Naturally, he would “love you too” to his mother. My breath whooshed out in relief, and as I was about to spin the phone back his way, I saw the most recent text. Also to ’Mom,’ but it was outgoing with no message, only an attachment titled ‘SD1101.jpg.’
The photo tag was familiar because I had sent it to him only a couple of hours ago… The requested picture of Tristan and Bally.
At first, I found it endearing that he wasted no time sending the photo to his mother, Tristan’s grandmother. For some reason, Jack’s family had never crossed my mind, and I wondered if they were curious about Tristan. In that moment, terror seized me.
What an idiot I had been! With a legal letter indicating custody interest tucked into a folder at home, I was carelessly showing off pictures of a handsome pre-schooler while volunteering cute stories and bragging how well behaved and clever he was. A smart mother would have fibbed about what a handful he was, how horrible the tantrums were that he threw fifty times a day, and maybe a lie that he stayed sick with a snotty nose that never stopped!
As I stewed in my thoughts, Jack began lightly snoring, drawing eyes, and a few snickers. It hit me once again how tired he probably was, and no matter what, I couldn’t let him become entertainment to the other occupants of the room.
He was Jack Storm.
What if paparazzi jumped out, or some teenager recognized him and uploaded a video onto You Tube of Jackal’s lead sawing logs?
“Hey, Jack,” I whispered and then remembered I probably shouldn’t use his name just in case there were metal ears around. “Hey, wake up…”
“Yeah?” Jerking upright, he shook his head as if shaking sleep off. “What is it? Tristan?”
“No. I, uh. Well, you were snoring a little, and I thought… I know you must need sleep. You should go to the hotel, get some.”
“I didn’t fly all this way to sleep the day away in a hotel room.” Softly and sweetly, he assured, “I’m waiting here with you.”
“You don’t have to is all I’m saying. I know you’re tired.”
“As you are. Am I right?” Gently, he made the insightful observation, and it was accurate. My night had not been spent traveling, but I had certainly spent it unable to sleep, so I said nothing to contrary. Carefully, he continued, “If you don’t want me here though, I understand. I’ll go if it’s stressing you, me being here.”
This was the chance to get rid of him. To make sure I didn’t stupidly trust him again. I didn’t think he was tricking me out of information about Tristan. Nor did I think he would deviously sit with me, lending moral support today and then at a later time, drag Tristan, from me, back with him to LA. Yet, I couldn’t discount that he would fall as deeply in love with our son, as I had always been since before birth, and act accordingly.
“Thanks for being here.” When I opened my mouth, words from my heart and not my mind spilled. “I don’t want you to go.”
♪♫¨♫♪
“Mr. and Mrs. Duplei. Mr. Duplei… Mrs. Duplei…”
Awareness infiltrated my sleeping state, of my last name spoken repeatedly, and of a warm solid pillow beneath my cheek. A slight weight rested against the top of my head, and when it eased away, my pillow shifted.
Husky from sleep, and accustomed to being addressed in that manner for the last sixteen hours, Jack’s voice answered the summons. “Yes? Sorry, uh, yeah?”
My eyes opened to blue scrub-covered legs, white sneakers, and from somewhere above, a woman’s voice explained, “Tristan is awake.”
Jerking my head from Jack’s shoulder, I swiped a finger around a dry, scratchy eye, and pushed stray strands of hair from my face while shoving to my feet.
“They’re moving him in about thirty minutes, and he should get to his room on pediatrics just in time for a breakfast tray. So just go on back when you’re ready.”
Desperately, I needed the bathroom, but I was more than ready, and I was unwilling to think of Tristan awake and alone.
“Hey, Marissa…” Jack came to his feet as I was about to move away. “I’m going to head to the hotel. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Although my brain was still foggy from sleep, in a moment of clarity, I understood his reasoning. Just as before, it was not the right time for Tristan to see him.
Nodding, I replied lightly, “Sure.”
“Mariss?” His hand shot out, and his fingers warmly closed around mine just as his head dipped.
