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Then I saw her.
As the elevator door opened deep in the hospital lobby, Deana stepped on. I froze. Part of me wanted to avoid her at all costs. I knew the next time I spoke to her, it could get ugly in a hurry, and I would probably deserve every bit of that. But at the same time, another deeper part of me knew she could help me. She was wearing scrubs, and I remembered how she’d talked about wanting to be a nurse when she got out of school.
“May I help you?” a nurse behind the check-in desk asked.
I shook myself out of the daze I was in, still staring at the elevator door, which was now closed. I had missed Deana, and she hadn’t seen me. I turned to the nurse at check-in and saw her name tag said Cassy. She was a younger woman than I was expecting, in her early thirties probably, and had kind-looking eyes.
“She’s running a fever and crying and I don’t know what to do,” I said, the words all coming out like one. “I need to speak to Deana. She’s a nurse here. She just went on the elevator.”
“Oh,” Cassy said. “Are you related to Deana?”
“No,” I said. “I know her, though. I trust her. I’d like for her to help me if possible.”
“Come on,” Cassy said, getting up from her chair. “Let’s get you into a room while I fill this out.”
She grabbed a laptop that was on a roller stand and pushed it ahead of her as we headed through double doors. She asked a few questions about Rose, some of which I had answers to and others I didn’t. She looked suspicious, and concerned, but brought me into the room and took Rose out of the car seat and put her in a crib. She checked her diaper and took her temperature, both things I had thankfully thought to do, and then looked just outside the door before poking her head back in to me.
“I’m going to call for Deana to come down,” she said. “You said you know her?”
“I do,” I said. “I just want to talk to her.”
“Okay. I’ll be back.”
With that, she closed the sliding door and left me in the room with Rose. Rose had cried herself into sleep for a few minutes, and when she woke up, the nurse told me to go ahead and pick her up. Now she was in my arms, and I was bouncing her, trying to keep her sleepy. It was working a little bit, but I still wasn’t sure I was doing it right. I felt like an imposter, just doing what I thought I had seen in movies.
My biggest worry was the nurse, Cassy. She seemed extremely nice and helpful, as nurses should be. But in that concern, perhaps she would call the police. After all, a strange man just wandered in with a baby he didn’t know all the details for and admitted they weren’t the father.
How was I going to explain that whole situation if she did call the cops? Why would they believe me, and wouldn’t they just call CPS? Clearly, the situation would warrant investigation, and it was possible they wouldn’t even let me take Rose home. The thought of her going into a foster system was too much. I couldn’t let her get taken away.
I stalked back and forth through the room, patting her backside and trying to soothe her. Slowly she started to calm down, and I had a moment of pride that my initial instincts were right. She wanted to be held, clearly, and the longer I walked with her and bounced her, the quieter she got.
A knock on the door preceded it sliding back. I turned to face it, not knowing what to expect. It could be a doctor or a security officer. Hell, there could have been a cop there on duty and she’d just called him over.
The person who appeared in the doorway was none of them.
Dee and I started at each other from across the tiny room for a moment. Her eyes went wide when she saw me, then flittered down to the baby in my arms, then back to mine. I felt like I could see the emotions run across her face, from shock to confusion, then to anger, then to acceptance, all in the span of a second or so. I could almost feel words she wanted to say, words I probably deserved to hear, stopped in her throat.
But she had a job to do. I saw that too. She looked back down at Rose, and everything seemed to click. She went from being the person I knew, who might want to cast me into the sun, to a health care worker who saw someone in need. Specifically, a baby in need.
