Chapter 22 #2
“It will be much more efficient if I can hold him and then put him back in the crib.”
“Okay, yeah, and what happens if a defensive lineman suddenly plows through here, huh? Shaunessy is on the opposite end of the hospital; he is not going to be able to protect us. And I can tell you that between you and me and the crib, I am the one who is best trained to hold him!”
He’s spiraling. I see it. He does it enough.
I don’t know what’s ever going on in his head when it happens, but I know how much effort it takes to calm him down when he gets worked up like this.
It’s probably something that’s been fostered, that does well for him on the field.
And I know the doctors aren’t going to be able to reason with him, so I do the best I can, with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
He calmed me last night; now I’ll calm him.
“Blaise? Honey? We need to do what’s best for Donovan, right?”
I see the shift in his pupils, the rise of his chest, the sink of his shoulders. “Yeah. This is what’s best.”
“No, baby. He needs the doctors to help him this time. Just like I needed the doctors before, so you made me go, right? Remember when you forced me to go to the hospital because you knew the doctors would take care of me?”
“I just want him happy.”
“I know.” I kiss his shoulder because he’s too tall for me to do better. Perhaps it’s too intimate a moment in front of the doctors, but it’s enough that Blaise relinquishes Donovan.
It’s another five excruciating hours before the results come back.
We’re taken into an office, so very similar to the office I was brought into two years ago for my cancer diagnosis, even though it wasn’t even the same country, and the doctor asks us to sit down.
I haven’t ever held hands with Blaise before, and I know his hands are full with Donovan, who’s thankfully asleep, but I still reach out and put my hand over his, over Donovan.
He twists his wrist to lace our fingers together.
I was alone in that chair in that hospital in the Maldives, and I had this sick sense of dread because I’d never been called into an office to get the results of a medical test before, and I told myself it was because I was so far from home, but I was sick.
I was sick.
Now Donovan’s sick.
I squeeze Blaise’s hand just to steady myself, and he squeezes back before lifting it to kiss the back of my hand. “It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay.”
“It is going to be okay,” the doctor confirms, but he’s nervous. “It’s well, first of all, I’d just like to apologize to you, Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair. Oh, ah, Ms. Washington.”
It happens whenever I’m with Blaise. I tell myself to be bothered by it — Joss has vented a couple times about getting called Mrs. Shaunessy when they’re not married and she’s not planning on taking his last name when they do — but I’m not.
I’m okay with Mrs. Sinclair. I’m more frustrated with the way the doctor is looking right at Blaise, and I feel like this apology is going to be something that I would never get otherwise.
“You had Donovan at our sister hospital in Midtown, correct?” the doctor asks Blaise, like Blaise himself produced Donovan from the ether.
But Blaise nods, letting it slide, just to keep the conversation going.
“We see in the records that blood samples were drawn for Donovan, but the results were never put into the system. I assure you this would never happen at this branch.”
Bullshit, I want to say, because I was literally given the wrong patient’s info and nearly got examined for rectal cancer the last time I was at this branch, but I hold my tongue.
“Based on the genetic panel and the symptoms currently presenting, it’s likely Donovan has sickle-cell anemia. It’s a genetic disease that . . .”
He gives the explanation I don’t need as the breath leaves my body.
My grandfather had sickle-cell. One of my aunts has it, too.
There’s a lot of it in my dad’s family; that’s just how it is.
I always knew that there was a 25% chance I’m a carrier, way too likely to brush off.
I would have gotten the panel done when my sister, Camilla, got hers, but there are other things on that panel I didn’t want an answer to.
And since Donovan’s father is Black, there was a not-insignificant chance he was a carrier.
That’s just how genetics works. I don’t know if I would have made a different decision about how I handled my pregnancy if I did know I was a carrier, but . . .
This is my fault.
I don’t need to hear what the doctor has to say. I remember the pain my grandfather was in when he had flare-ups. Aunt Jo never got really sick that I can remember, but I don’t know how she’s doing now. I know exactly how bad this could be; I don’t need the doctor to tell me.
I only focus back in because Blaise says, “Okay, let’s go ahead and start tests on me now.”
I blink, pulled back into the conversation by Blaise’s ridiculous request, and shake my head. “It’s not contagious.”
“No, for the bone marrow transplant.”
“It’s really too soon for that, Mr. Sinclair,” the doctor protests. “If it gets severe enough, it may be an option to consider, but let’s look at less aggressive treatment plans first.”
