HER BABY'S SECRET FATHER Page 4

  Now, Dave pushed back in his chair and his no-nonsense stare sent a loud and clear message. “Strict policy. No information about when or to whom your sperm gets delivered. But you already know that. Hell, you could be a successful sperm donor a dozen times by now. But what does it matter? Theoretically, the kids aren’t yours, remember?”

  Knowing full well Dave’s stubborn side, Terrance backed off.

  Later that night, in the enclosed racquetball court at the gym, Terrance broached another subject that had been niggling in the back of his mind. He thwapped a hard, fast ball with his racket and saw a drip of perspiration fly off his head.

  Steamy and hot, the room vibrated with intense competition. Rubber-soled skids, grunts and the satisfying pop of a well-hit ball reverberated around the court when the men played.

  Dave lunged, but missed the return, winding up with his belly to the boards. Terrance offered his hand and hoisted his partner back to standing. A nonverbal agreement for a water break seemed in order.

  After a long gulp, Terrance blurted his question. “So, what happens if one of your donors forgets to tell you about something?”

  Dave swallowed his drink and poured a bit over his head. “Our screening is thorough, and we pick up any of the major problems right down to potential for color blindness.” He took another drink. “Trust me, we’re extensive. We would have told you if you had any possibility of major problems.”

  Terrance took a swing at an imaginary ball with his racket, then wiped his forehead on the shoulder of his shaggy, sleeveless gray sweatshirt. “I mean a physical trait that may have been overlooked.”

  “You mean like an unsightly mole on Aunt Edna’s face? Or the donor had a nose job?”

  “Yeah, something along those lines,” Terrance said. He bent over and touched the toes of his overpriced cross training shoes to stretch out his back.

  “Are you telling me you had your nose fixed?”

  Terrance shot up. “Hell, no. But when I was born I had an extra pinky finger on each hand. Evidently my grandfather did, too.”

  Dave tensed his eyes. “Did you willfully not tell us that?”

  Terrance served with a vengeance. “Honest to God, it slipped my mind. I hadn’t thought about it in years, until recently.”

  Dave returned the ball with a low, fast cut.

  “So what now?” Terrance teased, before diving for the ball. He grunted and smashed a hit that landed way at the back line. “Are you going to throw my frozen sperm out?”

  Out of breath from running fast and hard, Dave swung and hit a strong return, faking his opponent out.

  Terrance growled with a swing, but missed.

  “Too late,” Dave said. “Donor #683 turned out to be a very popular make and model.”

  Dave scooped up the rubber ball and tossed it into the air for a powerful serve.

  Terrance smiled to himself and swung.

  Mission accomplished.

  *

  “Can’t you let me stay at least another day?” Jaynie said, protesting against the inevitable the next morning with her obstetrician.

  “You’re in great shape. I already let you stay your guaranteed forty-eight hours. There really isn’t any reason to justify your staying any longer.”

  “If I was in such great shape, why did I have my baby two months early, Dr. Marks?”

  “We can’t always explain what happens during a pregnancy, Jaynie.” The tall, silver-haired woman stood before Jaynie in brown slacks, white blouse and a doctor’s coat. Her brows were pinched and she looked perplexed. “Sometimes the explanation is as simple as an infection. You had a low-grade fever, and as it turns out you had a mild bladder infection. You probably just thought you were urinating a lot because of the baby.” The doctor scrunched her eyes and then raised her eyebrows. “I wish I had answers for everything, but, bottom line, you delivered early, and your baby is small but healthy.”

  “What’s your take on how long Tara will be on the ventilator?” Jaynie couldn’t resist asking a second doctor, but was fearful of what her response might be.

  “They want Tara to use her energy growing, not fighting for air, so they’re just helping her out for a while. A week…two?”

  “With all that stuff she’s hooked up to, I can’t even hold her.” She fought the urge to cry, again, and saw the room go blurry, but refused to give in. “How does she know who her mother is?”

  “She knows your voice. Just talk to her. Didn’t you do that when you were pregnant?”

