SKYE
I triedmy best to lose myself in the romance novel I was reading, but I found it difficult not to picture Nick as the hero and myself as the heroine. The last thing I needed was any more reason to be attracted to the man. It wasn’t helping that he’d been so understanding about the NDA. He’d actually apologized to me.
Who does that?
It would be easier not to be attracted to him if he were more like his podcast personality, but he wasn’t. Everything I’d observed and every interaction I’d had with him had been nothing but kind and generous. The fact that I had this job because he’d taken in his mother was exhibits A and B of both those qualities.
I gave up on my reading and sat back in the chair. Over the past hour, I’d been monitoring Naomi’s labored breaths. Her wheezing was getting louder, and I decided that she needed to be repositioned. Not only would she be able to breathe easier sitting up, but it would also relieve her hips. Although the adjustable bed she was in was in an upright position, she’d slid down during the past couple of hours.
I stood and walked over to her and when I got to the side of the bed, her eyes opened.
“Hi, how about we get you sitting up?”
She nodded. I bent over and placed Naomi’s arms around my neck as I wrapped my arms around her to assist her in being seated upright.
Once she was secure in the position, I looked over at her meal tray. “Are you sure you can’t eat anything else?”
She’d barely touched her delicious-looking dinner that had been made by Carmen. I hadn’t cleared it in hopes that she might be able to get more down. With her eyes still closed, she shook her head back and forth. I noticed that her lips were dry, so I poured her some fresh water and lifted the straw to her mouth.
After drinking half the glass, she exhaled and opened her eyes.
“Did I miss Nick?”
“Um, yes, he checked in when he got home.” When I arrived for my shift, Naomi told me that she overheard something about Nick going on a date. I’d tried to keep my face neutral, even though the information had stung a little bit.
“How long ago was that?”
I glanced down at my watch and saw that it was a quarter to three in the morning. “About six hours ago.”
“He’s barely said two words to me since I got here.” Her voice was as weak as her breathing. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”
I remained quiet. Every family I worked with was unique, but this family was on a whole other level.
“He came to see me. In prison. Years ago. Did he tell you that?”
“No, he didn’t.” We’d barely talked about Naomi other than him asking how she was.
Tears appeared in her eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or from the memories. She wasn’t due any more medication for another hour and a half, so I sat down in the chair beside her and held her hand. It was the most comfort I could give her.
“He came a week after his eighteenth birthday.” A single tear slid down her cheek as she took in a labored breath. “I always told myself that I wasn’t going to see him if he ever showed up. I didn’t want him to see me in there. But… I couldn’t help myself. I had… to see… the man he’d become.”
As a second tear slid down her other cheek, I patted her hand.
“He was so handsome. So smart. He had questions… Questions I didn’t want to answer… How do you tell your son his father was… a monster? I didn’t want him to think that he shared DNA with someone so horrible. But I didn’t know how to tell him that, so I didn’t answer his questions. I got overwhelmed, and I just got up and left the visitor room. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again, but he came back a month later. And then a month after that, and again the next month, but I refused to see him. I took him off the list because I knew if I saw him again, he would have more questions… Questions I couldn’t answer.”
Callie’s dad hadn’t been a monster. But he certainly hadn’t been a saint. I wondered what Nick’s dad had been like. I wanted to ask, but it wasn’t any of my business, and I didn’t want to upset Naomi any further than she already was.
She looked up at me. “Do you have children?”
“Yes.”
Naomi took a labored breath. “A son?”
“No, a daughter. She’s fourteen.”
The corners of her mouth turned up in a smile. “What’s she like?”
Normally, I didn’t talk about my personal life at work. The patients and families I cared for had enough to deal with; this job wasn’t about me. But there was something about Naomi that was different. Maybe it was because her life had been so disconnected from the world that I could sense she wanted to make a connection. “She’s sweet, smart and funny. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”