The kiss lasted no more than a couple of seconds, a lingering touch of his lips to mine, a light comforting brush back then forth and the slightest suction, before he eased away. In that instant, dark eyes melded to mine with a mental connection as intensely as we’d had years ago, in the first second of our ultimate physical connection.
Without a word, he loped off.
I was trying to be realistic. Trying not to be stupid and think we could have a future. But he was making it really hard…
CHAPTER 15
Jack
The hallway ahead was my main focus, and I moved my head in an auto nod to anyone who made eye contact. I forced myself not to turn around.
Where the hell had that kiss come from? I’m not sure I’d ever spontaneously kissed any woman unless I was in the middle of sex with her—and rarely had that spontaneous kiss been on the lips. The drive behind this kiss had been altogether different—some emotion that was not passion.
After hours of wanting to smooth the furrow from between Marissa’s brows with my thumb, and after an entire afternoon, evening, and night of noting a glimmer of fear in her sleepy eyes, I’d felt a need to comfort.
Yet now as I left her behind, I felt a need that went way beyond comfort. I wished I’d touched my tongue to her lips. I wish I’d tasted her.
Get a grip. Hospital. Son in ICU.
As I crossed the parking garage, I made a phone call sure to cool me off. “Hey, Mags. Mom said you wanted me to call.”
“Uh, yeah, Little Bro. Why am I hearing the news through Mom and Dad when I’m the one who lives in your zip code?”
“Sorry, Sis. The phone is beginning to graft to my ear. I had so many calls to make before I left, and I meant to call you. I really did.”
My sister could be a real bitch, and like always, I inwardly cringed as I awaited her response. In the next few seconds I relaxed when she didn't bite my head off.
“So you’re there now? How was the surgery?”
Unlocking my rental, I slid inside, cranked the motor, but then let it idle as my thoughts swept over the last sixteen hours.
Random thoughts.
The way Marissa’s parents and friend had eyed me with recognition as I approached them. Not in awe or surprise as if they were seeing a celebrity in an unexpected place. In familiarity.
Marissa screaming at me for being an ignorant son of a bitch. Which I knew I was, but she wasn’t blameless in the way she’d handled things either.
Mostly, standing at the foot of a bed, looking at a four-year-old-me. I had made this trip intuitively knowing the boy was mine. But until that moment, he hadn’t been a real being. Thinking of him had been like thinking of a some- thing and not a some- one. Until I’d seen him for myself.
Something had happened to me in that moment. A complete connection that I still felt even now.
“Did I drop you? I’m on the canyon road and—”
“The surgery went fine.” I shook myself from the fugue I had fallen into. “A little trouble with anesthesia, and they have him in ICU. But it’s a precaution thing.”
My sister grilled me a few more minutes. After ending the call, I pulled from the parking garage with plans of hitting a drive through for food, and heading to the hotel for a few hours of sleep.
Would I meet my son later today? My chest pounded in fear and excitement.
CHAPTER 16
Marissa
“I cannot believe you are doing this, Marissa.”
“Doing what, Mom?”
Tristan, after being awake long enough to eat some mac
aroni from his lunch tray and to look at the activity books his Gammy brought, fell into a doze, leaving me essentially alone with my mother. He had slept after breakfast also.
Curled on the short couch beneath the window, I had caught some sleep until my mom showed up and began harassing me about Jack.
“Doing that.”
“I’m not doing anything.” The false declaration was sullen, and I didn’t meet my mother’s eyes.
“I have been more than patient, thinking you might confide to me on your own. But you never do, do you?” Indignantly, my mother carried on with the tirade, “Always have to be so secretive. As if what goes on in your life is so much more important than the rest of ours.”
“I’m not talking about this right now.” Keeping my voice low, in case the little boy in the bed was not fully asleep, I turned my back as I finished the fruit from my own lunch.
“For five years, you have hidden the identity of this man, and then he waltzes right into our lives and you are going to continue—”
“Mother! Stop!”
