Chapter 6
Grace was livid, both from John’s grip on her elbow as he steered her out of the lounge and from this ridiculous turn of events. “Those babies need a safe and happy life with a family who will love them,” she insisted. “Champion looked like he was going to throw up, for God’s sake.”
“What you said to him back there was heartless and cold.”
“What I said to him was true, and you know it. Difference is, I’m standing up for those defenseless children while you’re pretending everything is fine.”
“I know it seems unlikely he could be good with kids—”
“Unlikely? It’s obscene.”
The color in his cheeks had spread to his chin and forehead. “You don’t know that, Grace. Just because he lives a different lifestyle than we do doesn’t mean he would be an unfit guardian.”
“Of course it does! You’ve seen him coming and going with all those women, staying up until all hours, getting drunk. There isn’t a man on this earth less capable of caring for these children than he is.”
“I highly doubt that. Besides, God works in mysterious ways.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, not now, John.” He cocked his head, and she knew she’d made a terrible mistake. Possibly not her first in this conversation.
“Not now?” he repeated.
Fuck.
She blew out air. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just that I need to hear there’s somebody else who can watch these children who will take good care of them, and that they will be safe. I’ve been with them all night, so worried about what will happen to them—”
“They are not yours. Their lives, their path, will not be like yours.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” she snapped, instantly resentful of what he was implying, how he was using her past against her to prove his point.
She bit down hard, forcing herself to unclench her teeth to plead her case.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to take care of a baby? And twins! Twins are a challenge for anyone. He said himself he can’t do it—”
“After you harassed him and shamed him with his lack of qualifications, yes.” He held up his hand. “He just lost his cousin and his friend. God has given him these children to care for, and we have to trust that is part of His plan.”
“God didn't give him these children, a hit-and-run driver and a weak blood relation gave them to him. You saw his face in there; he looked like he just got saddled with the weight of the world and all he was looking for was a way out.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
She crossed her arms. “Yeah? Well, I’m sure he’ll screw up.”
“Would you rather see them go into foster care? If they can even find an opening, which frankly is not very likely, at least for a few days, possibly weeks. So they’d be institutionalized until then, handed from one shift worker to another, without the familiar faces and sense of their parents.”
Memories assaulted her once more, a darkness she kept hidden beneath layers of security and love opening up to swallow her whole.
“I know that’s not what you want, Grace.”
An announcement came over the hospital address system. PAGING FATHER JOHN, PLEASE COME TO THE SIXTH FLOOR, STAT.
He ran his hand down his face and sighed heavily. “I’m sorry.”
She looked away, frustration and anger warring for the upper hand. “Go.”
He left her alone in the corridor with her thoughts. Foster care for days on end, possibly not even in a home. She bit her nail, her gaze focusing on a scene beyond the hallway in which she stood. Shift workers passing the babies from one to another.
Her heart ached with compassion and the desire to make a difference.
But what was the alternative? Champion caring for twins he didn’t want to be responsible for and for whom he couldn’t properly care?
And she’d be on the other side of the wall that separated their duplex, desperate to be the one in charge.
“There has to be another way,” she whispered.
Champion entered the hallway, freezing when he saw her, then heading in her direction and walking right by.
“Where are you going?” she called.
“Home.”
Guilt tugged her limbs closer to the ground. “What about the babies?”
“I told you, I can’t take them. Like you said, I’m not father material.”
It was what she’d been pushing for, but now the alternative weighed heavily on her mind, the institutionalized existence that awaited the boys an even less attractive option than being in Champion’s care. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
He stopped and turned to face her. “Never apologize for calling a spade a spade.” He shrugged. “Besides, the boys have a step-grandmother out there somewhere. She’s the next of kin, not me. Social services will find her and that will be that.”
“But there are no temporary foster homes available. Is this woman local?”
“Beats me.” He turned and walked away.
One of the babies cried from inside the lounge, and she longed to go to him and scoop him up like so much candy.
The moment was slipping through her fingers, her chance to intercede on the boys’ behalf nearly out of reach entirely.
“You could take them on temporarily,” she called, surprising herself.
What was she doing? Champion was not a fit guardian, but the alternative was even worse. If she hadn’t pointed out his deficiencies, he’d be packing those boys into his truck right now. And wouldn’t that be better than this?
He opened his mouth and she held up her hand. “Hear me out. Just watch them until they find the grandmother.”
“That could take forever.”
She shrugged. “Then find her yourself.”
“No.”
Frustration, fatigue, and anxiety formed a heady mix. She was powerless to hold her tongue. “You selfish, arrogant fool.”
