Chapter Seven
LIAM
“S omeone help, please!” The sound of a desperate cry for help is not as common as you would think in an ER. I’m signing off on discharge paperwork for another patient when the voice draws my attention. There’s a woman carrying a small child, panic lining her features as she yells for help. My feet are moving by themselves, the discharge paperwork forgotten at the nurses’ station.
It’s been two days since I had lunch with Ella, and I’m still getting used to the way this hospital does things. While upper management knows who I am, the doctors and nurses I work with every day either don’t know or don’t care about my Stokes name. I’d like to keep it that way. Regardless, it’s been a crazy first week at work, and I haven’t had the time to devote to Ella like I’ve wanted.
When I get closer, I see that the child is a little girl with a head of dark brown curls, and scared, tear-filled, gray-blue eyes. She has to be either three or four years old. She’s holding her wrist protectively against her chest as she cries. Scratches line her arms and a spot on her forehead, while there’s a pretty heavy gash on her leg.
I turn my head, catching the eye of one of the ER nurses, Russ. “I need a bed right away!” I then turn my attention back to the woman. “Ma’am? What happened?”
The woman is frantic, her blue eyes flashing with panic as she clutches the child closer to her, a small purple jacket hanging over her arm. “My granddaughter! She was riding her tricycle just over at Maplewood Park.” The nurse comes over and leads us both to an empty bed where the grandmother sets down the child, who is crying softly and still trying to cling to her grandmother. “I was right behind her, and we were doing laps around the big pond—it’s up on this pretty big hill—and out of nowhere some off-leash dog came barreling by, knocking into her and sending her over the side of the hill.”
Russ brings over a clipboard for the intake paperwork. “Ma’am, can you please start on that while I see what we’re dealing with here?”
The woman nods and takes the board, gently untangling herself from the child. Her hands shake slightly as she goes to fill it out.
Kneeling down so I’m at eye level with the little girl, I give her a soft smile. Her stormy gray eyes pull at something in me, and I find that I want to put her at ease as much as possible. I’ve treated a few children since starting my residency, but none of them has ever pulled this… protective urge from me before. Hi there, I’m Doctor Liam. What’s your name?”
She sniffles before meeting my eyes. “I’m Macie.”
I give her a toothy grin. “It’s nice to meet you, Macie. How old are you?”
“Three. My birday’s in Febrary.” The clear way in which she speaks astounds me. Normally at three, children still need a little bit of translation from their parents, but Macie is speaking like she’s ready to go to kindergarten.
“Wow, that is so old. Is it okay if I move you to your own room so I can take a look at your cuts? I want to make sure I can make everything better as quickly as possible so you don’t hurt anymore.”
She nods, sniffling, and I fill the silence with silly, idle chatter as Russ and I wheel her bed into an empty room.
First, I use my penlight to check the dilation of her pupils. Her grandma didn’t say anything about her hitting her head, but we can never be too careful. They’re both the same size and she seems focused, so I look at her leg, which is going to need stitches. It’s a pretty nasty cut, and I wonder if there was a piece of glass or a sharp rock on the hill that she caught on the way down.
The scrapes on her arms and head will just need some cleaning and bandages. She winces when I look at her wrist and I tell her that I’m impressed with how brave she’s being.
“Here you are, Doctor.” The woman hands me the clipboard with all of the intake information and I look it over. Macie Parsons, brought in by grandmother, Celine Parsons. Why is that name niggling at me?
“Thank you, Mrs. Parsons.” I nod and hand the clipboard to Russ before taking him for further instructions. “I’m going to need a suture kit and we need to put in an order for x-rays with radiology. Can you clean and bandage the cuts on her arms and head while I do that?”
“Yes, I’ll be right back.” He nods, then disappears.
I turn to Mrs. Parsons. “The laceration on her shin will need stitches, and we’ll need to get x-rays for her arm.”
Before Celine can say anything, Macie speaks up, her eyes wide. “What does stitches mean?”
Damn. I’ve never had to explain stitches to a kid before. I’m not in pediatrics, but I’ve shadowed a peds doctor before, and she always explained exactly what she was going to do before she did it.
“Well, Macie,” I say, grabbing a stool and rolling to sit next to her. “First, you’re going to have a tiny little pinch in a few places near your cut. That is called anesthetic. It’ll make it so you don’t feel anything in your leg.”
