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White noise rushed into my ears. Just one long, loud buzz as she continued to speak slowly, but I couldn’t hear her over the sound any longer.
My father had a baby. Another child? Jesus, he was like fifty, and he’d been having an affair with someone? Having babies with them?
“Nova?” It was Mr. Lief’s voice that snapped me back to the conversation.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea…” I had no idea, what? I had no idea that my dad, who’d just died, was a cheater? I had no idea who this woman was? That I had a baby something?
Mrs. Fischer’s face was understanding. “I fully comprehend that this is a shock, Nova. Mr. Lief reacted much the same way when the Department reached out to him.”
Mr. Lief was shaking his head, like he was still in shock.That makes two of us, buddy.
Mrs. Fischer, with her gray and brown hair, sucked in a deep breath. “The Department always prefers children to go with a family member. The ties of blood and belonging are important. You’re the only blood family he has.”
My heart felt like it was going to explode in my chest.
“But I want you to know that you aren’t obligated to take him in. I understand this is a shock, especially on the heels of your parents’ deaths, so take some time to think about it.”
“If I don’t take him, what happens?” The words tasted like poison on my tongue, but I had to know.
She nodded her head gently. “He’s only six weeks old, Nova. He’ll stay in foster placement and will probably—most likely—be adopted. Babies have an easier time of it than older children. Although, he does have a congenital heart defect that may make it more difficult—”
“He’s sick?” I was going to throw up.
“He has a congenital heart defect, called an atrial septal defect. It’s nothing to be worried about just yet, but he may need surgery in the future if it doesn’t close on its own.”
“And people won’t want to adopt him because he’s what, bruised fruit?”
Mrs. Fischer shook her head. “I don’t think that will be the case at all, but adoption itself is a costly process, and most families can’t take on the added burden of a medically unwell child.”
I flopped back into the couch cushions, my brain reeling with the intrusive thoughts that were hammering me from all sides.
My dad had a six-week-old son.
My half-brother had a heart defect and was an orphan.
My parents were dead. Hell,Iwas an orphan.
Was this what my parents had been talking about when they’d crashed their car into a guardrail on the freeway? The police had said they’d lost control, but had it been because my parents were fighting over his affair?
An affair with someone young enough to have a baby?
I’d thought my parents had been happy. They’d loved each other for as long as I could remember, like a true kind of love. They’d often danced together in the kitchen. My dad still used to slap my mother on the ass when she gave him coffee in the mornings.
They’dlovedeach other. But this baby was proof that maybe they hadn’t, really. Maybe it had all been a lie.
“I understand this is a lot for you to take in, Nova. You don’t have to give me an answer now.”
I was mad at my father, which was odd, because fifteen minutes ago, I would’ve never thought I could picture his face without feeling grief. But now I thought about him and this orphaned baby, and I feltangry.
But not angry enough that I would give up a remaining piece of him. That I would set someone else adrift in the world when I could give them a past, a history. Not so mad that I’d forsake the last person in the world who shared my bloodline, let him go to a family who might not be able to pay for his heart problems, or let him sit in foster care because surgeries were too expensive and no one wanted him.
I shook my head at Janette Fischer. “I don’t need to think about it. Tell me what I need to do to adopt him.”
ChapterTwo
NOVA
Preparingfor a newborn was not an easy task. There was a reason you had to use the whole nine months pre-birth to get prepared.
