“Damn,” I muttered, shaking my head.
“I’m sorry,” Nicole began. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I—”
“It’s fine. It’s not your fault. It’s…” I sighed as I realized I couldn’t tell Nicole about how Laurel had lost her little boy. It wasn’t my story to tell. “It’s fine. Why are you here?”
She looked offended by my blunt delivery, but she quickly checked herself. “Look, this is not easy for me either.”
She paused for a moment as she pried Ethan’s hand off the pendant hanging from the necklace around her neck. The necklace I gave her when I apologized for cheating on her after my second tour. I didn’t think she’d worn it on purpose, as an attempt to manipulate my emotions by reminding me of my own indiscretion. In every photo of Ethan my mother had sent me over the last two and a half years — through Emily’s text messages — Nicole was always wearing the necklace.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re here?” I said, desperate for her to get to the point.
She took a few steps until she was standing at my bedside. “I wanted you to meet your nephew,” she said, shifting Ethan so he was balancing on her hip as she turned him to face my bed. “Ethan do you know who that is?” She turned back to me. “He’s seen lots of pictures of you.”
“Daddy!” Ethan exclaimed.
Nicole shook her head adamantly. “No, sweetie. This is your Uncle Isaac.”
Ethan stuck his hand out toward me and turned it from side to side in a clumsy wave. “Hi, Daddy.”
I pressed my mouth into a hard line to try to keep from laughing, but it was no use. I covered my face and squeezed my eyes shut so Ethan wouldn’t see me holding in my laughter.
“I’m sorry,” Nicole said, and I could hear the nervous laughter in her voice. “I don’t know what I expected. I’m sorry.”
I shook my head and opened my eyes as I let out a short burst of laughter. “It’s fine. You can’t expect a two-year-old to understand the concept of identical twins. It’s just…”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. Maybe it was whatever pain meds they were pumping into me through this IV drip, but I was suddenly beginning to realize how soap opera-ish this whole situation with Nicole and my twin brother Dane was. And it was tragic, but also strangely surreal, that my brother’s son was now mistaking me for his dead father.
I took a moment to compose myself and take a few deep breaths. “Sorry. I think they’ve got me hooked up to some happy drugs. I shouldn’t have laughed at that.”
She smiled and shook her head. “It’s okay. I totally get it. It’s kind of funny and weird. But that doesn’t make what I did right. I’ll never stop regretting how I hurt you.”
I let out a deep sigh. “I was gone a lot and Lord knows I made my own mistakes. I wasn’t exactly the easiest person to love. I know that.”
She nodded. “I’d better go get him something to drink. Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
Her full lips stretched into a tight smile. “Your parents are going to stay at your house with your dog, but I’ll be staying at a hotel. I know you probably don’t want me there.”
I shook my head. “That’s nonsense. Don’t waste your money on a hotel. Just stay at the house with Mom and Dad. I’m going to be here at least another three or four days, according to the doctor who came in to prod my nut sack an hour ago.”
“Are… Are you sure?”
“Positive. I don’t want my nephew staying anywhere else.”
She flashed me a genuine smile this time. “I hope you get better soon,” she said, readjusting Ethan in her arms. “And if that girl who was here is the one you want, I hope she knows how lucky she is.” She grabbed Ethan’s hand and waved it at me. “Say bye, sweetie.”
“Bye, sweetie!” Ethan said.
I laughed as I waved back and watched them disappear into the corridor.
Chapter 5
Jack
May 10, 2015
“Stay with me, baby,” I murmured as I stroked Laurel’s hand to keep her from falling asleep. “You realize our son is going to be born on a very special day.”
Her eyes rolled back in their sockets as another contraction hit. “What?” she groaned.
I had been trying to keep her mind distracted from the pain with idle conversation about the things she most liked to talk about. So far, I’d engaged her in a wide array of topics: Stoic philosophy, ridiculous names for baked goods, inappropriate wedding songs, and her favorite topic, names for baby boys.
