12. Alex
CHAPTER 12
Alex
“ H ave you even thought this through?” asked Sam, waving his clipboard in the air and barely missing the head of a nurse, who gave him a venomous look as she passed. “Because what you’re thinking is crazy. You don’t even know her.”
“It doesn’t matter if I do,” I said, sidestepping a young man lying on a gurney with his leg in traction, the injury clearly a serious femur break. “I’ve got a responsibility. You know that.”
Sam stopped dead in his tracks, not noticing that a group of interns had nearly collided with him. For a man his size—six foot five with football player shoulders—it wasn't surprising he was always bumping into something. He turned to me, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked me dead in the eye. "Have you ever considered how everything in your life is going to change?"
“Are you saying that as a father or a concerned friend?”
“Both,” he declared, stepping back and leaning against the counter of the nurses’ station. His elbow knocked over a stack of papers, some of which dropped to the floor. “Sorry, Janet,” he said quickly, glancing at the woman with the rimless spectacles and an embroidered bone on her scrub top, before scrambling to pick up the papers.
When Sam stood back up, having neatly stacked the papers while Janet looked satisfied, he took up his position once more. “My kids are great. You know I love them to bits, but damn, they’re a handful. Everything changed when Anderson was born, and when Kaycee came along a year later, I literally thought Maya was going to have a mental breakdown. It was hard, Alex . . . Really hard. Are you sure you want to do that to yourself?”
“I’m sure,” I said with no doubt in my mind.
If there were any reservations about being a father, about sharing the responsibility with Sophie, well, then they were deeply hidden—so deeply I didn’t feel any need to bother looking for them. In fact, as soon as I’d heard Sophie was pregnant, I knew I wanted to be involved. Not because I felt completely ready, especially after the recent breakup, but because I had been raised by a single mom. Actually, there is something more than that. If I'm being truthful with myself, I can't get Sophie out of my mind. She's stunning and resilient, especially after she told me she would keep the baby no matter what.
That was justification enough for it all.
My dad had left when I was two. There was no real reason except that he wasn’t ready to be a father, and obviously not a husband either. It wasn’t that my mom hadn’t done enough. She’d done plenty, played the roles of both parents beautifully, and worked her butt off to get me to where I was today. It was just that I’d spent a lot of my childhood dreaming up a father figure. Sometimes he wore a cape like Superman, other times he battled fires in his turnout gear, and once he was the neighbor two blocks down who also loved to collect rocks at the local park. To imagine a baby growing up wondering who their father was, and whether he cared so little as to not be present, was a thought that struck a chord with me.
A chord too close to home.
If Sam knew how I felt about it, he wouldn't be asking these questions. Not that I would share it with him. The only person who knew all the intricacies of my childhood was Vicki, and she hadn't exactly been empathetic. People with big, happy, let's-get-together-every-weekend-for-a-barbecue families rarely were.
And above all, my affection for Sophie has grown stronger. Her pale gray eyes are like the moonlit sky on a dark night, subtle yet breathtaking. Even under her dull work uniform, her gorgeous blonde hair shines through.
The sultry night we shared together during the seminar was an experience I would never forget. The air was thick with heat and passion, and my senses were heightened by the alcohol coursing through my veins. As our lips met and our bodies moved in a synchronized rhythm, I was overwhelmed with pure delight, a feeling I hadn't experienced in a long time. It was like every nerve in my body had come alive, igniting a fire within me that could not be extinguished.
Sam raised his brows heavenward. “In that case, buckle up because you’re going to have to learn to change diapers. It’s much harder than you think.”
“I handle complex surgeries every day. I’m sure I can manage a diaper.”
Sam laughed, a deep rumble emanating from his throat, which reminded me of a lion’s roar I’d heard on a safari trip with Vicki to the Kruger National Park last year. “Your funeral.”
I sent him a look and then glanced back over my shoulder to a young girl being wheeled in by a nurse. Her name was Eleanor and she’d snapped her ankle falling off the gymnastics bar. Apart from the tears streaking her face when she’d first come in, she was a brave twelve-year-old who desperately wanted to get back into the gym.
She waved and I waved back.
