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Mom: That’s what he was saying when he went in with Nova a little while ago. I won’t know more until they come out. How is Cali?
I heard a groan from behind the bathroom door and clenched my fingers around my phone for a moment before forcing them to loosen their hold.
Me: Hurting. Angry. Broken.
Me: Her milk came in. Right now, she’s taking a shower with the nurse’s help.
Mom: Nova is upset that you aren’t up here with Justice, but I think you’re making the right decision to stay close to Cali. She needs to see that you’re here for her, not just the baby.
At least Mom wasn’t giving me grief and making me feel like I was abandoning my child because I wasn’t up in the NICU. The guilt still churned in me, though. I wanted to be up there with Justice, but she had a full team of nurses and doctors—plus Nova and my mom—to look after her. Cali wasn’t letting anyone close. If I weren’t forcing the issue, she would have already had me kicked out of the hospital.
My baby girl might have been fighting for her life, but her mother was just as fragile. Maybe more so. Justice had a strong spirit, just like every other Hannigan woman I knew. Lis was vulnerable. She thought no one cared, but I was going to prove to her that she was the center of my world.
Somehow.
The door pushed outward, and the nurse stepped through, guiding Lis out of the bathroom. I rushed forward to assist when she wobbled slightly on her feet. My arm went around her waist, taking some of her weight, but she stopped mid-step at my touch.
“Fuck, can’t you just leave already?” she muttered. “It’s what you’re good at after all.”
Ignoring her comment, I lifted her off her feet a few inches and carried her toward the bed.
“No,” she cried. “That hurts!”
Instantly, I had her back on her feet, but I didn’t release her. Her hands touched her midsection, her face pale from renewed pain. “I’m sorry, blue eyes. I didn’t realize.”
“Carrying me like that makes the C-section incision stretch. And when you lifted me upstairs in the NICU, you scrunched me up, and the pain became too much.” She tried to shrug off my touch, and I released one hand from her hip but kept the other in place as a precaution—and because touching her was the only thing that didn’t cause me pain. “Garret, damn it, I’m not helpless. Just back up and give me some room to breathe.”
Scrubbing my free hand over my face, I took a half step away from her, but that was as far as my body would allow me to go. Any farther than that and my feet wouldn’t listen to my brain.
“I’ll just get that wheelchair so you can go up to visit with your sweet baby girl,” the nurse commented as she walked toward the door.
“Thank you,” Lis muttered, fidgeting with her clothes.
Glancing down, I saw that she’d changed into a pair of pajama bottoms and a matching top. Her stomach was still slightly rounded from carrying Justice, and a few inches of her empty baby bump peeked out, showing me her bruised bikini line from the C-section incision.
“Holy fuck,” I breathed, pulling the top of her pants down enough to see the scar that went from one pelvic bone to the other. “Jesus, Lis. No wonder you’re in so much pain. Nova told me what they had to do to get Justice out of you, but I had no idea this was the result.”
“She told you?” Lis tossed at me, sounding even angrier than she had only moments before. “What exactly did she explain to you?”
A warning went off in my head, screaming at me to handle this with caution, but I honestly didn’t know how or even why I needed to. “She said you had a C-section—”
“Yeah? And did she tell you that they had to rip out everything once Justice was pulled from my body?” she demanded. “Did she tell you there was so much trauma from where Manuel beat me—for days—that nothing was healing? And the bigger our daughter grew, the more damage my body sustained, until I couldn’t keep her safely inside where she needed to be? Did your sister explain to you that I will never be able to have another baby? I’m twenty-two years old and already going into menopause!”
“No,” I said quietly, everything she’d just shouted at me hitting me like a ton of bricks. Her pain was a physical entity, one that weighed me down, made me ache for her. “Nova didn’t mention any of that, Lis. She only told me about Justice.” I cupped her face, wiping away her angry tears with my thumbs. “Listen to me, baby. Please listen. I didn’t even know you were pregnant until I got on the plane with my sister the other night. The news that you were alive was all I needed for her to say before I was running for the nearest exit. Once we got in the air, she told me what happened—Ramirez took the two of you and that you were in the hospital recovering from preterm labor. She said our baby girl needed me, but I knew she was wrong. Justice needs all of us, but you are the one who needs me.”
“I don’t need anyone except Justice. It’s just her and me from now on. No more liars who say they want the best for me, but then put me through hell all over again.” She slapped my hands away. “And what do you mean, you didn’t know I was pregnant? I told you, Garret. I said I thought I was pregnant, and you walked away as if we meant nothing to you.”
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I made my own confession. “You told me who you were, and I realized how stupid I’d been. I didn’t know how I hadn’t recognized you. Nova said it was my brain shutting down so I wouldn’t have to face how badly I’d treated you when we were kids. Maybe she’s right. Fuck, I don’t know. But you said ‘Calista Ramirez,’ and every vile thing I’d ever said to you on social media flooded into my head. I didn’t hear anything else that you said after that. Eventually, I got so sick of my own past behavior, and I left. Nothing you said past your name penetrated my mind that night, Lis.”
“Bullshit,” she hissed. “You can’t use that as an excuse for abandoning me and your child. You walked away, and then Manuel found me again. You weren’t fucking there when I needed you!”
“I know,” I choked out. “I know I messed up, but if you’ll give me a chance, I’ll make it up to you.”
“Make it up to me?” she repeated with a dry laugh. “How do you make up for the fact that he beat me until I couldn’t even stand? I was unconscious for days while he did only God knows what to my body. I struggled every damn day to keep Justice safely inside my body, but it was too much… Too much,” she whispered brokenly, shaking her head. Tears spilled down her face, and my knees threatened to give out. I’d let her go through all of that. Alone. How the fuck did I make up for all that pain and suffering? How did I prove to her that I wasn’t the same man I’d been before I’d thought I lost her forever?
“I wasn’t strong enough.” Her voice cracked as more tears spilled from her pretty eyes. “I couldn’t protect her. And you… You were supposed to protect us both, but you weren’t here.”
Cali