  Jaynie nodded remembering how Tara had squirmed in the Isolette incubator when she spoke to her.

  “Then keep it up; she recognizes you. There’ll come a time when you’ll get to pick her up and bond.” Dr. Marks walked closer to the hospital bed, separated from another patient by a thin curtain, and placed her hand on Jaynie’s shoulder. “Hang in. Things will work out— just not how you planned.” She softened her business manner, tilted her head and looked into Jaynie’s eyes with a sly smile. “Word is that they bathe the newborns in NICU at eight a.m. every single day. I’m sure they can always use an extra pair of hands—and who knows? Maybe you’ll get to hold her sooner than you think.”

  The student nurse assigned to Jaynie’s care slipped into the room with a stack of sheets in her arms.

  The voice of Jaynie’s roommate on the other side of the curtain pitched in. “You know, you’ll be welcome to spend all the time you need in the newborn growing nursery once your baby has been moved from NICU. My first baby spent a couple of weeks there.”

  The young nurse piped up. “I did my last rotation in the newborn nursery. They have La-Z-Boy chairs to doze on, and the parents can come and go as they please.”

  The doctor listened to Jaynie’s lungs and heart with a cold stethoscope bell. She made a few notations on the chart and walked towards the door. “Be sure to drink lots of water to help your milk.”

  “I will,” Jaynie said.

  The slender woman turned at the door. “I’ll see you in six weeks, but call if you need anything before then.”

  Jaynie nodded, rolled onto her side and fought off another wave of emotion. Would her eyes ever quit tearing?

  She rose, gathered her clothes and hurried toward the shower.

  “Hold on, Ms Winchester,” said the young nurse with huge blue eyes and shiny brown hair. “It’s time to check your fundus.”

  “Oh, joy.” Jaynie screwed up her mouth, but dutifully got back on the bed.

  As the student nurse prodded and palpated her abdomen, Jaynie focused on another problem. She’d been trying to ignore the tight, heavy feeling in her breasts that she’d woken up with. But now she couldn’t avoid it. Normally an average-sized woman, today she felt as if she had footballs on her chest. All she could think about was seeing Tara before she left the hospital, and using the breast pump. She’d leave her first mother’s milk for when her baby would finally get fed the traditional way, through her mouth.

  She needs to gain at least one pound before she’ll be able to come home. Well, Jaynie thought for sure that she had at least a pound’s worth of milk in her breasts right now.

  After the nurse had left, Jaynie stood in the warm shower stream and tried to relax, shocked by her Pamela Anderson proportions. My, my, my. I didn’t know I had it in me. She smiled despite the ache in her chest.

  Within the next half-hour she’d dressed, got discharged from the ward, and headed down the hall to see Tara. She wore her brand new super-sized nursing bra and a button-up cotton blouse, with a pair of elastic-waist denim pants that Kim had dropped off the night before. The second most important thing she looked forward to, after bringing Tara home, was getting back to her usual one hundred and twenty-five pounds. She’d only lost ten pounds with the birth, which meant she had fifteen to go.

  Once she entered the brightly wallpapered hospital nursery, all thoughts passed from her mind except for Tara. She thought of how she’d feel holding her in her arms and offering her breast to feed for th
e first time.

  Entering the NICU, she swore Tara had already fattened up a bit. Her baby looked busy, in constant motion, stretching, twitching and jerking, swatting at the air, very much alive.

  Joy jumped in Jaynie’s heart at the sight. If only she could nurse her.

  After cooing and patting her child, and being reassured by the nurse that all was well, Jaynie tore herself away to pay a visit to the electric breast pump. She washed her nipple with an antiseptic wipe, read the instructions on the machine, placed a small sterile plastic container on the apparatus, and plugged herself in. A strange tight suction latched on and rhythmically pulled on her tender breast. Weird sensations circulated through her flesh and head until a feeling she’d never experienced before, a soothing “let down,” occurred in her milk ducts. Automatically, she relaxed.

  Her mind wandered to coworkers, friends, and then back to her daughter. “If they could see me now,” she mumbled with a chuckle, feeling somewhat like a dairy cow.