“No,” Blaise says firmly, and as much as yes, he is a man who takes charge in his own way and knows exactly how to get attention on him when he needs it, I’ve never seen him look so fierce and focused.
“I’m not saying I want a bone marrow transplant done now, but I need to be ready, and if I’m not compatible, there’s no one else who would be—”
“Blaise,” I say softly, hoping to calm him again because he’s spiraling again.
He’s not having that. His look softens when he turns to me and squeezes my hand again, but it’s only sympathy. “It’s only me. You’ve had chemo, so you’re not . . .”
His words fade like he doesn’t know the right way of politely reminding me that my body is sewage. “No, it’s not that, it’s just . . . it’s not like blood, not for this. It’s only the biological relatives who can.”
“It’s rare for even parents to match,” the doctor says. “The donors usually need to be siblings. Are there siblings?”
I shake my head as it all turns into a whole new nightmare. I will have to find John and explain this all to him. I’ll have to admit that I was never going to tell him and there’s another man who’s laid his claim to Donovan, and if John wants to be in Donovan’s life, it’s going to be tricky.
And if he’s willing to have another child with me, is it even ethical?
The idea that Donovan might have a sibling has never crossed my mind, and the first time I think of it, it’s to be a bone marrow donor?
How screwed up is that? Is it just once or repeatedly?
I know I’d love the hell out of another baby, and if it were just a single marrow donation, that doesn’t sound too bad, but I can barely manage one baby, even with Blaise’s help.
If I had another baby, just to take their bone marrow over and over again?
No. Absolutely not. I’m not okay with that. Not even a little bit.
How do I ruin everything?
“We’ll figure it out,” Blaise says confidently. “But that’s why I want to get tested now. If I’m compatible, we won’t need to figure anything out.”
I slip my hand out of his so I can pivot in my chair and look directly at him. I know the words I have to say are going to sting, that they’re going to hurt his feelings, but I don’t want to be a coward about it. “Blaise, it’s the father’s marrow that they need.”
“Right, me.”
“No, the biological father.”
Again, I expect hurt. I figure he’s going to cling more to Donovan and storm off or start a fight. But I don’t expect his eyes to go every bit as venomous as they were that first night in the hot tub. I don’t expect the fierce, frigid way he says, “Fuck you, Tilly. I’m tired of this game.”
“What game?”
“This game of you acting like you don’t know I’m his father.”
“I—what?” I blink as though to clear this moment away, to prove I’m asleep or hallucinating or something. God, but I did have those moments where I wished that were true and he was John, how much simpler life would be. But it’s all just fantasy.
And then he says, “Just fucking stop, Trixie.”
Everything blurs. Shifts. Everything is wrong but goes right again.
Most people, including Blaise, know the broad strokes of what happened, but I’ve never mentioned to anyone about his calling me Trixie.
Yeah, I named him John, but I never explained that it wasn’t his real name or that it was a sex work game.
Blaise can’t possibly know that name.
Unless he’s telling the truth.
But it can’t be true.
But . . .
He’s John.
He’s . . .
He’s John.
Unquestionably.
And I don’t understand how he’s pissed at me. Why didn’t he say anything? What has this been this whole time? What could he have possibly been thinking?
He’s been lying to me from the beginning. He recognized me that first night in the hot tub. He recognized me then, and he was a raging asshole to me. He was a raging asshole over and over again, even as he lied to me.
At any moment, he could have decided I wasn’t good enough for him, I wasn’t good enough for Donovan, and he would have taken him away from me. Not a judge in the world would have picked me over him if I tried to fight him.
I feel nauseous.
Blaise’s brows furrow. The brows I couldn’t see a year ago in that hotel room because of the prosthetics framing his face.
His gray eyes, that I just did not pay attention to at the con because my own pupils were vibrating so badly that it was hard to focus even after I came down, those gray eyes slit in confusion. “Wait, but how are you white?” he says.
I flinch. I have so many questions, so much confusion and rage — and despite his lies, an undeniable relief that Blaise Sinclair is mine, well and truly mine.
Or if not mine, at least Donovan’s. But he utters those words, and there’s nothing else for me to say, to word-vomit, except, “Oh my God, Karen, you can’t ask people why they’re white. ”
The doctor casually reaches between us to scoop Donovan up out of Blaise’s arms as he says, “I’m just going to go run a few more tests on this little guy while you two figure this whole, ahh, thing out.”