She nods, her eyes still wide, but tries to say, “Ann-ess-thet-ick.”
“Very good.” I smile. “Then, we’re going to clean your owie and make sure there’s no gross stuff from the park making it dirty, and then?—”
Right then, Russ returns with the supplies we need, and I hold up a suture kit. “We’re going to use this special thread to pull your cut closed so you can heal. The thread is specially made for little girls who take tumbles at the park.” I raise my brows at her, and she lets out a little giggle.
“Is that okay with you, Macie?” I ask her. She glances at her grandma, who nods, before she looks back at me.
“Dat’s okay, Doctor Liam.”
“Okay, good. And Nurse Russ here is going to clean your scrapes on your head and arms, okay?”
She gives another nod and I get to work, first numbing the area around the cut on her shin so I can rinse it with saline to make sure there’s no debris embedded. By the time I’m done, Russ has taken care of the scrapes on her head and arm.
So I get started on the sutures.
“Don’t watch, Macie,” the grandmother says, taking her hand. I don’t blame Macie for being curious, but I’d rather not find out how squeamish she is right now.
“Macie, what’s your favorite color?” The question seems to catch Celine off guard, but she catches on to what I’m doing quickly.
“I thought it was brown?” The grandmother teases, and I can hear the frown in Macie’s voice.
“Nuh, uh, MeeMee! It’s purple!”
“Oh man, I love purple,” I tell her without looking up from her leg. “Grapes, flowers, some butterflies… all great things.”
“What’s your favorite color, Doctor Liam?”
“Hmmm… I think I’d have to say green. What about food?”
“Chocolate donuts!” she says without hesitation, and I suppress a laugh. Chocolate donuts are actually my favorite, too.
By the time I have her stitches done and have transferred her to a wheelchair to get her up to radiology, we’ve covered a whole variety of favorites, from favorite movies to favorite things to eat while watching movies, the best kind of ice cream, and the best superheroes.
I’ve gotta say, Macie has some good taste.
Her x-rays come back clear, meaning she’s only sprained her wrist, so I wrap it up nice and tight for her. Once I’ve left her room to sort out her discharge papers, I’m immediately shocked by the sight of Ella rushing into the ER. She’s in a pair of pink scrubs with dog houses on them, and her hair is in a bun high on her head, half falling out as she runs to the nurses’ station.
I can’t help but think how beautiful she looks even as I worry about her. Is she okay? Why would she be rushing into the ER like this? Is she hurt?
I’m just about to take a step forward when she reaches the desk. “Excuse me? Excuse me, I’m looking for my daughter!”
Her… daughter?
“She’s three and a half, dark brown curly hair?” She shakes her head, as if realizing something obvious. “Her name is Macie Parsons. My mom just brought her in.”
Oh… shit. Parsons. That’s why the name sounded familiar. But… what the hell? Why didn’t she tell me she had a daughter?
“I got this, Sam,” I tell the nurse who is scrambling to find the chart with the information she’s requesting.
“Liam?” She looks at me, her eyes wide with panic and her face pale. “I completely forgot you work here.”
My heart pounds in my chest as I lead her to Macie’s room with my hand on the small of her back. “We just got her settled in here.”
“Mommy!” Macie’s happy voice cries when she sees Ella’s face. Ella immediately rushes to Macie’s side and holds the hand of her non-sprained wrist while Celine excuses herself to use the restroom. There’s some superhero puppy show playing on Celine’s phone that had Macie enraptured, but with her mom here, she’s quickly refocused her attention.
“Oh baby girl, I was so worried! But look at you being so brave! You always have been a little daredevil, haven’t you? This is just the first time we’re ending up in the hospital for it.”
Seeing Ella with Macie… it’s strange, but it makes sense in a way. Now that they’re directly next to each other, I can see the similarities more clearly. The same eye shape and nose. The way their mouths downturn slightly. Even the same cupid’s bow on their lips. Seeing how Ella is with Macie makes my heart pang with a wave of longing that I don’t want to look too closely at. Anything close to the vision in front of me is clearly something that I won’t have for a good long while.
Macie gives her an adorable pout. “It wasn’t my fault, Mommy! A crazy dog knocked me down!”