  Being raised by a single parent herself, Jaynie had never intended to repeat her mother’s plight. At least that had been her conviction until the age of thirty-three had started breathing down her neck. She’d always known she wanted to have a baby, and realized statistically it was best to be married and have both parents to share duties, but time had marched on. If she’d waited too long, she might not have ever have had a chance to be a mother.

  So she’d given her boyfriend Eric an ultimatum—either they got married or broke up—but he hadn’t budged, and that was the last she’d seen of him.

  That was the day she’d started her research and formed the plan to become a mom without being married. Jaynie hadn’t wanted any of Eric’s gene pool in her child, and she would never even have considered such a dirty trick on a man—even a conniving jerk like her ex-boyfriend. Besides, she’d needed time to increase her bank account, so she’d patiently waited.

  Instead of moping around with a broken heart, Jaynie had gone to work. She’d done more research on artificial insemination and found the well-reputed sperm bank. The cost had been reasonable, its reputation flawless, the technique ethical and, most importantly, anonymous. She’d never know who the donor was and he’d never know her. And, best of all, the office was close to Mercy Hospital.

  Jaynie finished pumping her other breast, then collected and labeled the tiny, plastic, four-ounce bottle to leave at the nurses’ station for freezing. The container felt warm. Instead of rich thick milk, as she’d imagined, she saw thin, watery white fluid inside, like the non-fat milk she drank at home.

  When she’d finished packing up, she swung the door open, stepped into the hallway—and practically bumped into Terrance’s gorgeous and substantial chest.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TERRANCE held Jaynie’s arms to help steady her. His affable smile widened into a sexy grin. He scanned her with an easy gaze. She flushed, partly from their close proximity and the fact that he held his grip longer than necessary, and partly at being caught with breast milk in her hand.

  “You okay?” He glanced at the container.

  The heat spread, circling her cheeks. “Fine. I just made a deposit to Tara’s trust fund.” She rolled her eyes at the terrible joke, while desperately trying to draw attention away from the progressive full body-blush.

  Terrance smiled before stepping back and cocking his head. “Have you been discharged from the hospital?”

  “Yeah, about an hour ago.” Her hands danced from her waist to behind her back, in an attempt to hide the container. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, antsy.

  “Who’s taking you home?”

  She cleared her throat, finding it hard to choose her words. “I’m…taking myself home. My, um, car’s been in the parking lot since the other day, when I came to work.”

  He folded his arms. “Oh, right. Tara was a surprise.” He lifted an eyebrow. “But where’s her father?”

  Jaynie turned her eyes away and studied her hands, once again stumped for words.

  “Strike that. I’ve stepped over the line.” He ducked his head to look into her face. “It’s none of my business.”

  “No, it’s…”

  He tilted her chin up. “Being there for her delivery and all, I forgot I’m just the respiratory therapist. We quit dating and you found someone else. Forgive me, okay?”

  Thoughts of missed opportunities, and “what-ifs” flooded her brain. Tears brimmed, with annoying post-partum regularity, and Jaynie blinked a couple of times in defense. “Listen, I’d rather you hear it from me than at the hospital watercooler.” She looked at her feet and the sensible walking shoes she wore. “There is no father. I’m doing this on my own.”

  She glanced up and saw a shift in his demeanor from concern to curiosity. She owed him an explanation, but decided not to delve too deeply.

  “Tara and I are a family of two. And…I didn’t get involved with anyone after you. In case that’s what you’re wondering.”

  Relief dawned on his face like a sunburst, but confusion quickly clouded his gaze.

  “Well, if you were just looking for a—how shall I say it?—partner, you could have asked me, you know.”

  The body-blush forged into a brush fire under her skin. She made a dry swallow. “You were adamant about never wanting to be a father. Remember?”

  “Right.” He scratched his jaw. “Okay. Forget I said that, let alone thought it.” He looked flustered, with an appealing shade of crimson breaking across his cheeks that she suspected matched her own.

  Sure, guys liked being in on the fun part, but the follow through? Forget about it!