“His birthdate is going to be May 10, 2015. In numbers, that’s five, ten, fifteen.”
She managed to groan and chuckle at the same time. “You’re so American. The rest of the world would say it’s ten, five, fifteen,” she said. She breathed in and out a few times through pursed lips before she continued. “Drea would make fun of you if she heard you say that.”
“It’s a good thing Drea’s not here then.”
As soon as I said the words, I wanted to take them back. I didn’t want to bring attention to the fact that, besides Drea, Laurel’s mom also was not here.
As if on cue, Laurel asked, “Where’s my mom?”
I squeezed her soft hand, which seemed to be getting colder. “She’s stuck in traffic, baby. There’s an accident. But she’s trying to get here as soon as she can.”
I didn’t have to lie for Beth. I had to lie for Laurel. I didn’t want her to worry that her mother was abandoning her in her time of need. This was probably the most important day of Laurel’s life, and her mother couldn’t be bothered to come when called.
Beth insisted this was a private moment for Laurel and I to share. According to her, most grandmothers weren’t in the labor and delivery room to see their grandchildren born. That was the parents’ “job.” She insisted she would get here as soon as the baby was born.
The fact that Beth referred to what I was doing at this moment as a “job” only made me angrier. I wasn’t here with Laurel because it was my job to be here. I was here because I loved Laurel, and this was where she wanted me to be. If Laurel told me to leave, I’d leave. She was the one making the decisions today, not me or Beth or the fucking Dalai Lama.
The midwife came into Laurel’s room just as the baby’s heart rate monitor began to beep loudly. The swift, hollow tap of our baby’s heartbeat had slowed to a slow, muffled thump. The midwife’s black eyebrows shot up as she raced to the monitor to get a better look at the flashing red numbers.
“What’s happening?” Laurel asked, but her eyelids were only half-open as her voice trailed off. “Is the baby… Is the baby okay?”
Maisie, Laurel’s Filipino midwife, lifted the sheet covering Laurel’s legs and her dark eyes became as wide as planets.
“What is it?” I demanded as the doctor rushed in.
“Get Florence and tell the others to get the OR ready,” the doctor ordered Maisie, who quickly disappeared into the corridor.
“Dr. Eastman, what’s wrong?” I demanded.
But as my words fell like stones at our feet, Laurel’s hand went slack. Suddenly, four nurses raced into the room and shoved me aside as they locked the side rails on Laurel’s bed and systematically disconnected her from various machines.
My stomach went sour as they rushed her out of the labor and delivery room to the operating room. As I followed closely behind them, I felt as if I were having an out of body experience. I was watching these medical professionals pushing a gurney with someone else’s unconscious wife. Maybe I’d fallen asleep in the chair in Laurel’s hospital room and this was all a nightmare.
But when we arrived at the double doors to the OR, someone grabbed my arm to stop me from entering. That was when I knew this was really happening.
Before the doors swung shut, I caught a glimpse of three more nurses inside the operating room. They appeared to be hanging bags of blood on IV stands and prepping instruments.
“She’s hemorrhaging,” Dr. Eastman f
inally said, as I watched what was going on through the windows in the double door.
“What do you mean? How? Why?” I replied as I watched two nurses wheel Laurel’s bed into the center of the OR.
“Mr. Stratton, please look at me.”
I spun toward the doctor and the grave look in his eyes sent me into a spiraling panic. “What’s going on? Tell me what the fuck is happening to my wife!”
“Do you remember at a previous sonogram when I said we would have to do sonograms every three days instead of every week, to keep an eye on the placenta?”
I nodded vigorously. “Just cut to the chase and tell me what the hell is happening to my wife.”
Eastman sighed. “The placenta was not over the cervix at the start of labor, but it seems the contractions have moved it down and Laurel’s losing a lot of blood. We’ll have to deliver the baby via C-section.”
