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“We could go see your friend,” Joss offered with his three-year-old’s logic. “Then you wouldn’t be sad no more.”
She smiled at him. “Any more, and you’re right.”
If only she believed that, but seeing Trace again, if that was even a possibility, might destroy everything she knew and loved. Was she willing to risk it?
Was it fair to Joss, to Trace, if she wasn’t?
Wasn’t that the real cloud hanging over her the past week? The knowledge that whatever she decided would have such a terrible impact on the person she loved most in the world, on herself, on Trace?
* * *
Chrissie loved her job in the CVICU most days. She’d operated as the charge nurse on the unit for a couple of years and really liked the team of nurses and doctors she worked with. They were a good crew.
Especially now that her bestie was back working on an as-needed basis. Like today.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she told Savannah. “I know you miss Amelia, but you made my life better by coming in.”
Savannah grinned. “The timing was perfect as Charlie was off work today so he could be at home with Amelia. It’ll give them some good bonding time together. I’ll just have to sneak away a couple of times to pump milk, but other than that I’m happy to be back in the land of adulthood.”
Staying home with Joss hadn’t been an option. Chrissie had worked like crazy during her pregnancy, saving and putting back as much as she could to cover the expenses of a baby. Fortunately, she’d always been frugal and had bought her little house not long after she’d graduated from nursing school. It was down the road from her mother and, although nothing fancy, she loved her two-bed, one-bath home in its quiet little neighborhood. All of which had made welcoming Joss into her life much easier. Her mother adored her grandson. Her mother had helped her tremendously as she’d made the transition from single woman to single mom, offering to babysit and a shoulder to cry on.
She’d not needed the shoulder, but had welcomed her mother’s help with Joss while she’d been at work because she’d hated leaving him. Knowing he was with her mother had at least lightened that guilt. Maybe it was a guilt all working moms felt—the need to be at work and to do a good job there and the need to be with their child and to be a good mom.
Regardless, she was grateful for her mother, and pleased that Savannah had been able to spend the first months of her daughter’s life with Amelia.
“We’re pretty booked up. I’ve got a room and you’re assigned to two,” she told her friend, then let the nurse who’d stayed over to cover until Savannah could get there give her report.
In the meanwhile, Chrissie went to check her patient. A young man in his twenties who’d had a valve replacement the day before.
The boy was still on the ventilator and asleep when Chrissie went in to check him. His father sat in a chair next to the bed and opened his eyes when she entered the room.
“Hi,” she greeted the tired-looking man.
The man nodded acknowledgment, but turned his attention immediately to the pale young man lying in the bed with multiple tubes and wires attached to his body. “How is he?”
Chrissie scanned over the telemetry. “Still holding his own.” She smiled at the man empathetically. “He should start stirring some soon.”
“I hope so. I miss seeing this kid’s smile. He’s my whole world.”
“I understand. I have a three-year-old son. He’s my whole world, too.”
The man continued, obviously needing to talk. “He has to be okay.”
“Dr. Flowers expects him to recover fully,” she reminded him.
“I pray so.” The man raked his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. “We’ve only connected a few years ago. Now, I can’t imagine my life without him.”
“Oh?” Chrissie gazed at the man, who was leaning forward, staring at the rise and fall of the young man’s bandaged chest.
He sighed, his gaze flickering to hers for a brief moment. “His mother and I weren’t married. She got ill a few years back and told him about me. After she passed, he looked me up.” Wincing, he shook off a memory. “I was a jerk to begin with. I didn’t believe he was mine.”
At Chrissie’s grimace, the man elaborated.
“How could I have known? His mother and I only dated for a short while and then I never saw her again. I never even thought about her until he showed up in my life almost twenty years later. If only she’d told me.”
Chrissie’s chest tightened to where she could barely breathe. “What would you have done?”
Startled at her question, the man met her gaze. “I’m not sure, but I do know my son would have known who I was, not just my name, and that in some shape, form, or fashion, I’d have been a father to him. She should have told me. For her not to have, and to have deprived me of knowing my kid, was selfish.” Red heightened his cheeks, contrasting with his otherwise pale face. “It’s probably wrong to be angry at the dead, but I struggle with it every day.”