My phone blipped with a text, and I circled to where it lay on the foot of the bed near Bandit and Tiggy.
RUSS
Sorry overslept
1:30 PM
RUSS
Should I come by or wait?
1:30 PM
My mom is here
Sent 1:31 PM
RUSS
Im guessing that’s a negatory
1:31 PM
The texts passed back and forth, and I even sent a few more after my mother’s pointed throat clearing. It was hard to believe this was happening, whatever ‘this’ was. I wasn’t going to mess it up, before it even began, by throwing Jack too quickly to the wolf who was my maternal parent.
All day, I relived the kiss, over and over, and even imagined taking it farther. The anger and humiliation of the phone call, and the following legal letter was not forgotten. But, if many wonderful little things could cancel out one big thing, similar to the way five years ago, we had jokingly struck a ratio of fifteen texts to one phone call, then he was well on his way to redemption.
Was I though? Was I in need of forgiveness from him? The blurt before he had stopped himself concerning me not telling him about Tristan nagged at my memory for a moment.
My mother’s insight could be uncanny, and this was one of those times. A habitual early riser, waking before daylight each morning, my mom napped each afternoon. However, today she wasn’t budging. My father stopped by after his workday, and even his company didn’t send my mother scurrying as it normally did.
A perky hospital aid delivered Tristan’s supper, and I had just finished setting the tray up for easy eating when the first guitar lick blared.
My parents’ reactions to this ring tone were much the same as the occupants in the waiting room the previous evening, but Tristan’s eyes rounded with pleasure. “Answer it, Momma! Please!”
Tristan’s reaction further fascinated my mother and father, but I quickly did as my son said.
As if I could refuse calls now…
The feel of Jack’s lips gently brushing mine had me quickly pressing the screen.
“Hi!” As I spoke, I held up a polite finger—not the one I wanted after seeing my mother’s frown—and took the call to the privacy of the hall.
“Hey!” The smile in his voice carried through the cell towers. “Coast clear yet?” Heaving a sad sigh, I responded to the negative, and he replied, “I don’t mind meeting them, you know. I was just hoping, I guess I was just thinking that…” He dwindled to a pause, and as I absently watched a patient being coaxed to walk along the hall, I heard a barely audible sigh from his end. “Is this even the right time for me to meet Tristan? Should I wait until he’s not feeling so… Mariss, I don’t know what to do.”
“Well it’s not the right time to, you know, to tell him.”
With as much frequency as the last kiss between us, the various possible scripts of explaining to Tristan who Jack was to him, danced in my mind. The hospital was not one of those scenarios.
“But he’s feeling really good. I’m amazed at how good. So if you wanted to come by, hang out… My parents are about to leave.”
Spectators shouldn’t be at this momentous event. Squaring my shoulders when Jack affirmed, I resolved to rid the room of the audience. Returning to the room, I found my mother helping Tristan with his juice box, and surprisingly, not an eyelash batted when I related a version of the truth.
“A friend of Tristan’s is coming by, and I’m thinking he should get some rest until then.”
A knowing look passed between my parents, and my father hastily agreed and then curved a pleased smile when my mother did the same. Obviously, they had conferred while I was on the phone, and for once, my mother was going along with his advice.
“Who’s coming?” Tristan promptly asked, as soon as hugs were dispensed and his grandparents were out of the room.
Thinking his interest was on the tv, I had kept my voice low when speaking to my parents, but as always, nothing got by him. Gently running a comb through his hair, I explained, “A new friend. The one that brought Bandit while you were in surgery.”
“The one that plays the music?”
“Hmm?”
This question unbalanced me, and I scrutinized his tiny face, wondering how he could know ‘this friend’ was a musician.
“The one that plays the music when they call on your phone.” Tristan was obviously feeling more himself, because the usual vexation at having to explain himself was strong.
