I did one good thing, though, Matty. His name is Lucas. I don’t know who his father is, and there’s no sense looking. But he’s a good boy—the only thing I’ve done right. I want you to take care of him for me. Make sure he has better than what we did.
Do for him, Matty, what you couldn’t do for me.
That was where the letter ended. No last words, no signature. “Is this all?” he asked Sarah.
“It was all she could do to get that on paper. She went to sleep with the pen still in her hand and she didn’t...”
Matt nodded as he looked across the sandy expanse at his sister’s grave. A few mourners were still there—maybe five or six and he wondered who they were and why they had come. Forgeburn had never been a real home to them. All it had ever been was the place from which they wanted to escape. “Why did she come back here?” he asked.
“Because she wanted to contact you, but she wasn’t up to it. And I was the only relative, even though I live a good fifty miles from here.”
“So, Lucas,” Matt said, once he’d regained his composure and turned around again to face Sarah. “You’ve got kids. You know how to take care of them. I don’t. And I’m still on active duty. I have to report back in two months.” He’d been granted emergency family leave to come and make arrangements for Lucas, but those arrangements didn’t include keeping him. That thought had never crossed his mind as he’d assumed Lucas was already settled in with Sarah. But apparently not. “And I’m scheduled to go back to Iraq later this year. How, in all of that, does he fit in?”
“Look, Matt. I kept him until you got here, just to be nice, but this is where it ends. Janice named you as his legal guardian, the social worker from child services has seen to the legalities of it, which makes him your responsibility, not mine. So adopt him yourself, or find someone else who wants him—it’s your decision. And I don’t mean to be unreasonable about this, but my husband doesn’t want him. We’ve got enough to handle without adding another child to it. So...” She shrugged. “Take him. Or get rid of him. Either way, I’m out of it.”
Take him. Just like that. Take a nephew he hadn’t even known he had until he’d received word his sister had died. Matt wasn’t opposed to family responsibility. In a lot of ways, he liked the idea of honoring the obligation, even in a family like his. A mother who had left when he’d been five. A sister who had—well, ended up back where she’d started. A dad who apparently had died without notice.
But Lucas—he needed his chance. He hadn’t asked to be born into the McClain family. It’s just what he’d got. Still, kids didn’t belong in his life. He’d planned it like that. No kids, no obligations. Obligations—for a moment the image of Ellie flashed through his mind. If ever there’d been a time when he’d come close to taking on an obligation other than his career...
“Look, Sarah, give me a couple weeks to figure it out. Can you do that much?”
Sarah shook her head. “Sorry.”
Well, she wasn’t giving him many options. For a career military surgeon, always going in one direction or another, moving from place to place and in his case combat zone to combat zone, there was no room to care for a child. In fact, he didn’t even have a place to call home, and kids needed a home, and stability. They needed someone there all the time to raise them. They needed what he and Janice had never had.
“All I can say, Matt, is I know you’ve been doing good for yourself, despite the way your daddy treated you. I’m glad for you. But I can’t take Lucas. So, like I said, I’ve already contacted child services, they know the situation, and the paperwork’s started. So he’ll go to a group home until they can find a family who’ll take him in, unless you do. As for adoption...” She shrugged. “Can’t say what’ll happen there. He’s a cute kid. Doesn’t talk, though. Not a word.” She leaned in and whispered, “Don’t think he’s very smart.”
“Probably because he’s traumatized from everything that’s been happening to him,” Matt snapped. Then he looked down at Lucas, who was sucking his thumb. He had a ratty old blanket tucked under his arm, and he wore a pair of sneakers that were clearly several sizes too large. All Matt could think was he was so vulnerable. And scared. Matt knew what it was like to be vulnerable and scared. Knew exactly what the kid was feeling...like his whole world had just collapsed. Matt couldn’t blame Lucas for not wanting to talk. There had been many times in his own young life when he hadn’t wanted to talk either.
“Hope it doesn’t mess up your life too much, Matt,” Sarah said, then turned and walked away, leaving Matt standing alone in the cemetery, holding on to Lucas with one hand and a bag of clothes with the other. And with no idea what to do next.
“Do you eat hamburgers?” he asked Lucas, who looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes. The kid needed more than a hamburger. Matt knew that. He needed words of reassurance. The promise of a home. A hug. Right now, though, he was equipped to buy him a hamburger. That’s all.
Did kids his age eat hamburgers? Matt’s medical training told him yes. But his parenting training—well, there was none of that to draw on. No kids in his life, no kids in his future. No home. No wife. He thought back to that morning when he’d left Ellie sleeping and walked away. Too bad he couldn’t go back and stay there. It had been nice. No worries. No past. No future. Just that moment in time. Unlike this moment in time, when his only goal was a hamburger, or anything else a two-year-old would eat.
* * *
“I need to do what?” Ellie Landers looked at the ultrasound, and didn’t see anything particularly distressing. She knew how to interpret what she was seeing. Her brief time in nursing had taught her that much. And what she saw right now looked perfectly normal.
“Rest more. Eat better. Reduce stress. Cut back on work. You know, the simple things.”
She did know, but she wasn’t sure why all this applied to her. Dr. Shaffer had just told her the baby was healthy. She was healthy, too. So why the precautions? “But there’s nothing wrong with me. You said so just a few minutes ago.” Now she was worried.
“Your blood pressure is on the high end of normal. You’re at risk for gestational diabetes partly because of your age and partly because your mother has diabetes. And you’re chronically tired.”
“Because I work eighteen hours a day.” Ellie liked Doc Shaffer. He’d been her mother’s obstetrician, now he was hers. Medically, he had a great reputation. Personally, he was just plain kind. He’d never asked her to explain the pregnancy. Not that there was much to explain about a two-night fling at a medical conference. All that, plus he had a great heart for his patients and treated them with respect and dignity no matter what the situation. As someone in the medical field, Ellie appreciated that. As a patient, she was glad to have it.
“Cut it back,” he said, leaning forward across his desk, looking over at her across the top of his glasses. “You’re thirty-four, Ellie. You live a busy life and drive yourself harder than anybody I’ve ever seen, except your mom. And I don’t want you having complications with this pregnancy.”
Thirty-four and owner of one of the fastest-growing medical illustration companies in the world. Something she’d built from the ground up. “But you think I could be at risk?”
“You could be, if you don’t slow down—which puts your baby at risk.”
Her
