Father On The Brink

Cooper’s voice came to her softly from the other side of the room, and she lifted her head to find him slowly approaching. When he stopped beside her bed, he extended a hand to brush her hair back from her forehead. He completed the gesture with such familiarity, she doubted he even realized what he was doing. Then he dropped his hand to Andrew’s head, cupping it softly over the baby’s scalp before stroking his finger over one of the infant’s pudgy cheeks.

“How are you two doing?” he asked quietly. “That wild ride in the ambulance didn’t jar you too much, did it?”

She shook her head and whispered, “No,” the singleword reply all she could manage for the moment.

“The nurse here…” He gestured over his shoulder toward the dark-haired woman in the hospital scrubs. “…she said she needs to check you and Andrew out. Think you’re up to that?”

“Sure.”

He straightened some, then hesitated for a moment, as if he didn’t like what he was going to say next. “Um, listen, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to run out on you for a little while. There are still some snowbound people who need help, and I’m in a position to offer it.”

“That’s okay, Cooper,” she said softly “Hey, you did the important thing. You gave me my son.”

He grinned at her, a crooked, very endearing grin that set Katie’s heart to flip-flopping madly. “Yeah, well…I think you had more to do with that than I did.”

“Maybe Maybe not.”

He covered her hand with his and squeezed hard for a minute before releasing it. “I’ll come back tonight to see how you and the little guy are doing.”

She nodded.

“Can I bring you anything? Make any calls for you?”

She knew he was referring to her husband, whom she had earlier assured him was always impossible to locate when he was traveling on business. She handled the question now as she had then, and simply repeated, “Thanks, but I can take care of that myself.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Then I’ll just bring you a strawberry milkshake, how’s that?”

This time Katie was the one to grin. All night long, she had screamed out a number of insistent, often colorful, demands for a strawberry milkshake to help her through her labor. And as far as she was concerned, the idea still had merit.

“A strawberry milkshake sounds wonderful,” she told him.

“You got it.” He brushed an index finger tenderly over her cheek, an action so soft and quick, Katie almost thought she imagined it. Then he was gone, and she watched as the door swung closed silently behind him, and wondered why she was going to miss him so much once he was gone from her life.

“This won’t take long.”

The nurse’s voice brought Katie’s attention around. Reluctantly, she surrendered Andrew, and watched closely as the other woman swaddled her son in a flannel blanket and settled him in a clear, plastic bassinet.

Then she turned back to Katie and said, “We’re going to have to take Andrew to the nursery for a little while for—”

“No.”

The quietly uttered objection stopped the nurse short. “What?”

“You can’t take Andrew anywhere. He’s staying here with me.”

“But—”

“He’s staying here with me.”

There must have been more fortitude in her voice than she thought she had been able to manage, because the nurse nodded once and said, “Okay. I’ll have the neonatologist come examine Andrew here.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, let’s see about your blood pressure.”

Obediently, Katie extended her arm, then remained silent for the rest of her exam. The neonatologist came to look over and measure Andrew, deeming him fit and hearty and perfectly capable of facing up to life. When it was all over, the nurse presented Katie with a sheaf of papers in a rainbow of pastel colors. Most of them simply required her signature. But one of them—the one she had known was coming but dreaded nonetheless—required information for Andrew’s birth certificate.

Automatically, she filled in the blanks that requested the pertinent information about herself, but she hesitated when she came to the line that asked, Father’s name. She wondered helplessly how she could avoid identifying William as Andrew’s father, wondered, too, what would happen if she just left the line blank or filled it in with the word unknown. Would William still have a strong case for taking Andrew away from her if she failed to identify him as the baby’s father? Would the act of identifying no one at all— thereby making herself sound promiscuous enough that she didn’t even know who had fathered her child—make it easier for William still?

Katie was still pondering her dilemma when, as if prompted by providence, the nurse in the raspberry-colored scrubs said the magic words for her.

“That husband of yours is quite a guy.”

Katie’s head snapped up, and she stared at the other woman. “What?”

The nurse stared back. “That guy who came in with you,” she said with an indulgent smile. “You know…your husband. I mean, I only got to talk to him for a minute, but he seems like a great guy. He’s been so attentive since you arrived, fussing over you like a mother hen, ordering everyone in the hospital around like a general. He obviously loves you and the baby very much.”

“But Cooper’s not…he and I aren’t married.”

The nurse nodded knowingly. “Well, maybe the birth of his son will bring him around. Men usually start to settle down when they have a child to think about. I’ll bet the two of you tie the knot before long.”

“But…”

Katie wasn’t able to complete her objection, because an idea exploded in her brain when she understood the other woman’s misconception. It was an idea she really had no business entertaining. An idea she tried to squash the second it fired to life. Really, she did. Because the idea she had was unthinkable. Reprehensible. Immoral. What she had in mind was no way to repay all the kindness and patience Cooper had shown to her and her son. He may very well have saved both their lives last night. There was no way she could allow these people think the two of them were romantically linked.

There was no way she could inscribe his name on the line where the birth certificate application asked for the name of Andrew’s father.

But as if they had a mind of their own, Katie’s fingers gripped more tightly the pen in her hand, and she watched with an almost detached fascination as they wrote out, in big, block letters, COOPER DUGAN. The next lines, however, stopped her short. Father’s Social Security number. Father’s age. Father’s place of birth.

Okay, she could probably guesstimate Cooper’s age to be late thirties. And, considering his accent and the manner in which he spoke, she thought it might be reasonable to assume he had been born in the area—the area being either Pennsylvania, New Jersey or Delaware, which at least narrowed the search to three states. Probably. But Social Security number? That was a tough one.

“Um,” she began when she realized the nurse was waiting for her to finish completing the documents, “I can’t seem to remember…uh…Cooper’s Social Security number right now. Is it okay if I finish filling this out when he comes back?”

The nurse shrugged. “Sure. No problem. Just as long as we have it before you check out.”

“Okay. I promise.”

The nurse turned to leave, calling over her shoulder as she went, “Ring if you need anything.”

“I will. Thanks.”

The moment the door swung closed behind the nurse, Katie’s mind lurched into action. She had to get out of here, she thought frantically. As soon as she could do so without raising too much suspicion. Never mind that she was still exhausted from the birthing experience. Never mind that she was still in pain. Never mind that she had just done something heinous to a perfectly nice man, making him legally responsible for a child that wasn’t his.

Never mind that the act of fleeing would ensure that she never saw Cooper Dugan again. At least in disappearing, he’d know she had no intention of forcing him to acknowledge that fake responsibility.