Confusion still riddled my brain. Although I now knew he was speaking of Jack’s ring tone, I was becoming suspicious that Tristan did not know exactly what a ring tone was, and that in his four-year old mind, he visualized the caller making the sound in real-time.
A nurse bustled in, humming as she checked his vitals and fussing over him with attention as most staff did. Jack rang back, and when Tristan darted a look over as I answered, I resolved to show him ring tones soon.
“You said Tristan likes Oreo Blizzards? Are they letting him eat that stuff today?”
The frozen treat conjured in my mind, and I smiled, finding it sweet that Jack remembered the little things about Tristan and wanted to perk up his hospital stay. Confirming to Jack that Tristan was on a normal diet, I stepped aside for the nurse to exit and then turned to find my son’s expectant gaze avidly watching as I spoke into the phone.
“So how about you? What do you want?” Jack questioned.
“Oh, thanks, but I don’t want anything,” I assured. A warm glow radiated to every cell because he had asked. Silly, but it happened.
“Yes you do,” he argued like a big brother, best friend, or… a boyfriend.
“I don’t. Really.”
“Did you eat today?” The mindful question completed the devoted feeling.
“I ate.” In answering, I reassured him that on this floor, an extra food tray for the parent accompanied the patient’s tray.
Jack stubbornly insisted on getting a food preference from me and even threatened he would pick at random from the menu if I didn’t choose.
“Besides, how will it look if I come walking in with something for Tristan and me and not you?” he teased.
“Alright, alright!” Relenting, I blocked out the carbs and calories and requested a slush latte. Only once or twice had I ever allowed myself this treat, so I didn’t know the specific flavors. Before he could ask, I went on, “Surprise me.”
Tristan said nothing when I disconnected but continuously studied me, similarly to the way he would around Christmastime, or his birthday, when I came home and sneaked straight to my room to hide presents.
Nervously, I fiddled with my day-old hair in the mirror.
This morning, I had showered in the room’s tiny connecting bathroom and changed into jeans with a comfortable pullover shirt. Now, I took in my appearance, wishing I had packed with the foreknowledge of Jack making this trip.
&n
bsp; Easing beside Tristan’s tiny form, I settled on the bed to wait, my mind reeling with the odds and ends I needed to do this week, and as always today’s recollection…
…Jack’s kiss…
The slight rap on the door yanked me from this reverie, and I looked down, seeing Tristan was dozing again. Jumping up, I pulled open the door and gave myself over to the familiar flutter in my stomach when Jack’s dark eyes hit my face.
Both disappointment and relief crossed his face when he observed Tristan sleeping. Handing off my frozen drink, he set the other on the stand at the side of the bed and eyed the stuffed animals at the footboard. Finally, his gaze moved back over Tristan’s sleeping face and tenderness filled his eyes.
Initially, seeing the natural paternal instinct in Jack’s expression swelled my heart, then like before, abrupt fear constricted my insides.
Suddenly, I was wishing Tristan were not such a perfect miniature of his father, as if that would stop some of the closeness Jack already felt. A good mother would have robbed a bank for the money, not risked custody.
“What’s wrong?” Jack wondered, concern weighing his words.
Immediately jumping to the conclusion that my consternation related to our son, he asked about the doctor’s earlier visit. Forcing a smile, I related the positive things Dr. Millosky had to say during his examination this morning. Tristan would only be hospitalized a couple more days, and once we were home, a physical therapist would come to work with him three times a week.
“Is he the one, Momma?”
Both of our gazes whipped to Tristan, and obviously wondering what Tristan was speaking of, Jack spared a quick glance to me.
“Your ring tone.” Hastily, I supplied the explanation to ease any fears he might have of my having already revealed his identity to his son. “He’s fascinated by your ring tone.”
I wanted to run to Tristan’s side but held back, only standing while Jack approached the bed.
“Oh.” Jack’s smile was tense, but he moved a shoulder in a carefree shrug. “I’m the one, I guess.” Setting his cup down, he indicated the remaining one. “Your mom said you liked Blizzards.”