His eyes narrowed. “What did you call me?”
“You heard me. Heaven forbid these boys might cramp your lifestyle for a few days, make it so you actually had to do some little piece of good in the world for a change, worry about someone other than yourself.”
He advanced quickly, pointing his finger at her chest. “Listen, Nurse Ratchet, I know damn well I don’t have what those kids need, which is why I’m trying to bow out gracefully.
But you keep chucking insults at me like I’ve done something to piss you off, which frankly is starting to make me angry. ”
She held her ground. “They need you.”
He growled, one hand on either side of his head. “You are infuriating! Five minutes ago, you wanted nothing more than for me to walk out that door. Now I’m doing it and you’re begging me to take them? I’m not prepared to take care of two babies. I don’t know the first thing about children.”
“You feed them when they’re hungry, you change them when they’re wet. What you don’t do is take a big step back when you are needed. You don’t run away from the helpless and the weak because they might cramp your style.”
“I don’t know how to take care of babies. I don’t have any children, I don’t want any children, and I’m not taking those boys home with me.”
Grace closed the distance between her and Brett, poking him in the chest as she spoke. “Those children need you. I, of all people, realize that’s like the punch line to a terrible joke, but nonetheless that’s where we are. You can’t just walk away from that.”
“Watch me.”
He turned to leave and she shoved his back, pulse racing. “Don’t you give a shit about anyone but yourself?”
“Where do you get off acting like you know me? We share a wall. That’s it. And no matter how many times my headboard bounced against it, you don’t know jack shit about me, lady.”
“You’re right. Up until just now, I didn’t know you at all. But if you leave those children here for the state to take care of, then everything I just said about you is true.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “So what, I just take two babies home, not knowing how to take care of them? Do you really think that’s a good idea?
I don’t know how to hold them, I don’t know what they eat.
But here you are, Florence freaking Nightingale, ready to hand off two tiny human beings to the one guy in the room who says he can’t handle it. ”
“Then I’ll help you.”
She held her breath, the words rushing past her lips like fire through a hot, dry field. She had plans tonight, she reminded herself—possibly the biggest plans of her whole life—and none of this figured into that plan at all.
But this was her Achilles’ heel, the one spot where she was most vulnerable. Children. Loss. Safety. Surely John would understand. “I’ll help you,” she repeated, not giving herself a chance to talk herself out of it. “But please, don’t leave them behind like they don’t even matter.”
“How are you going to help me? Are you going to wake up with them whenever they wake up and feed them whenever they need to be fed and change the diapers when they’re dirty? Because if you don’t, then you are asking more than I can give.”
“I live right next door. I don’t need to move in with you, for God’s sake, just to help you take care of two children.”
“Oh no? Are you going to show me how to do it through the wall? Because I don’t think that will work very well.”
The hospital social worker walked out of the lounge. “Mr. Champion, you’re free to go. I'll see to it that the children find an emergency placement as soon as possible.”
Emergency placement.
Grace turned beseeching eyes to Brett. She heard the desperation in her voice as she begged, “Please.”
Brett looked from the social worker to her and back.
He was wavering, she could see it, and she pushed harder.
“I’ll help you,” she repeated. “I’ll stay the night in your apartment and help you take care of them.
I can do that.” John wouldn’t like it, she knew he wouldn’t, but these children needed her help.
And how will that look to the congregation?
Panic was rising like floodwaters.
“It may take days to find Grandma. What if it’s more than one night?”
An image of John’s disapproving stare appeared in her mind, but she pushed it away.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Fine. Whatever it takes.”
“You’ll stay with me for as long as I need?”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t give me any grief when I find a better guardian for these kids and give them away?”
She shook her head quickly. “Absolutely not.”
“All right then. Looks like we’re roommates until we find the twins’ grandmother.” He held out his hand.
She placed hers inside it, awareness seeping into her pores as his fingers wrapped around hers. She pulled her hand away.
What have I done?
A police officer jogged toward them from down the hall. “We’ve found a white passenger van in the hospital parking lot with damage to the front grill consistent with our hit-and-run vehicle. Some trace evidence, looks like hair and blood.”
“Jesus Christ,” Champion whispered.
Grace looked from one man to the other, the pieces refusing to click into place. “What? What does that mean?”
Champion’s eyes were dark, cavernous spaces, and for a moment she swore she could see a labyrinth of passageways snaking in their depths. “Trace evidence will have to confirm it,” he said. “But it looks like the creep who attacked you in the lounge is the same person who killed Joni and Luke.”