Chapter 10 Genetics and Genomics
GENETICS AND GENOMICS
*Samantha*
It was the warmth that woke me—radiating through my neck, cheek, and one shoulder, gentle and immovable.
I clung to the last remnants of sleep, unsure where I was or who the solid mass belonged to, but certain my face was buried in some combination of expensive wool and aftershave.
The wool felt pillowy and scratchy, and the scent was familiar: rosemary, cedar, and that barely there note of ozone I used to associate with thunderstorms and now associated exclusively with him.
For a single confused, half-lucid moment, I told myself it had to be Martin.
He was the only man I’d feel comfortable enough to collapse on in public, let alone in a hospital.
But then my mind clicked through the last few hours and reminded me, slowly and with increasing certainty, that Martin had left me with Joey to go investigate the possibility of securing a VIP suite.
Fighting a series of yawns, I’d changed Joey’s diaper, gave him a quick sponge bath in the public restroom sink, and fed him a bottle, the source of which was written on a label affixed to the exterior of the breast milk.
It had come from the hospital’s breast milk bank.
Come on, people. I wouldn’t have fed my godson mysterious breast milk. You can relax now.
While feeding him and watching his eyes grow heavy in the sling, I’d felt mine start to drift as well.
Tucking him fully and safely inside the sling, I’d rested my head against the wall.
My security team watched us closely. We would be safe.
And I was so tired. I told myself I would rest my eyes. Just for a moment.
Famous last words.
Presently, I continued resting my eyes while I debated what to do about this persnickety situation, reasoning it was safer to lay there, pretending to be asleep, allowing the weight of my world to be redistributed across Andreas’s shoulder. Just for a moment.
Famous last words. Again.
“Are you awake?” The achingly familiar voice vibrated more than spoke, low and just a little gravelly, the pitch of it sneaking in through the spaces of my rib cage.
I swallowed, adjusted my head, and said, “Yes.”
A pause followed, not awkward. Suspended.
His arm—which I realized suddenly was around me—tightened, almost imperceptibly. I also suddenly realized one of my arms lay across his stomach.
“Kaitlyn was moved to the ICU and finally woke up about an hour ago. She is still in the ICU. Her parents have arrived and are in there with Martin and the doctors now. The new treatment seems to be working really well, but they want to keep her under close watch for sepsis. She is going to be okay.”
Relief washed through me, hot and weightless, and I shot a prayer of thanks upward. My entire body slackened, so boneless with gratitude that I nearly lost my grip on the moment.
After another indefinite pause, I came back to myself and the moment and the reality that Andreas was here with me and I was still curled against him, giving him my weight. I didn’t dare move my head; I wasn’t ready to look at him directly.
Instead, I inhaled deeply and asked, “What time is it?”
“Two-thirty,” he said. “In the morning.”
“Where’s Joey?”
He shifted slightly, and I felt the movement ripple through his torso. “Right here,” he said, and I thought I heard a trace of amusement.
Forcing my eyes open, I blinked the harsh fluorescent light into focus. We were still in the ER waiting area, in the same corner Martin, Joey, and I had spent all day haunting. But we—both of us—were now tucked beneath one of the soft blankets Tara had dropped off earlier.
I glanced down. Joey was curled on Andreas’s other shoulder, his bottom half in a baby sling I didn’t recognize, a tiny, chubby face peeking out from a cocoon of blue fleece. His impossibly small hand rested against the knit fabric of Andreas’s sweater.
Andreas stared straight ahead, gaze fixed. He looked as exhausted as I felt, his eyes rimmed red with what looked like worry, and there was a rawness about his jawline, like he’d shaved in a hurry and missed a few critical spots.
I realized, in that moment, that he’d been awake longer than I had.
I’d taken a nap, albeit a brief one. He’d been up since yesterday morning.
This information didn’t stir anything good or bad within me.
Like learning about the origins of the fully stocked diaper bag and take-out order from Smokin Greens, it just was.
“I suppose Tara called and told you to come?” My voice sounded steadier than I felt and I felt grateful for small mercies.
He didn’t look at me as he spoke. “She explained how you interrogated her about the diaper bag and food, threatening to fire her if she did not reveal who sent the items.”
I felt my mouth betray me with a tiny, traitorous smile. “Is that so?” What a liar.
