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“Well?” I asked. “What’s the thing?”
He sighed heavily, looking down at the baby and then back at me. There was a hesitation to tell me, even though he asked for me by name. Whatever it was he was going to say, he felt terrible about it. The worst fears went through my mind, and I felt the anger filtering out of me, being replaced by an anxiousness and empathy for him, despite everything.
“She’s my sister’s,” he said. “Kim is in a very, very bad place. She has been for a long time, but it’s way, way worse now.”
“What’s going on, Herman? Where is Kim?” I asked.
“I… I don’t know,” he said, his shoulders dropping. “I don’t know where she is. She showed up at my house a couple of days ago with this baby. She said she had her and that the baby’s father was in jail.”
“Whoa.”
“She said they were in some trouble with some people and she had to leave town. So, she showed up at my house.”
“I see,” I said. “So, what happened then? Where is Kim?”
“She left,” he grumbled.
“She left? Like, just left?”
“I woke up this morning to Rose crying and a note beside her,” he said. “She said she just couldn’t take it. She had to be with her boyfriend and that she trusted me to take care of the baby in the way she couldn’t. She left her birth certificate with me and some other stuff, but other than that, no instructions. Nothing. Just hey, here’s my baby, please raise her.”
“That is terrible,” I heard myself say, feeling a pang of sadness for him before reminding myself of who he was. I needed to stay professional.
“I just… I want to help my niece. I want to protect her and take care of her because I don’t know if Kim is going to come back. But she’s been crying for a long time and just stopped, and she’s running a fever. I just don’t know what to do,” he said. “Please, help me.”
I was dumbfounded. Not just that he would come to me for help—that actually made sense after hearing his story. But that his sister would just drop off her baby with him and run away, it made me wonder what happened to her. How had she taken such a dark turn in her life, especially with as protective and providing as Hawk had been to her even when they were younger. It must kill him to not be able to help his sister, and for him to suddenly be saddled with her daughter, it must seem in a way like a second chance. But he didn’t know what to do.
It left me torn.
I could help him, but only temporarily. There were so many things he needed to know, so many things he would need to be able to figure out. Doing all that on the fly without a partner, it seemed like it was impossible to give him all the information he needed.
Plus, I wasn’t sure what the legal situation would be. Technically, he wasn’t her caregiver. She was left, essentially, on his doorstep. While that might have flown fifty years ago, it wasn’t likely to work now. How was he even supposed to get out of here with her?
“I will do my best,” I said. “Dr. Davis is our pediatrician here. She’s really amazing from what I know of her.”
“No, please, it has to be you,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen if someone else comes and sees her. I don’t want them to take her away.”
“Hawk, I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “I’m not a pediatrician. I work upstairs. All I can do is get Dr. Davis to come in and see her. She will be able to tell you more about what is going on with her.”
“Dee,” he pleaded. “Please help me. I can’t lose her.”
It felt like someone was gripping my heart in a vice. As much history as I had with Hawk, as much as I wanted to tell him which bridge to jump off, there was still a part of me that hurt for him. The baby didn’t deserve that. Hell, no one deserved what he had been through either.
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll do what I can. What are her symptoms again?”
“Just the fever and the crying,” he said, sounding relieved if anxious. “I tried feeding her, changing her, everything. She just wouldn’t stop crying. I thought maybe she just wanted to be held, but I didn’t want to screw anything up, and I brought her in. When the other nurse left, I picked her up and she calmed down, but she’s still running a fever.”
“Okay,” I said. “Alright, look. It could be any number of things, but most likely she just has a fever and wants to be held, okay? But Dr. Davis will know. And if she has any questions or concerns about your situation, I will talk to her and see what I can do. But there’s no getting out of talking to her now. You’re in the hospital. They checked you in. People will ask questions if you just disappear. And now you’ve roped me into it, so they will be hounding me too.”