“Of course, it wasn’t your fault, sweetie.” Ella brings Macie’s hand up to her lips and presses a kiss to the back of it. “I'm going to go talk to your doctor really quick, okay?”
“Okay! Doctor Liam is super nice.” I shoot Macie a grin at her words, and she gives me a thumbs up, causing me to chuckle as I return the gesture.
Ella gives her a tight smile before turning to me. “Thanks for helping. Even though you didn’t know she was mine. What did she have to have done?”
I shrug. “We put some stitches in her shin, her wrist is sprained, and she just has some scrapes that needed cleaning. She’ll be fine.”
She takes a deep breath and nods, glancing back at her daughter.
“Ella?” My voice comes out rough. “Can I have a word?”
She nods again, silently. “I’ll be right outside the door. Okay, sweetums?”
“Okay, Mommy!” She singsongs, turning her eyes back to her grandma’s phone.
We stand in the hallway, and my whisper is harsher than I mean for it to be. “Is there a reason why you didn’t tell me you have a daughter?”
She doesn’t owe me an explanation. But at the same time…
“We just saw each other again. When would I have told you?” She rolls her eyes at me, but this whole situation makes me feel like I’m in the twilight zone. In the time I’ve known Ella, I’ve seen that she doesn’t roll her eyes at me unless it’s playful, and she’s treating it like it’s no big deal.
“I don’t know, maybe at that lunch we had two days ago?” I challenge.
She looks down briefly before her mom comes back from the restroom. She passes through the door, settling in the chair next to Macie again. Who’s kid is this? Is it that guy that she broke up with before we slept together? Was she already pregnant when we had our one-night stand? She had said there was no one else since me, and yet, here’s Macie. Is it possible there was someone right before me? And why does that thought fill me with jealousy I have no right to feel?
Lunch would have been the perfect time to talk about it. It went perfectly with all the admissions about never forgetting each other and wishing things had gone differently. Not to mention I talked about getting to know each other the “right way.” That would have been the perfect opening if she had been waiting for one. She could have just said, “Oh, by the way, I have a daughter.”
Well, maybe not exactly like that.
Before I can voice any of these thoughts, Russ comes up to me with the clipboard for her discharge paperwork and a packet of at-home care instructions. Flipping through the pages, I review that everything looks good before signing.
Then I see Ella’s worried expression as she looks at her daughter, and realize that she doesn’t owe me any sort of explanation for anything. I have no idea what she’s been through the last four years, and just because I picked up my life and moved to her town in a borderline psycho-stalker move, doesn’t mean she owes me every detail of her life.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I was just surprised,” I tell her, feeling like a jerk for how harsh I was. Her worried gaze falls on me and she bites her lip, looking apprehensive. I can’t stand that look on her face. I want nothing but joy and smiles when she looks at me. “Could I maybe… Could I come over tomorrow and change the dressing on her stitches?”
Ella looks between Macie and me for a minute before nodding. “Yes, that would be great, thank you. I’ll take the day off. I don’t really want to leave her after a fall like that.” She closes her eyes and lets out a sigh. “And… I definitely could have given you a heads-up about her.”
Celine is already getting Macie out of the hospital bed and looks at her daughter with raised brows.
“It was a shock for sure. But… she’s adorable. We’ve had some good conversations about chocolate donuts.” I grin at her before realizing I forgot something. “Oh! She’s going to need a script for some painkillers. Let me print one out for you to take to your pharmacy. I’ll be right back.”
When Ella gives me a little nod, I walk down the hall to the computer station, where I quickly submit the request and print it off. As I’m carrying it back, the sound of voices inside the exam room has my steps slowing to a halt.
I really need to stop eavesdropping like this.
“What?” Ella’s voice rings out, her tone defensive. “He’s an old friend and just moved into my apartment building.”
Celine just chuckles. “I wish I had old friends like these. Why can’t you marry a guy like this, Ella? He’s a doctor.”
She sounds like my mom. But far less self-serving.
I can just imagine Ella’s eyes rolling as she responds. “Mom, this is not the time for comments like that.”
I decide to stop hiding and round the corner into the room just in time to see Ella’s cheeks flush pink.
Pretending I didn’t hear a word of their conversation, I hand them the prescription script with a smile and replay Celine’s words in my mind, wondering why I don’t hate the sound of them.