He nodded. “She also said that you demanded I come and help take care of Joey.”
“And you came?” The question was rhetorical. But, perversely, I wanted to hear his answer out loud.
“Yes,” he said, finally turning his head to face me.
Our gazes met and clashed with the force of a head-on collision, like they always seemed to do these days, and I could barely stand it.
The intensity of his eyes, the way they searched my face, all his concentration pointed at me.
My skin prickled; the fine hairs on the back of my neck raised; nerve endings tuned themselves to a frequency filled with tension and anticipation.
After the past eighteen hours, I gave myself permission to be a coward and looked away first, before something in me cracked or—worse—gave in.
Dropping my head to his shoulder again, I set my gaze forward.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I was still really, really fucking mad at him.
Yet, I couldn’t deny the relief of having him here.
Not just because Martin and I were both running on fumes and needed an extra set of hands, but because he made the chaos feel less chaotic.
His presence was reassuring. Andreas exuded steadiness, calm, and when I allowed myself to admit it, I liked his stoicism.
“I didn’t threaten Tara.” I took in the battered linoleum floor, the splatters of ancient gum, the scuffed edge of his Italian shoe.
It was easier to look at the ground, to pretend we were just two exhausted people stuck in a hospital together, not whatever we actually were. “She gave you up as soon as I asked.”
He was quiet for a long moment, then said, voice thick, “I suppose she works for you now, and has no allegiance to me.”
“I also never instructed her to call you and demand you come help.”
I felt him stiffen. Before he could speak, I added, “I don’t trust you to have no ulterior motive.
So, I’m not going to feel gratitude or indebted, if that’s what you’re hoping for.
If you’re here, it’s because you want to be.
I won’t make you leave right now. But if you do leave, that’s also fine. ”
“That is fair.” His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath.
Joey made a small, unhappy sound—a sigh more than a cry—and I lifted my head to look at him. Joey’s eyelids fluttered, then closed again. Andreas patted his tiny back, slow and rhythmic.
“I will stay until you ask me to leave,” Andreas whispered. To my ears, it sounded like a secret.
The three of us sat there for a long time, not talking, not moving, just breathing together under the unnaturally bright lights.
If I’d had a phone or the presence of mind to check the time, I might have noticed that an hour slipped past without anyone noticing.
But I didn’t care about time or the minutes ticking by.
All that mattered was that Kaitlyn was going to be okay.
After a while, the rhythm of the baby’s breathing changed, and I realized Joey had fallen deeply asleep again, his lips slightly parted and his tiny back rising and falling in sync with Andreas’s chest. I let my own head drop once more.
This time not to hide my face, but just to rest. I let myself feel the weight of the blanket, the press of his arm around my body, the heat of his hand on my hip, the faint pulse of his heart against my temple.
I wasn’t ready to forgive him. And it hadn’t escaped my notice that he still hadn’t asked.
* * *
Two days later, I was on my knees, on the floor, kneeling in front of my favorite boy on the planet.
That’s right. I was peeling a blowout diaper from Joey’s bottom while he stared at me with his round gray eyes, wrinkling his nose as though he objected to the smell. The smell he’d created.
“I don’t understand. Why didn't Senator Parker just accept the VIP suite?” Tara, who’d returned for her shift this morning bright-eyed and showered, whispered this question to me from where she stood close by. “Why make her son-in-law pay for it if they were offering it for free?”
I glanced up at her, hands wrist-deep in wipes and carnage, and found her standing with a plastic container of cut melon in one hand and a fork in the other, her face equal parts genuine curiosity and “explain this weird human behavior to me, please.” She looked at me, but I could tell she was also glancing sideways at Andreas, who was leaning against the wall a few feet away.
He wore black pants and a charcoal-colored button-down today, looking effortlessly chic and oddly better rested than he had when I saw him at the Genetix offices a few days ago. I didn’t understand why since I suspected he’d been getting less sleep than me, and that was not a lot.
Andreas had offered to change Joey’s diaper, but he’d already changed the last three diapers, and my typically dormant sense of righteousness wouldn’t allow me to take him up on the offer this time.
Returning my attention to Joey, I shrugged. How to explain the dynamics of Kaitlyn’s family? “It’s complicated,” I finally said.