  “The dynamic duo—Jaynie and Peanut.” Terrance smiled, making it clear he wasn’t making a value judgment on her decision to go it alone. “Listen, if you need any help for anything, now or later, you know my number. Feel free to call. Anytime.” He stepped away, nodding toward the container in her hand. “You probably need to get that to the NICU.”

  Jaynie glanced at the ceiling and gave a relieved smile. “Right,” she said, wishing she could get a grip on the excess emotions running rampantly in her brain.

  Once she’d said goodbye, she wandered down the hall and pondered how none of the multitude of books she’d read had explained the rollercoaster ride of pregnancy, delivery and post-partum adequately.

  How would she handle an empty house and nursery? Jaynie made a quick decision to close up the freshly painted and stenciled baby’s room the moment she arrived home. Being there without Tara would be torture. All she wanted was the most natural desire of any new mother: to hold and nurse her baby. Yet she couldn’t even do that.

  Jaynie hovered over the incubator in the NICU. She wanted Tara to open her eyes and look at her, but the preemie was sound asleep. What could possibly be going on in her mind? Was she in pain? What kind of life started out being surrounded by cold, noisy monitors, blinking lights and strange hands poking and prodding, instead of feeling a mother’s love and embrace?

  “I’ll do everything in my power to make it up to you,” she murmured to her daughter.

  The Feng Shui plan popped into her head, and she used the outer hallway phone to call the pulmonary floor. The ward clerk answered in her usual harried manner.

  “Hey, Annette, it’s Jaynie. Is Kim there?”

  Maybe she couldn’t hold her baby the way she wanted to today, but she would get help making her future homecoming perfect.

  “What’s up, Mommy?” Kim’s friendly chirp answered.

  “Remember the Feng Shui reading is on for tonight, right?” Dead silence. “What time are you coming over?”

  “Oh, shoot. ‘You Know Who’ just asked me to dinner. My mind went blank and I said yes. Can we make it tomorrow night?”

  Jaynie felt a rock drop in her stomach. First night home without her baby…alone.

  “Never mind, I’ll cancel,” Kim jumped back in.

  “No!” Jaynie desperately wanted company, but Kim had been practically stalking the pharm
acy doc for weeks, and things were heating up between them. Opportunity seldom knocked in Kim’s world of men. She’d dated some real losers.

  As a friend, Jaynie didn’t want to stand in her way now that the new guy was showing some potential. “Keep your date.” She feigned a cheerful tone. “Tomorrow night will be fine.”

  After hanging up, she paced the long, narrow hospital hallway feeling adrift. She needed her baby in her arms to help her feel like a mother.

  This must be how surrogates feel.

  All the reading and preparing she’d done hadn’t addressed the possibility of going home before her baby. She’d never even considered it. She thought about her own mother, two thousand miles away and unable to get off work until her scheduled family leave eight weeks down the line.

  Feeling at odds, and unsure of what to do with herself, she made a quick decision. She’d approach one of the other mothers she’d seen in the NICU.

  Her steps grew more confident as she set out on her mission to befriend another preemie mother. They might be strangers, but they had premature babies in common, to which no other person she knew could relate, and each might need the other for support.

  Jaynie re-entered the quiet, institutionally drab NICU with new hope, determined to hang around for the rest of the day and form her own support group.

  *

  After comparing notes, encouraging each other, even having a long and enjoyable lunch in the cafeteria together, Jaynie and her new friend, Arpita Singh, stopped by the hospital gift store to check out the specially priced preemie car seats. She got so excited that she bought one—before figuring out how to get it all the way to the employee parking lot.

  At four o’clock in the afternoon she could no longer put off the inevitable—going home. Thinking how ingenious she was, she plopped the large and awkward box into the seat of a hospital wheelchair and pushed it like a shopping cart to her car.

  A dreary gray sky dripped a fine drizzle as she arrived at her SUV’s trunk. She navigated the cumbersome box out of the wheelchair to the best of her ability. With legs spread wide, balancing and wrangling the cardboard container, she heard a familiar voice.