The Good Father

“Would you?”

She shouldn’t answer that, either. “No.”

Brianna’s nod gave her pause. “But...if you want to go home, I’ll give you a glowing reference,” Ella added with a small smile. She’d never been a boss before. Was used to being just one of the nurses—someone who could offer personal advice and opinions without undue professional consequence.

“You don’t wear a ring...”

The question on Brianna’s pretty face called out to Ella. She was new in town, too. And other than her sister-in-law, Chloe, who was living with her temporarily, had no one to confide in. Or even catch a movie with.

“I’m not married.”

“Have you ever been?”

Closing the charting program on her computer, Ella stood up. “Yes, I have been. Now, let’s go get D-4 ready before shift change. If you want to grab a cup of coffee after you get off, I’ll see what I can arrange...”

So she shouldn’t fraternize. A cup of coffee with a valuable employee who was hurting was just good business.

As it turned out, Ella didn’t make it to D-4 or coffee with Brianna. Before she’d even clocked in, the three-month-old in C-2 coded, and it took a couple hours to get him stabilized. By the time Ella finally made it to the break room for a cup of coffee, Brianna was long gone. And she sat by herself, sipping her dark roast, and thinking about things that weren’t productive.

Like Brett. And the baby they’d spent three years and ungodly amounts of money trying to conceive. The baby he’d never wanted. The baby who’d been born too soon to save, leaving his mama with little hope of ever having another child of her own. And here she was, four years later, saving other people’s preemies.

When she’d graduated from college, Ella hadn’t planned to work with seriously ill babies. She’d focused on pediatric nursing. And a job on a PIC unit at a large hospital in LA had been available. Whenever babies had been in for procedures, she’d been the one doctors had requested to assist them. They said she was good with the babies. That she seemed to have a natural ability to calm sick infants.

Funny, a woman who wasn’t capable of conceiving naturally or of carrying a baby to term, having that ability.

No, she wasn’t going down that depressing road again. Her twenties were casualties buried on the shoulders of that road. And though her journey had been painful, she’d finally turned the corner.

She was thirty-one now and taking charge of her life. This new job as charge nurse seemed almost symbolic.

She’d moved from LA to Santa Raquel. A move that would force her to face her past, to confront her present and to build a future.

Standing, Ella checked the pockets of her scrubs to make certain that she had her pager, her pen, and the ID card she had to swipe to get on and off the unit, and turned toward the door of the deserted break room. Time to get back to work.

She had her plan, and her life was on track.

Calm settled over her.

Maybe it was the calm before the storm. Or maybe she’d finally put herself on the path to real peace. Either way, there was no going back.

* * *

BRETT WAS PULLING into the parking garage in LA, half an hour early for the board meeting, when his phone rang again. As it had been doing all morning. As it normally did. Glancing at the screen, he recognized the number immediately.

And issued a silent curse that his hand was shaking as he pushed the call button to answer.

“It’s good to hear from you. Is everything all right?” He spoke quickly, aware that his mother was not going to give him a chance to speak again.

“There’s a new member on the High Risk team. A nurse. Ella Ackerman. I thought you should know before you see the email.”

Click.

The sound in his ear wasn’t a surprise. Although, even after more than fourteen years of this bizarre no-speaking, no-physical-contact relationship he and his mother had, the abrupt hang-up still bothered him.

So did the news he’d just received.

Ella was in town? On the High Risk team? A team comprising professionals—medical personnel, lawyers, social workers, law enforcement—whose jobs brought them in contact with potential domestic-violence victims. The team had been designed to bridge the communication gap between various professional bodies to help prevent victims from falling through the cracks. The idea for the team had come from The Lemonade Stand, a women’s shelter in Santa Raquel. He’d been instrumental in getting the team set up. And now Ella was on it?

Could the day get any worse?

* * *

ELLA HAD A spare minute in between an assessment of a five-day-old baby who was being readmitted due to failure to thrive and a meeting with the HIPAA committee—a committee comprised of hospital staff to develop and implement programs that would help educate and remind staff of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act guidelines—and slipped into a vacant office just outside the NICU, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket.

“Hey, how’s he doing?” she asked as soon as her sister-in-law, Chloe Wales, picked up.

“Fine. His fever’s down, and he’s watching Cars.” Cody, Chloe’s two-year-old son, had had a reaction to an inoculation and given them a scare the night before. “He’s asking for his daddy, though.” Chloe’s tone changed. Took on a note of doubt that Ella recognized only too well.

“He’s two, Chloe. He’ll adjust.” One way or the other.

“I just...I miss him, too. You know?”

“I do know. And I also know that my brother needs help. And the only way we can help him is to make him want to help himself. To give him a chance to see that he needs to help himself.”

“I know.”

She and Chloe had been through all of this a handful of times over the past four years. Jeff would act out. Ella and Chloe would talk about it later. Chloe would be strong and determined that if Jeff acted out again she’d leave or call for help. Jeff would be the perfect husband and father for a week or a month. He’d be remorseful and open and giving. Dedicated to his family. And then he’d slowly focus more and more on the stocks that were his livelihood. He’d become consumed by them. When they were up, he was up. And when they were down, he was down. If they went down too far, so did he.

That’s when Chloe ended up bruised. In the beginning, the bruises had all been on the inside. Her emotions and heart had been damaged as he’d blasted her verbally. Then it had been finger marks from a strongly squeezed arm. Then a bruised shoulder from a push into a door.

All things Jeff hadn’t meant. Things he’d been deeply contrite for. Sincerely, deeply contrite.

This latest time, seven months after his last bout of uncontrollable anger, he’d grabbed his son by his forearms and slammed him into a chair. While Cody had screamed in terror, he hadn’t been physically harmed. Not yet.

“I just...I miss him. And he misses me, too. He’s so sorry and...”

“You answered his call.” Jeff had been phoning Chloe for more than a week. Ever since Ella had made the four-hour drive to Palm Desert to pick up her sister-in-law and her nephew and bring them back to stay with her in her apartment.

The arrangement was temporary. Just until Jeff got help.

“He’s my husband,” Chloe said, an edge to her voice. Which faded as she said, “I know I shouldn’t have, El, but bills are due, and I’m the one who pays them. I did it online, but I just wanted to let him know. When I picked up, he was choked up and...”

“You didn’t tell him where you’re staying, did you?”

“No. But I wanted to.”

“Next time you want to, you hang up and call me immediately.”

“But you’re working. Those babies’ lives are in the balance and—”