Angie felt as if she were falling headlong, tumbling. All the love she’d been trying to rein in came flooding out. She kissed his velvet-soft cheek, smelled the sweetness of his skin. “Oh, Con,” she whispered, her eyes stinging. “He looks just like Lauren.”
“I don’t know what to feel,” Conlan said after a minute.
Angie heard the confusion in his voice, the inchoate pain of a loss he feared was coming, and for once, she was the strong one. She looked at him. “Feel me,” she said, touching his hand. “I’m steady. I’m here. And no matter what, we’re going to be okay.”
THIRTY-TWO
Lauren made it a whole twenty-four hours without seeing her son. She took no chances at all. Whenever a nurse came into her room, she said, I’m the birth mother; talk to the Malones about the baby, before the nurse could say a thing.
By the end of the next day, she was feeling good enough to hate being here. The food was terrible, the view sucked, the television hardly got any channels, and worst of all, she could hear the nursery. Every time a baby cried, Lauren had to blink away tears. She tried rereading the USC catalog over and over, but it didn’t help.
She kept hearing the high-pitched, stuttering newborn wail. Somewhere along the way she’d started thinking of her baby as Johnny, and she’d sit there, eyes squeezed shut, fists clenched, saying Someone take care of Johnny.…
She was having a hard time of it, to be sure, but she would have been okay if Angie hadn’t visited her last night.
Lauren had been asleep, but barely. She’d heard the highway noise outside and tried to pretend it was the ocean, lulling her to sleep.
“Lauren?”
She’d expected a night nurse, someone checking on her one last time before lights out. But it was Angie.
She’d looked terrible, ravaged almost. Her eyes had been swollen and red and her attempts at smiling were miserable failures. She’d talked to Lauren for a long time, brushing her hair and bringing her drinks of water, until she finally said what she’d come to say.
“You need to see him.”
Lauren had looked up into Angie’s eyes and thought: There it is. The love Lauren had looked for all of her life.
“I’m afraid.”
Angie had touched her then, so gently. “I know, honey. That’s why you need to do it.”
Long after Angie had left, Lauren thought about it. In her heart, she knew Angie was right. She needed to hold her son, to kiss his tiny cheek and tell him she loved him. She needed to say good-bye.
But she was afraid. It hurt so much to think about leaving him. How would it feel to actually hold him?
It was nearing dawn when she made her decision. She leaned sideways and rang the nurse’s bell. When the nurse showed up, Lauren said, “Bring me my baby, please.”
The next ten minutes seemed to last forever.
Finally, the nurse returned, and Lauren saw her tiny, pink-faced son for the first time. He had David’s eyes, and her mother’s pointed chin. And her own red hair. Here was her whole life in one small face.
“Do you know how to hold him?” the nurse asked.
Lauren shook her head. Her throat was too tight for words. The nurse gently positioned the baby in Lauren’s arms.
She barely noticed when the nurse left.
She stared down at this baby of hers, this miracle in her arms, and even though he was so tiny, he seemed like the whole world. Her heart swelled at the sight of him until it actually hurt to breathe.
He was her family.
Family.
All her life she’d been looking for someone who was related to her, and here he was, snuggled in her arms. She’d never known a grandparent, a cousin, an aunt or uncle, or a sibling, but she had a son. “Johnny,” she whispered, touching his tiny fist.
He held her finger.
She gasped. How could she ever leave him? The thought made her cry.
She’d promised—
But she hadn’t known, hadn’t understood. How could she have known how it would feel to love your own child?
I’m not Sarah Dekker, she’d said to Angie only a few weeks ago. I’d never hurt you like that.
Lauren squeezed her eyes shut. How could she betray Angie now?
Angie. The woman who was waiting and ready to be the best mom Johnny could have. The woman who had shown Lauren what love was, what a family could be.
Slowly, she opened her eyes and gazed down at her son through a stinging blur of tears. “But I’m your mommy,” she whispered.
Some choices, no matter how smart and right, just couldn’t be made.
David was at her bedside that afternoon. He looked ragged, tired; his smile was faded around the edges.
“My mom thinks he looks like her dad,” he said after another of their long, awkward silences.
Lauren looked up at him. “You’re sure about all this, right?”