were benches there, and, although there was quite a bit of foot traffic, the seating was designed so that families could discuss matters of life and death without being easily overheard by those passing by. It was the perfect place, although she couldn’t imagine what he wanted to say about that night.
Did she really want to hear his reasons? Yes. Maybe it would make her feel better about the whole thing. And she was somehow glad of the fact that he’d stayed around and bought her coffee.
He led her to the farthest reaches of the garden and motioned for her to sit, which she did. “First of all, I owe you an apology.”
There was a pause as she tried to process exactly what he was saying he was sorry about. Spending the night? Or leaving the way he had? “Could you be a little more specific?”
“My questions about Chloe. It was intrusive. Her...health...is none of my business.”
It took her a minute to realize what he was talking about. “Her headache? I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Maybe you should.” He leaned hard against the backrest of the bench. He chugged back some of his coffee, throat working in a way that made her wince. Her brew was still boiling hot.
Touching his arm, she waited until he put his cup back down. “What’s going on, Kaleb? Are you worried I’ll somehow try to pull the daddy card on you?”
“What? Oh, hell, no.”
If anything, he looked even more uncomfortable, as if that was exactly what he’d been thinking. “If it makes you feel better, I’m not looking for a serious relationship. I don’t want Chloe growing to love someone who isn’t going to be a permanent part of my life. I thought we’d already settled that?”
“We had. I mean...I just wanted to explain why I made such a big deal over her headache.”
Had he? Maddy certainly didn’t remember it that way. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not. But I want you to know why.” He dragged a hand through his hair and then turned back toward her. “My daughter had headaches. Terrible ones.”
Daughter? Maddy’s mind churned to life at the unexpectedness of his words. She’d guessed that Kaleb had been married at one time, but he’d never once mentioned a child. But some of his behavior at her apartment made sense now. “Does she still have them?” Maybe he was going to suggest Chloe go to his own daughter’s doctor.
“No, she doesn’t still have them.” His throat moved. “She died.”
Shock held her immobile for a minute, and she actually had to shift her body a couple of times before she located her voice. “Oh, Kaleb, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“I never said anything, that’s why.” He rubbed a thumb over the rim of his cup. “She had cancer. Only we didn’t know it. I kept...” He stopped. Took a deep breath. “I prescribed painkillers. Took her to a pediatrician while on vacation who assured me that a lot of kids her age get headaches. It was part of her circulatory system growing and changing. She’d grow out of them. Only she didn’t. They just got worse.”
Maddy’s heart squeezed so tight she feared it would stop beating altogether. The reason for his reaction to Chloe’s headache was horrifyingly clear now. She took a couple of careful breaths, trying to keep them steady. The last thing she needed was for her asthma to act up.
She tucked her hand inside the crook of his elbow and laid her head on his shoulder, needing to give him comfort and not sure how to. Was there really anything that could ease the pain of losing a child? “Was it very long ago?”
“Five years.” His bicep tensed beneath her hand. “My wife trusted me. I’m a doctor, for God’s sake. It took a picture snapped at Christmas to raise the alarm. The dreaded red-eye effect. We laughed about it, planning to edit the image. But when I went to do just that a week later, I got to Grace’s eyes and realized one of them glowed white instead of red. I got a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. And I knew. I knew.” He paused as if gathering his thoughts, or maybe just to gather his courage to finish. “We went back to the doctor—a neurologist here at West Seattle this time. She diagnosed Grace with an aggressive form of retinoblastoma. It had already metastasized to her brain. Within three months she was gone, despite trying every treatment available.”
The cure rate for retinoblastoma was pretty good, with the removal of the affected eye, but the aggressive types had a dismal prognosis. And those were normally inherited.
“And your wife?”
He gave a hard laugh. “She said she didn’t blame me. Which was kind of ludicrous, since I blamed myself. Not only could I not diagnose my own child, I had a grandfather with a prosthetic eye. It should have tipped me off, but it didn’t. I never put two and two together until after she died.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Kaleb. You had your daughter checked out. More than once.”
“You don’t understand. I gave it to her. Handed it to her on a silver genetic platter.”
Maddy swallowed, trying to find the right words and failing. “You didn’t. You didn’t even know it was in your family. People aren’t routinely screened unless there’s a reason.”
What it could mean, though, was that Kaleb might not be willing to risk having another child. She doubted she would. That made her chest hurt all the more.
“It could have been prevented, if I’d known.”
“How? Would you have chosen not to have her?”
“No. Grace was...” His voice had an ominous wobble to it. “She was my life. Afterward, Janice couldn’t... She never looked at me the same way ever again.”
Like Matthew, once he’d discovered she was pregnant?
No, this was nothing like that. But her lungs burned at the thought of Kaleb dealing with the collapse of his marriage even while he mourned his child.
Maddy set her cup on the bench beside her so she could wrap her other hand around his arm and hug it close. “I’m so, so sorry, Kaleb.”
“I just wanted you to understand why I butted in the way I did.”
“What can I do to help?” She wasn’t sure what else to say. She allowed her fingers to stroke up his arm, trying to give whatever comfort she could.
He turned his head, meeting her eyes. “Somehow, I think you already did. I’ve never told anyone the whole story. Until now.”
The brown had deepened slightly and his gaze dropped to her lips before coming back up. Her breath stuttered in her chest. He was thinking about kissing her?
Probably not.
Or maybe he was.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter. Because she was going to take matters into her own hands. And right now, it had nothing to do with comforting him, or pitying him. It had everything to do with the way this man made her feel, whether he was happy, angry or mired in a pit of grief. She wanted him. Needed him. And if there was the slightest possibility that he felt the same way about her, she was going
