The doctor patted his arm. “Your dad will be able to stay if he’d like. We have a comfortable recliner he can roll next to your bed.”
Nathan squeezed Kyle’s hand. “If you have to stay, I’ll be right here with you.”
Kyle seemed to relax again at his words.
With a frown, Nathan asked, “I can’t use a cell phone in the hospital, can I?”
The doctor shook his head. “No. But if you’d like us to call someone for you, I’m sure the desk nurse would be glad to do that.”
“I don’t want to scare my father.”
“Jeannie is very good at public relations. But you will have to sign a form giving her permission to call.”
“Paperwork,” Nathan muttered.
“More and more every day,” the doctor agreed, examining Kyle again. After studying the monitor he was hooked up to, the doctor pulled back a curtain. “I’ll go get that form.”
Two hours later, Nathan was seated by Kyle’s bed in the pediatrics unit when his father appeared at the doorway with two cups of coffee and beckoned to him. This was his third cup of high octane caffeine. Nathan knew there’d be no sleep for him tonight. But there wouldn’t have been, anyway. He’d be watching Kyle. With the oxygen tube at his son’s nose and the breathing apparatus on the bedside stand, Nathan wouldn’t forget why his son was here.
There was another sleeping child, a ten-year-old boy, in a bed across the room. He’d been in an accident and had his spleen removed. His parents had decided not to stay for the night.
After making sure Kyle was still sleeping, Nathan went to the door and stepped out.
Galen handed him a cup of coffee.
Nathan took off the lid and tossed it into the nearby trash can. Then he sipped it and grimaced.
“It’s hot,” his father warned.
“It tastes like motor oil.”
“What do you expect? A latte from Javaland? I can go get you one, but I know you don’t go in for that kind of thing.”
“Instead of fetching coffee for me, you should just go home.”
“I thought we should have a talk first.”
Nathan met his dad’s steel-gray eyes. “What about? What caused this episode? I spoke to his doctor. It could have been the dyes and the smells of the fabrics in the store. It could have been the clerk’s perfume. It could have been—”
Galen raised a brow. “Before Kyle fell asleep, I asked him if he took his medicine this morning.”
“I gave him his tablet with breakfast.”
“That doesn’t mean he swallowed it. And let me tell you, son, that boy can’t lie any better than you could when you were a kid. He nodded that he took it, but he wouldn’t look at me dead-on.”
Nathan started to get angry, then reminded himself that Kyle was five years old. How could he possibly understand the gravity of his condition? “I’ll have to have another talk with him. But today’s scare should have been enough.”
After taking a couple of swallows from his cup, Galen hooked a thumb in his suspenders and gnawed on his lower lip for a couple of seconds. “There is something else that could have caused this, you know.”
“What?”
“Stress. Kids get stressed just like adults. You know it can be a factor in bringing on an asthma attack. Kyle’s been way too quiet ever since Sara Hobart visited him. He watches the mail every day as if he expects a letter from her. That’s emotional stress on the boy. Maybe you should let him know you’ve forbidden her from having any contact with him again, so he doesn’t expect anything from her. Or…maybe you should change your mind about her visiting him again.”
“You’re becoming her champion?” Nathan’s voice registered astonishment.
“Not her champion, but Kyle’s. You have to do something. Who knows what ideas Kyle’s imagination is spinning. He might think she doesn’t want to come back…doesn’t want to be friends with him.”
“I never should have let her see him in the first place.”
“You would have still known she was out there. When Kyle starts asking questions…”
“Why would he have questions? His mother died in childbirth. Period.”
“Other folks in town know about the in vitro. You can’t keep the truth hidden forever. Better Kyle knows it sooner rather than later, when he’ll resent you for keeping it from him.”
Nathan felt an icy chill crawl up his back. “And just what am I supposed to do about Sara Hobart? If I let her into Kyle’s life, she could want more than another visit.”
Holding up his hand to ward off Nathan’s objections, Galen argued, “She knows she has no legal right to Kyle. But Nathan, if he is her son, I think you’d better consider her moral right.” He lowered his voice. “There’s a good chance she’s the boy’s biological mother. What if he’d died today?”
“Pop!” Nathan could feel his face go white, his entire body tense, his whole being reject the idea.
“I know that’s not something you want to think about. And yes, she signed a piece of paper that says she has no rights to Kyle. No rights to make any decisions about him. No rights to visit him or hug him. I get that. Apparently she gets that, too, otherwise she wouldn’t have gone back to Minneapolis. But…” Galen pointed his weathered finger at Kyle. “Just look at him, son. Look at the life he has with me and you and Val. You hardly let him go anywhere or do anything. At least can’t you let someone else into his life who can love him?”
To his chagrin, Nathan could remember the happiness on Kyle’s face when he’d been playing with Sara. He could remember the connection that had taken hold in a very short time. He’d wanted to deny it. He’d told himself Sara Hobart was a novelty to Kyle, and that was the reason his son liked her. But deep down, Nathan knew there was more. That “more” was what had caused the knot in his gut…the knife of fear that stabbed him every time he thought about Sara Hobart.
Galen rubbed his hand through his gray hair. “Ever since you lost Colleen, you’ve made Kyle the center of your world. You left your life in the city so you could come up here and make a new start with him. So you could be around for him. But maybe you’re not enough. A dad can’t be a mom. A father just doesn’t know some things instinctually the way a mother does. Believe me, son, I know. Sometimes I’d dig down deep to find something to say to you or Sam or Ben and it just wasn’t there.”
“Obviously it wasn’t there for our mother, either. Obviously she not only had nothing to say, she didn’t want to say it. At least not to us. She couldn’t wait to leave us and Rapid Creek. Sara Hobart has a high-powered career in Minneapolis. She’s not going to leave that to take care of a little boy here. And I don’t want her to take care of him, because I’m going to do that.”
“Whether
