9. Jaime
— ? —
Jaime
I have a son.
The thought loops endlessly while I sit in my car, engine off, headlights dark, parked across the street from Skye’s apartment building.
I have a son and missed it all, from his first breath, word, and step to three years of birthdays, Christmases, and thousands of bedtime stories I can never reclaim.
I know I should go home and give her space, respecting the clear boundary she drew when she closed that door in my face.
But I can’t leave. Because my son is in that building, and now that I know he’s real, I can’t be anywhere else.
So I sit and I wait. And I watch the window that might be his.
One hour passes, then two.
The neighborhood is too quiet. Skye was right about the broken gate, the burned-out streetlight. This isn’t a safe place to raise a child. This isn’t where my son should be sleeping.
But that’s not my call. Because I’m the man who made her run. The man who drove her to this broken-down apartment complex because she was that desperate to escape me.
I close my eyes and rest my head. Maybe I should sleep here every day. Maybe I should knock on Skye’s door and beg one more time. Maybe I should...
***
A knock on my window awakens me.
I jerk upright, heart hammering, and see Skye standing outside my car. Her face is pale. Her eyes are wild with panic.
I’m out of the car before I can think.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“His fever spiked.” Her voice is shaking. “It was coming down, and then it wasn’t, and now it’s a hundred and six, and he’s not responding when I talk to him, and I called 911 but they said fifteen minutes and I don’t have fifteen minutes, Jaime, I don’t-”
“Get in the car.”
“What?”
“Get Josh. Get in the car. I’ll have you at the hospital in five minutes.”
She doesn’t argue. She runs.
Seconds later, she’s in my back seat with Josh in her arms, and I’m driving faster than I’ve ever driven in my life. Running red lights and weaving through traffic.
“He’s so hot.” Skye’s voice is barely a whisper. “He’s burning up. Josh, baby, can you hear Mama? Josh?”
I look in the rearview mirror. Josh’s face is flushed, his eyes closed, his small body limp against Skye’s chest. He’s not moving and not responding.
I drive faster.
“You called me,” I say.
“You were outside. I saw your car from the window.”
“I’ve been there for two hours.”
“I know.” Her voice breaks. “I know you have.”
The hospital appears ahead, the emergency entrance lit up bright. I screech to a stop at the doors and Skye is out of the car before I can put it in park, running through the automatic doors with Josh in her arms.
I abandon the car where it sits. Don’t care if they tow it and fine me a thousand dollars. My son is in that building.
The emergency room is chaos. Doctors and nurses swarm around Skye, taking Josh from her arms, shouting medical terms I don’t understand. Someone says febrile seizure. Someone else says cooling blankets. A third voice calls for a pediatric specialist.
Skye stands frozen in the middle of it all, her arms empty, her face white with terror.
I go to her. I don’t think about it and don’t ask permission. I just go, and I pull her against my chest, and I hold on while she shakes.
“He’s going to be okay,” I say into her hair. “He’s going to be fine. They know what they’re doing.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know that I’m not leaving until he is.”
She doesn’t push me away. That’s the only miracle I need right now.
The next three hours are the longest of my life.
I pace the waiting room, my shoes wearing a path in the industrial carpet.
Skye sits in a plastic chair, knees pulled to her chest, staring at nothing.
I bring her coffee from the vending machine.
She doesn’t drink it. I bring her water.
She doesn’t drink that either. I sit beside her and I don’t say anything, because there’s nothing to say.
“I should have taken him to the doctor sooner,” she whispers. “When the fever first started.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“I’m his mother. I’m supposed to know.”
“You did everything right.”
“What if I didn’t?” She looks at me, eyes hollow with fear. “What if something happens to him?”
“Nothing is going to happen to him.”
The pediatric specialist emerges through the double doors, and Skye jumps to her feet so fast she nearly falls.
“Is he okay?”
“The fever’s coming down. We’re keeping him overnight for observation, but it looks like a standard viral infection that escalated. The febrile seizure was scary, but it’s not uncommon in children his age. He should be fine to go home tomorrow.”
Relief floods Skye’s face. Her knees buckle and I catch her elbow to steady her.
