The Good Father

A sob escaped Nora, though Ella mostly noticed it from the way the other woman’s chest shook. They were in a busy pod with patients and hospital professionals moving around them—and they were all alone, too. Emotional scenes with parents in the NICU were, unfortunately, not uncommon.

“Ted... He wouldn’t let me... He said his boy has a mouth and he could learn to eat...”

Henry had had so many tubes in his mouth during the first weeks of his life that he’d developed an oral aversion. The hope was that as he got a little older, and with proper care and developmental therapy, he’d be able to chew and swallow without activating his gag reflex.

“He’d force food down his throat and then when Henry threw it back up, he’d refuse to give him more until the next mealtime. He said when he got hungry enough, he’d eat.”

“There’s red tape we’ll have to go through,” Ella said, scared and determined and wishing she knew far more than she did. “But the people at the shelter will help you with that. There’s a lawyer who donates her services to the residents who can’t afford to pay for them...”

Ted Burbank had the right to full access to his son. Something would have to be done to revoke that.

If...

“Tell me, Nora...has Ted ever hit you? Or threatened you in any way?” Had the man threatened to kill her? From what she’d read for her High Risk team training, death threats were taken very seriously by law enforcement and the courts.

But she couldn’t lead Nora to such a confession.

Nora stood, carefully and capably settling her son back in his crib without disturbing the monitors on him. Without disturbing him.

Ella stood, too, ready to block the woman’s way long enough to try to convince her one more time to take advantage of the help being offered to her.

Instead, Nora turned, faced the wall and lifted her shirt. The bright red welts were clearly new. Ella could see the imprint of a belt buckle there. And Nora had been sitting back, rocking her son all morning.

Clearly the woman was used to pain.

“You need to get her looked at,” a resident who’d been at the crib next door leaned in to say to Ella as he passed. She nodded.

“Let me make the call,” Ella said to Nora as the woman pulled her shirt down and turned around.

“He’ll come here...”

“I’m going to call the police officer who visited you last night. There are professionals used to dealing with these situations, Nora. They’ll help you. And make certain that you and Henry never have to go back to Ted again.”

She believed what she was saying. And hoped to God that those trained professionals upon whom she was relying would come through.

Thinking of Lila McDaniels, she experienced a moment of calm as she left Nora with her son, giving word that if Ted Burbank showed up he was not to be allowed in the NICU and alerting security to the situation. Then she went into her office, closed the door and made a call to The Lemonade Stand.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_3c98c04d-8935-5429-a1e2-01f68c9d0a59)

BRETT’S PHONE SIGNALED five new voice mails when he took it out of airplane mode upon landing at LAX Friday afternoon. From his first-class seat, Brett pressed 1 to retrieve his messages. He’d be first to deplane, but the Jetway wasn’t even connected to the plane yet.

The first two messages were from members of the board of directors of Americans Against Prejudice. He’d been fielding calls from various AAP board members for two days. Some had been cajoling, others angry. All of them attempting either to manipulate or intimidate him. In two days, only one member of that board had called him out of shame. Probably fear-induced.

That had been the only call Brett had returned.

The Jetway moved toward the plane. He could see it through the window and stood, phone still to his ear, and with his free hand, retrieved his bags from the overhead bin and put them on the seat beside him.

Message three was from Detroit. A call he’d been expecting. A follow-up with a nonprofit museum he’d toured the morning before, confirming their desire to acquire his services and give him a seat on their board.

He didn’t really have time in his schedule, but the museum was a hands-on science, music and technology facility that could make a real difference with the next generation of Detroit leaders. And their meeting schedule mostly coincided with the Washington, DC, group so he could make both with one trip.

The fourth message came up as, with his one free hand, he slung his bags over his shoulders, and picked up his briefcase. A confirmation of a haircut appointment he had the next morning. He nodded at the captain and the flight attendant standing in the open doorway of the cockpit as he disembarked, and was almost to the gate and that much closer to his car when he heard the fifth message.

“A front-yard sprinkler head sprung. George fixed it.”

He didn’t wait for the click he knew would follow. His mother took good care of him. He’d come up with the plan shortly after he’d sold the dot-com and finalized details for The Lemonade Stand. His mother liked to take care of people. And he’d banked on the fact that if she thought he really needed her, she wouldn’t be able to say no. He couldn’t travel as much as he did, and focus on the job as he needed to do, without having someone to take care of his private business matters for him—including his charity work. And he valued his privacy—as she valued hers. She’d understand that he didn’t want a stranger managing his affairs.

His plan had worked. She’d agreed almost without hesitation. Through email. And the setup had backfired, too.

She took care of him. She just wouldn’t see him. Or have a back-and-forth, two-way conversation with him. She knew his schedule and tended to his home when he wasn’t there. And if she needed his input, or to relay information, she texted him. Or emailed. Or left the occasional voice message.

The one concession she’d made a few years ago, when he’d threatened to hire someone else to care for him, was to give him access to her home so that he could help her, too. But even then, she’d extracted a promise from him that if her car was there, he wasn’t to enter.

She didn’t trust herself to see him. To get caught up in a relationship with him. And then turn on him again. Her fears were likely groundless. And the walls they built around her sky high.

After more than thirteen years of her personal silence, Brett was beginning to accept that some things were never going to change.

* * *

AS IT TURNED OUT, Ella drove Nora to The Lemonade Stand as soon as she got off work that afternoon. The vulnerable young mother had asked if she could stay with her son until then. She hadn’t wanted to go with a stranger—a member of the Stand staff who’d been planning to come get her—and because hospital security had already had to call the police on Ted, who was in custody, there was no harm in Ella leaving the hospital alone with Nora.

No risk of them being waylaid or followed by an irate husband. Not that night. As soon as Ted was arraigned, or had hired an attorney, he’d be out of jail. He hadn’t hurt anyone—this time. He’d just refused to leave the hospital without his wife and had been arrested for trespassing.

And after that night, Ella could come and go as she pleased. Ted had never met her. Had no idea a member of the hospital staff, or anyone else for that matter, was helping his wife pull off her rebellion, and he was no longer allowed access to the NICU. At least not for the next week. The restraining order Nora and her infant son had been granted was only temporary.

Ella had no doubt it would become permanent the next week when Nora appeared before a judge.

Lila had met her at the outside door of the Stand, ushering them inside with the warmth Ella had known Nora would find, and five minutes later, Ella was climbing back behind the wheel of her Mazda CX-5. The small, four-door sport-utility vehicle she’d purchased just before quitting her job to move to Santa Raquel still smelled new and added to the overall euphoria she felt.

Nora was going to be fine. Baby Henry was going to be fine. And her new life was turning out far better than she’d even hoped.

So, of course, it was time to get on with it. Right now. While she was filled with such an acute sense of energy and purpose.

Sitting in her car in the parking lot, Ella dialed a number she knew by heart, but refused to program into her speed dial or add to her contacts. She couldn’t let it get that personal.

If Brett didn’t pick up, she’d leave a message. As busy as she was, he was busier. Working all over the country in various time zones. And flying across them when he wasn’t working. Maybe they could talk through messages. He was good at that. Had been communicating that way with his mother for the entire time Ella had known him.

Running over the words she’d leave on his recording as she listened to the phone ring, Ella started her car. Maybe she wouldn’t have to—

“Can you meet me at Donovan’s in half an hour?”

What the...?

The first contact they’d had in years, and he didn’t even say hello?

“Yes.” She didn’t know where the hell Donovan’s was, but it must be in town, which meant her GPS would find it. And Santa Raquel wasn’t big enough to require more than thirty minutes to get from one end to the other.

“Tell the hostess to show you to my table.” Click.