can we go now? Please?”
“I need to do a few things. But we can go later. How does that sound?”
Paula took Ella into the kitchen to help her make breakfast, and I used the time to rearrange some meetings I had scheduled for the day. When I went to check on how things were going, Paula offered me coffee.
The two of us spoke quietly on the side while Ella was busy stirring the pancake batter.
“Max has had a few overnight stays in the last year. She doesn’t usually let Ella visit her. She thought it was too hard to see her with all the needles and monitors attached. Of course, I’m not telling you what to do. But I figured you might want to know what Ella expects.”
“Wow. Okay. That’s great. Thank you. She took it pretty hard at the hospital last night. I assumed I should bring her up to visit today. But I was worried it would be tough again for her. Max is intubated.” I looked over at Ella and sipped my coffee. “She seems a lot better this morning, but I’m probably better off not bringing her then.”
“I’m here all day. You can just go about your regular day, if you’d like. If you stop up to see Max, please give her my best.”
Breakfast with Paula and Ella set my mind even more at ease. They had a routine that included Ella standing on a stool and rinsing the plates. I could tell she was crazy about Paula. When the appointment I’d called earlier to cancel called me back, I decided to push it a little later in the afternoon rather than cancel it all together. Ella had her schedule, and I was going to need to learn how to balance shit at some point anyway. Plus, the hospital was near the appointment, so I could check on things with Max beforehand.
***
That night, I poured a glass of scotch and leaned back into the couch. Ella had finally fallen asleep, and I was wiped out. Single parenting was definitely not an easy fucking job.
I’d had two meetings today, stopped into my office to do a few hours of paperwork, visited Max and talked to her doctors, gone back to Brooklyn to pack up Ella’s stuff and bring her to my place, then cooked us some dinner and played with her and Freckles until she started yawning.
At that point, my dog and his trusty shoe had abandoned me. I couldn’t get him to leave the foot of the bed in the guest room where Ella was staying. Couldn’t blame him, I guess. Lately he’d spent more time with the kid downstairs I’d hired to walk him than he spent with me. Plus, Ella was a hell of a lot more excited to roll around on the floor and let him lick her face than I felt by eight thirty.
I took a few gulps from my glass and picked up my cell. Layla and I had exchanged a few texts during the day, but I needed to hear her voice.
She answered on the third ring. “Hey. Can you give me just a second? I have someone in my office.”
I looked at my watch. Nine o’clock. “You’re still at work?”
“Yep. Give me a minute. I’ll be right back.”
I heard voices through the muffled receiver, and right before she came back on the line, she must’ve uncovered it, because I heard a woman’s voice say, “If you change your mind, you know where we’ll be.”
“Thanks, Maryanne.”
She came back on the line. “Sorry. Some of the associates are going out for drinks, and a friend of mine was trying to drag me along.”
It reminded me yet again how different her life would be with me now. Even though I hated the thought of her beautiful ass sitting without me in a bar, I couldn’t be a dick.
“Why don’t you go? Whatever you haven’t gotten done at the office by now can wait until tomorrow.”
She sighed. “I suppose. But I’m tired, too. I was actually looking forward to going home and taking a bath. I didn’t sleep so well when I got home last night, so I came into the office at the crack of dawn to catch up.”
Another thing that was my fault. The life of a single parent was basically non-existent. Someone dating that person didn’t get the wining and dining they deserved. And that was best-case scenario.
“Sorry,” I said. “How was your day otherwise?”
“Not bad. How’s everything going over there? Did Ella like Freckles?”
I closed my eyes, rested my head back against the couch, and propped my feet up on the coffee table. “The traitor is sleeping at the foot of her bed right now.”
“Well, I’m sure she’s more fun than you for him anyway, old man.”
“Go easy on the old man. I’m only a few years older than you.”
“Do you have your feet up on the coffee table and a drink in your hand at nine o’clock on a weeknight right now?”
I smiled. “Wise ass.”
Toward the end of our call, I said, “I miss you. It’s a fucked-up situation I’m in right now. I’m sorry I’m not able to take you to a nice dinner after work. Or sit behind you in the bath after a long day. You have no idea what I’d give for that.”
Layla was quiet. “I know. I understand. You have to do what you need to do, Gray. You have a little girl now. When you love someone, you put their needs first, before your own. That’s just how it is. Looking back, I think that’s why I never forgave my dad when I got older. He didn’t put what was best for us first, what was best for my mother. He put himself first. And I never got past that. You’re going to be a great dad. I already know it.”
After I hung up, I finished my drink and stared up at the ceiling for a long time. Layla was right. When you love someone, you put their needs first. It was cliché as fuck, but sometimes that meant letting them go. I think I’d known for a while what I needed to do; I just didn’t want to admit it.
Admitting it meant I’d have to act on it. And acting on it was going to fucking kill me. But what else did I need thrown in my face to tell me I’d be doing the right thing?
The list I’d found—
Never wanted children.
I’ll never be his priority.
Max’s comments—
“She’s not ready for a family yet.”
“You see what you want to see in women, Gray.”
Layla’s own words—
“When you love someone, you put their needs first, before your own.”
“That’s why I never forgave my dad…”