I tried to follow a nurse into the OR, but Maisie and Dr. Eastman stopped me again. “I have to be in there!” I shouted.
“We need to scrub before we can enter the surgical suite,” Eastman said. “Follow me.”
In the washroom, Eastman introduced me to the anesthesiologist, Dr. Brunei, who was already washed up as a couple nurses helped him slip into a fresh pair of scrubs.
“Doctor, I need you to be straight with me,” I said as I set down the disposable nail brush and proceeded to rub the red Hibiclens soap all over my hands and up to my elbows. “Should I be worried?”
“Hemorrhaging in labor is not ideal, but it’s not uncommon. It’s a situation we’re always prepared for, especially with what we saw in the previous sonograms. You’re in good hands today. We’re going to deliver your baby and replace the blood your wife lost. I just need to verify that neither you nor your wife have any religious objections to receiving blood transfusion?”
I shook my head as I held my arms under the running water. I couldn’t speak. This couldn’t be happening.
When Eastman and I were gowned and gloved, we entered the surgical suite in time to see the nurses using a sheet to hoist Laurel’s limp body off the hospital bed and onto the operating gurney, her arm flopping over the edge of the mattress.
Her skin was drained of the usual golden-peach glow. Her fingers were blue.
No. I shook my head, unwilling to accept what I was seeing.
“Mr. Stratton?”
I turned my head to the right and found four-foot-eleven Maisie staring up at me.
“You’re very pale, Mr. Stratton. You should sit,” she said, motioning to a chair on the other side of the room, closer to Laurel.
I nodded as I trailed behind her like a lost puppy. “Thank you,” I muttered, but I didn’t take a seat. I couldn’t rest when both my babies needed me.
Due to the hemorrhaging, Laurel would be put under general anesthesia instead of the usual spinal block used for C-sections. Maisie made it clear this meant I would be the first person to hold our baby, not Laurel. I knew this would make Laurel sad, when she woke and I had to tell her what happened. But I wasn’t prepared for how I would feel about it.
I held Laurel’s hand through the entire surgery, stroking and kissing the back of her hand and murmuring words of encouragement as if she were awake. When our son was pulled from her womb, his blue skin covered in blood, I stopped breathing. Mere seconds passed before he took his first wailing breath of life, but it felt like an eternity.
As the nurses cleaned him up, I kept a firm grasp on Laurel’s hand while I whispered in her ear, narrating what was happening. I hoped somewhere in her subconscious mind, she was listening, and maybe someday she could piece together this moment.
Maisie smiled as she approached me with the bundle wrapped in a striped baby blanket. As I took my son in my arms for the first time, I was overwhelmed by a wave of emotion so powerful, it should have knocked me out of my chair.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I looked down at his puffy, pink face. “This is my boy,” I said with a chuckle. His tiny body moved in my arms and my chest filled with sheer wonder and joy. I shook my head, unable to believe I’d made something so pure and so real. “This is our son.” I put my finger next to his tiny hand and my heart nearly burst when he grabbed on. I kissed his fingers the way I’d kissed Laurel’s hand earlier and his eyelids fluttered. “Laurel, baby, I wish you could see this.” I looked up at Maisie. “Doesn’t he need to be breastfed or something?” I asked.
She smiled. “They will bring her out of anesthesia in a few minutes, once she’s stitched up. For now, he needs to be held by his papa.”
The words echoed in my mind. His papa.
My face screwed up as I was overcome with emotion. The fear and doubt I’d felt about becoming a father seemed like a distant memory. I’d never been so filled with absolute joy in all my life.
I was a father. I was papa.
Present day
* * *
I had let my jealousy and rage distract me from what was truly important. I’d driven Laurel away twice, at times when my pixie needed me most. I knew Laurel didn’t owe me a third chance, which was why I was going to earn my way back into her arms. And there were only two ways to do that.