The private room I demanded is quiet now, monitors beeping softly, Josh asleep in the pediatric bed. The flush has faded from his cheeks. His breathing is steady.
Skye sinks into the chair beside him, taking his small hand in hers. I hover in the doorway.
“You can come in,” she says without looking at me. “He’s asleep.”
I enter slowly, claiming the chair on the opposite side of the bed. My son’s face is peaceful, those curls spread across the pillow.
“His full name is Joshua David Warren,” Skye says quietly. “I didn’t give him your last name.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
“David was my grandfather’s name.”
“I remember. You told me on our third date.”
She looks up, surprised. “You remember that?”
“I remember everything about you, Skye. Every word. Every moment.”
Silence. The heart monitor beeps steadily.
“I found out I was pregnant three days before the wedding.” She still won’t look at me. “I was going to tell you at the reception. Pull you aside during our first dance.”
The image guts me. Her in that white dress, glowing with a secret, whispering in my ear while I held her.
“Why didn’t you tell me after?” My voice is hoarse. “When you left. Why didn’t you-”
“I almost did.” She finally meets my eyes, and the rawness there stops my breath. “Twenty days after the wedding. I listened to your voicemail, the one where you said you didn’t know how to give up on me. I had the text typed out. My thumb was on send.”
“The tabloid,” I say.
Her voice doesn’t rise. “I deleted the text. I blocked your number. And then I made sure my baby would never be a headline.”
So I tell her everything.
Leslie’s slow campaign. The lingering touches, the late nights, the texts that started professionally, but grew to something personal, sexual even. I deleted them every night, telling myself I was protecting Skye when really I was protecting myself.
“You asked me about her twice,” I say, and make myself keep going.
“And I looked you dead in the eyes and made you feel insane for it. I twisted every conversation until you were the one saying sorry. I used your own vulnerabilities against you, weaponized your trust in therapy to convince you that your instincts were the problem.” My voice cracks.
“That’s the exact thing I can’t ever take back right now, and I’m not even talking about the texts or deleting them, but just the way I broke something inside you simply because I wanted to avoid a hard conversation. ”
She goes very still.
“I told myself I was managing a difficult employee. The truth is I was managing you. She was good at her job and firing her meant a huge possibility of losing a few deals.” I make myself hold her gaze. “I chose my own company over your sanity. Every single day since she came.”
“And the wedding morning?”
“I texted her to come early so she could hand over the company files. And fire her after. That’s what ‘we’ll talk about what happens after the wedding’ meant.”
“‘I can’t stop thinking about last night,’” she quotes.
“The rehearsal dinner. She cornered me by the valet stand. Two minutes. I pushed her off me, the first hard boundary I ever set with her. She twisted even that, told me it was the first time I willingly put my hands on her.” I keep looking at her.
“She was so weird that night. I should have known she was planning something for the wedding.”
“She was building a bomb.”
“She showed up in a white dress in a seat that is not assigned for an assistant. Her plans were fueled by the texts you found. It went better than she expected.”
“The photos. Explain the photos.”
“Also her. She was already fired by that time. For a month after the wedding she was everywhere. Selling stories to these tabloid publishers. Manipulating paparazzi shots to look like we were a couple. The restaurant photo was not even me, just someone who dressed up as me. Then she called someone to wait outside my building. The 7 a.m. shot, she came to drop off transition files I kept on asking for her to hand over, wearing sunglasses and yesterday’s dress. ” I look at Josh.
Silence. The heart monitor beeps.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” I say. “But please, let me be part of his life. Let me try to be the father he deserves.”
She doesn’t answer for a long time. Then Josh stirs, his face crumpling. “Mama?”
“I’m here, baby.”
He reaches for her, and she lifts him. His eyes flutter open and land on me.
“Who’s that?”
Skye hesitates. I hold my breath.
“That’s... that’s someone Mama used to know.”
Josh studies me with those familiar dark eyes. Then he reaches out one small hand toward my face. His fingers brush my cheek.
“He looks sad,” Josh says.
Skye’s eyes fill with tears. So do mine.
“It’s okay,” Josh says. “Don’t be sad. Mama says sad makes you ugly.”
I can’t speak. I can only sit there and smile while my son shares what his mother taught him.