Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
I stared at him, his eyes reflecting what he thought of continuing to deal with Margot.
“If you don’t do this, then how will we live with ourselves?” I asked. “She already thinks this is your kid for some reason. You and I both know it isn’t. Linc knows it isn’t. Your club knows it isn’t,” I swallowed. “That’s all that matters at this point.”
Before he could reply to that, the nurse, Estella, joined us.
“You’re the daddy?”
I watched him clear his throat, stare at me with fear in his eyes as he struggled with doing the right thing.
The moment he decided to take that leap, I saw it. I knew that this would no longer be a debate between us.
“Yes,” he answered, nodding solidly. Surely. “I’m her father.”
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Estella grinned. “Now that you’re here, we have a few questions. We’ve already received the okay to add this lovely woman to the approved visitor’s list by doctor Tommy. Anyone else that you would like approved, you can fill out on this little card,” she tapped the card attached to the bed that the baby was in. “And I’ll check with it. If they’re not on the approved visitor’s list, I’ll give you a call. Your verbal approval will be enough until we can add them to the list. Now, am I to understand that the mother is not approved?”
Jessie grunted. “You got that right.”
Estella frowned. “Okay. I’ll get that added to her chart as well. Another thing we want to go over with you,” she started to point things out. “This is the feeding tube. A lot of times when drug addicted babies are first brought in here, they’re given a feeding tube because they find it hard to eat. We can’t have that on top of all the other struggles they’re experiencing, so we inserted the tube after her bath. From now on, she’ll be fed this way until the doctor believes she’s ready to move on to a bottle. She will also have oxygen on until she is able to maintain her oxygen saturation. Right now, she doesn’t need to have a tube down her throat for breathing, but it can still happen. ” Estelle continued on explaining about the tubes and lines.
And all through this, Jessie still hadn’t looked at the baby.
My stomach knotted at the realization.
“The crying is going to continue, unfortunately, until her system is cleared of the toxins that the mother introduced to her through the placenta,” she continued. “So don’t be alarmed. It’s scary, and she’s in pain, but we’re monitoring her levels, and if anything is needed, we will provide it for her immediately. We want her to be as comfortable as possible.”
I agreed with that assessment. I’d spent the last hour trying to sing to her, but it hadn’t helped the slightest bit.
“Feel free to ask us if you have any questions.”
And with that Estella was gone, leaving me with Jessie, who I might add, was staring blankly at the wheels at the bottom of the baby’s bed.
“Why won’t you look at her?” I asked him quietly.
The words so low that they were barely audible, even to my own ears.
“Because thinking about everything she’s been through while hearing her cries makes me want to go down a floor to where Margot is and kill her with my bare hands. Just wrap my thick fingers around her throat and squeeze the life out of her.”
My belly flipped at the thought.
“Guess it’s good that she’s under guard then, isn’t it?” I grumbled.
That was when he took a deep breath and finally turned his eyes toward the tiny little baby.
The little girl who weighed less than a five-pound sack of potatoes.
Not at the monitors. Not at the stickers and signs attached to her incubator. But at her. At the little girl he’d just agreed to take under his wing for the rest of her life.
And I saw him deflate.
An expression of utter devastation took over his face the moment he first looked at her. He took in how tiny she was, and the way her tiny little body was shaking and gasping as she cried—something that’d been happening the entire time that I’d been in the NICU with her.
His face turned to stone, but his eyes—those were so deeply disturbed by what he saw that I wasn’t sure that it was a good thing.
“From what we were able to receive from the mother’s doctors, she was addicted to heroin, methamphetamines, as well as prescription drugs. Is that correct?”
Poor Estella had no clue what she was disrupting.
“Right,” Jessie cleared his throat. “How long will she cry like this?”
Jessie’s fists were locked tight at his sides as he stared at the screaming baby, barely taking in breaths.
“On average, drug addicted babies, heroin specifically, have about a two-month hospital stay when they’re born this prematurely,” Estella explained. “More or less depending on how she does. This one is a fighter, though.”