“I’ll see you in a bit, Ellie. We’ll get that ankle fixed up and make sure you’re back on the mats in no time.”
She smiled, and for an instant there I wondered what my daughter—I’d always had a feeling I’d have a girl—would look like one day. Would her hair be as blonde as Sophie’s? Her eyes as gray? Would she be brave like Eleanor and dream of being an Olympic gymnast, another
Simone Biles? Or would she be as inflexible as her dad? Barely able to touch her toes?
Sam and I watched them go.
Sam then pushed himself forward, away from the counter, and slapped a palm across my back. “Don’t get your hopes up too high, alright. The first trimester is always tricky. Miscarriage rate can be as high as thirty percent.”
“It will be fine, Sam,” I said, not sure where the confidence was coming from. But it was there, and I was holding onto it as tightly as a kid with a balloon who refused to let go, no matter how strong the wind was.
My phone vibrated.
Fishing it out of my back pocket, I held my breath and checked the screen.
It was Vicki. How’s your back? Dad wants to know if you want the rest of the walnut set.
Apparently, he’s made a dining room table and chairs. Walnut’s too dark for the house.
I must have been frowning because Sam flicked his chin toward my phone. “Is that the mother of your future child texting?”
“That would be nice. Just Vicki,” I replied, not wanting to admit that Sophie hadn’t called me, not even once since I had showed up at her house two nights ago. Not that I was worried.
Or maybe I was.
Maybe her silence was eating me up from the inside. Maybe every time my phone pinged or vibrated, goosebumps ran over my skin like tiny ant feet and my breath hitched in my throat.
“Have you told Vicki yet?” Sam asked, folding his arms over his chest.
He had a reciprocated love-hate relationship with Vicki. If they weren’t at each other’s throats about basically everything, then they were shooting each other venomous glares whenever they thought I wasn’t looking. The one time I left them alone in a room together, they had ended up in a heated debate about pineapple on pizza—Sam’s big, burly body facing off against the small dynamite that was Vicki.
Their mutual friendliness was limited to once a year on my birthday.
At least Sam didn’t have to worry about pretending this year.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s a can of worms I’d rather open another day. When everything’s more settled. When I’ve got a better picture of what lies ahead.”
“Can I be there when you do? A fly on the wall?” chuckled Sam. “I’ve always imagined her head exploding. You got the woman who works for her pregnant, and that woman is younger and hotter. I think this will do the trick.”
“She’s not the wicked witch of the west, Sam. She’s a good person.”
“Yeah. Deep, deep down. Beneath all those layers.”
“You know, she probably says the same thing about you," I replied. “Actually, I think she once referred to you as Sam the Ham and I don't think it was a compliment.” Then, I laughed out loud when the patient in traction sent a frown in our direction.
He was eavesdropping.
Not uncommon in the orthopedic ward. If Nurse Angela was around, which she luckily wasn’t, she’d have told all the other nurses about my unborn baby, possibly exaggerating the details somehow— Dr. Roberts had an affair.
“Did she really call me that?” asked Sam, chuckling. “Sounds like a Dr. Seuss character. Anderson watched The Lorax the other day and now he can’t get enough of it. I swear I know that movie by heart. I can recite entire lines, Alex. Are you prepared for that?”
“He’s the kid. You’re the adult.”
Sam ran his hand through his dark hair. “Clearly you don’t have any children.”
“Exactly. But I’m prepared to learn.”
He opened his mouth at the same time a sharp ding-dong echoed through the hallway, followed by a sharp voice over the intercom: “Attention, Dr. Alex Roberts. Please report to the
Emergency Room immediately. Dr. Alex Roberts. Emergency Room, stat. Thank you.”
Backing away toward the exit, I sent a finger in Sam’s direction. “Now how about you start being more supportive?”
“Fine,” he said. “When can I meet her then?”
“Never,” I chuckled, though I hoped one day Sam could meet Sophie. If there was any person who was a good judge of character, it was Sam.
I should’ve listened to him ages ago when he said Vicki was wrong for me. But then again, stubbornness was a family trait.
One I hoped my kid wouldn’t inherit.