One way was to catch the bastard who stole our happiness. The other way might prove more difficult. It would involve closing my case files and admitting my need for justice was tearing my marriage apart. But I couldn’t do that, not until I gave my quest for justice one final effort. If I couldn’t get justice for my boy by the time Laurel turned thirty next month, I would pack away my case files and do whatever it took to get her back.
I handed my suitcase to the guy wearing the fluorescent safety vest, then I climbed the steps of the private charter plane at exactly eleven a.m. Immediately, I slid my cell phone out of the interior pocket of my sport coat and called my assistant, Jade Insley.
“Good morning,” she answered cheerily.
“Jade, I need you to forward all my calls, even the ones to my cell, to your desk phone. I’m out of town and I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Absolutely,” she replied. “What should I tell the partners?”
“Tell them I’m visiting family. I’ll check in occasionally for messages.”
I ended the call and immediately removed the SIM card from my phone, tossing the tiny chip over the side of the staircase before I stepped inside the plane. I gave the attendant my drink order — club soda with lime — then I tucked my cell into my coat. Sliding the burner phone out of the front pocket of my slacks, I sat down in the plush leather seat. I turned the phone on and shot off a text.
* * *
Me:
Plane taking off. Should land in less than two hours. We still on for three p.m.?
* * *
Sean:
I’ll be there with bells on.
I pulled my rental car into a space in front of a two-story office building clad in weathered cedar shingles. The dark tinted windows and lack of signage made it look like a place one would go to get illegal plastic surgery. Other than my rented Chevy Tahoe, the only other cars in the lot were a beat-up Cadillac Eldorado and a pristine ’80s-era cherry-red Porsche.
When I stepped into the lobby, I was not surprised to find a directory missing a third of its letters. But I was still able to determine that “SEA D GHE TY PI 2 1” meant Sean Dougherty, Private Investigator was in suite 201 or 211. That narrowed my options down significantly.
I opted not to take my chances on the wood-paneled elevator and took the stairs up to the second floor. The smell of body odor and desperation engulfed me as I walked down the hallway. The first door I saw was 201 and I quickly reached for the doorknob, eager to escape the smell in the corridor, but the knob didn’t turn. I rapped on the steel door a few times, certain no one would hear me. I was surprised when my knocking was met with a loud grunt from within.
I immediately lifted the right side of my sport coat, my hand hovering over the gun holstered on my hip as I waited for the door to open.
“Who is it?” a gruff voice called from the other side.
“Jack Stratton. We have an appointment.”
The door opened slowly and we both smiled when we realized we both had our hands poised over our sidearms.
I slowly moved my hand away from my weapon and held it up in front of me. “All good.”
The man lowered his hand and pushed the door wide open. “Good to meet you, Jack,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Sean.”
We shook, and I was not at all surprised to find his calloused hand had a killer grip. “It’s really good to meet you,” I replied as I stepped inside suite 201.
My shoulders relaxed instantly when I realized Sean’s office was actually quite clean and modern and smelled like coffee. Not a hint of despair. Sean was a sturdy man in his early fifties, with thick salt-and-pepper hair and muscled limbs clothed in a crisp button-up and slacks. Not at all what I expected from a gritty private investigator who worked in the ninth circle of office park hell.
“The exterior throws people off. Only the people who are serious make it past the front door,” he said as if he were reading my thoughts. “Have a seat.” He continued speaking as I took a seat across the glass desk. “Hood River PD approved my request to see the file this morning, and I was able to go through most of it before you got here. We’re both obviously most interested in this memo they received from Boise PD. Have you spoken with Detective Robinson yet?”
I shook my head. “She couldn’t say much over the phone. I have a meeting scheduled with her tomorrow. She didn’t seem very optimistic this would lead anywhere. She hasn’t had a whole lot of luck with sealed adoption records. But I’m working on a piece of software to cross-reference birth records and the NCIC persons files for individuals in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. I should have the code finalized and ready to run in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I wanted to get you on the case to see if we can track down that adoption decree. I mean, I don’t even have the guy’s name. I’m flying blind.”