Thirty-One
Nathan stared at Colson Hunter, his emotions running the gamut from fury to compassion and back again. Hunter reached out tentatively to shake his hand, and Nate took it, truly uncertain if it was anger or possessiveness or sheer terror that motivated the fierceness of his own grasp. Without speaking, they released their hold on each other. Nathan turned away quickly, ostensibly to adjust the dials on the fetal monitor that displayed the baby’s heartbeat.
Struggling to put aside the unsettling feelings that meeting this man had incited, he tried to remember from his obstetrical training what the safe parameters were for the baby’s heartbeat. The machine emitted a steady whoosh, whoosh, but the pace seemed quite rapid to him.
“Did they tell you what this number should be?” he asked Daria, trying to keep his voice even, painfully aware of Hunter’s presence behind him.
“It’s been staying between 115 and 140, I think,” she told him, her voice forced and artificial. “I heard a nurse say they didn’t want it to go much above 150.”
“Okay,” he said. “Good.”
He continued to busy himself with the medical equipment in the room. It had been half a decade since he’d worked with such technology, but some things were beginning to come back to him. He took his time, acutely aware that he would have to look Colson Hunter in the eye again at some point. Right now he wasn’t sure he trusted what his own response might be. He felt as though Hunter’s eyes were boring into his back. And the fact that his daughter was happily ensconced in this man’s arms caused his own heart to beat too quickly and a bitter taste to rise in his throat.
He checked the monitor one more time and straightened. “You’re sure you feel okay, Daria?”
She nodded wanly.
“I’m going to go check on something at the nurse’s station. I’ll be right back.”
As a paltry atonement for his cowardice, he met Hunter’s gaze and nodded as he left the room. He spoke with the head nurse. After he was satisfied that the reading on the fetal monitor was within reason and that they were watching Daria closely, he walked away from her room. He simply couldn’t go back in there with the man who had taken over his life while he suffered alone in the jungle. Is this how God rewards his servants? Stop it, he chided himself. But his emotions did not submit. As he walked down the hallway the disturbing scenes continued to play over and over like a film on a continuous loop. In his mind’s eye, he watched his daughter run into Colson Hunter’s arms again and again. Daria’s quiet introduction pounded in his head, a haunting soundtrack to the film. Nate, this is Cole, she’d said. He wondered if she had rehearsed her words, if there was significance to the order of the introduction. He seemed to remember that the rules of etiquette gave special importance to the person who was introduced first? Did Daria know that? Or was it merely happenstance that had put her words in that particular order?
The hallway ended in a small waiting room comfortably furnished with overstuffed chairs and a small television set that droned a continuous weather report. The room was empty, and Nate sank into the nearest chair and put his head in his hands.
What in heaven’s name are we going to do? How are we ever going to make sense of this whole mixed-up disaster? And how deep will the wounds be for all of us when everything is finally settled?
Above him, the perky weather girl was predicting severe thunderstorms in the Kansas City area. How appropriate, Nate thought.
Cole watched Nathan Camfield leave the room. In spite of the threat the man was to his own happiness, he couldn’t help but put himself in Nate’s shoes. How must it have felt for him to watch the daughter of his own flesh run into another man’s arms? Instinctively he tightened his grip on Natalie. He looked down at her and saw that her eyes were heavy. She had her thumb firmly in her mouth, but she kept one hooded eye on her mother.
Cole went to the chair beside Daria’s bed and sat down, arranging Natalie’s spindly legs across his lap, turning her head so she could still see Daria, until he could sense she was comfortable.
“Daria?”
She gazed up at him, the sadness in her eyes spilling over in tears.
“Hey…it’ll be all right.” He wished he could believe his own words.
“Oh, Cole…how can it possibly be all right?”
“Shh,” he whispered, knowing that she was talking about much more than the baby, but choosing to pretend otherwise. “You just need to stay calm until this baby is safe. That’s all you need to think about for now.”
She nodded, closed her eyes, and burrowed back into the firm pillows.
He resisted the urge to caress her face, to take her into his arms and reassure her, as he would have before Nate had come back into the picture. Even taking her hand seemed too fraught with implications.
On his lap, Natalie relaxed. Within minutes her thumb fell from her mouth and her deep, even breaths told him she was asleep. He sent up a prayer of gratitude for one more precious opportunity to hold her in his arms. He couldn’t allow himself to think that this might be the last time he would hold her.
Daria opened her eyes again and looked from Natalie to Cole. “Do you think she understands?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Probably not everything.”
“Cole, if”—her voice broke, but she went on—“if I lose the baby, please promise me you won’t blame God.”
He shook his head and swallowed hard. “I won’t, Daria. But you’re not going to lose the baby. The doctor said if you can just go another week or two there’s every chance that he’ll be fine.”
Daria nodded and turned to gaze out the window. Tears brimmed in her eyes and shone brightly, but she didn’t weep.
He tried not to think how final her words had sounded, as though it was her last request of him. He watched her closely, longing to find some hint of her decision in her voice, in her eyes. Of course he wouldn’t speak to her of such things now. He’d always been sensitive to her every thought and emotion. Only now did he realize what a gift it had been.
The whir of the fetal monitor, the antiseptic odors of the hospital, even the hushed sound of the nurses’ footsteps on the tiled floor in the hallway brought back memories of the time Bridgette had spent in the hospital when Carson was born. If that happened—God forbid that it happen again—he knew he would lose Daria forever. God, don’t let this baby die! Don’t let this be Carson all over again. Please, God. Don’t do that to me again. His prayer was selfish, but he prayed fervently nevertheless.
He shifted Natalie on his lap and rubbed his face with a work-roughened hand, forcing his thoughts back to the present. Daria needed him. And for now he would sit beside her. He would hold the child he loved as much as life itself on his lap, and he would wait for as many days as God granted them.