NICK
I pulledup to my house and took a deep breath to prepare myself to walk inside. My mother had been living with me for a week now, and I still hadn’t really spoken to her. I’d tried a few times, but I wasn’t sure what I could say to her. She was ill, very ill. I didn’t want to upset her and make her final time here unhappy.
At least that’s what I was telling myself. I wasn’t sure if it was the truth. She was different than I’d expected her to be. My memory of going to visit her in prison consisted of her sitting in front of me stonewalling my questions before abruptly getting up and walking out of the visitor’s room.
Over the years, I’d built her up in my head as being cold and heartless. But that wasn’t the person I’d witnessed with my daughter. The person I’d seen was kind, patient, and loving. She had a sense of humor and was thoughtful.
I wondered if those personality traits only surfaced because she was on her best behavior. Or had they come out once she’d gotten sick? Or was that who she’d actually been and I just hadn’t seen it because I’d been, a scared, rejected, abandoned kid?
I wasn’t sure what the answer was, but I knew I wasn’t going to find out sitting in my car.
When I walked into the house, I was met with enthusiasm.
“Daddy!” Bella raced toward me and threw her hands around my waist.
“Hey, Squirt. How was your day?”
“Good!” she exclaimed before rushing back to the table and grabbing a paper. “Look what I drew for Grandma.”
I glanced down and saw that it was a picture of me, Bella, and my mother in the middle of a field with flowers all around us.
“Wow, that’s beautiful.”
“Come on, I want to give it to her.” Bella tugged at my hand, pulling me down the hall toward Naomi’s room.
“You go ahead with Parker. I need to go change.”
Parker stood and gave me a knowing look. I ignored his silent accusation and decided to head upstairs to change before dinner. I was on my way when my Apple watch vibrated. I looked at it and saw that it was an email from Maddox titled Skye Taylor. Instead of continuing to the stairs, I went into my office so that I could pull up the report on my computer.
As I lowered myself behind my desk and began to type on the keyboard, my heart raced. I wasn’t sure what I expected him to uncover, but I was filled with anticipation.
My eyes scanned the report, which had her phone number, address, and age. She was thirty-four, which meant she’d had her daughter when she was around twenty. She had a good credit score and no criminal record—not even a parking ticket.
She’d been hospitalized twice—once in labor and delivery and once with appendicitis.
The entire thing was only two pages, with an attachment that was Callie’s birth certificate. Her daughter’s birthday was coming up in a month or so; she was going to be fifteen. I scanned further down the document and saw that the box for the father’s name was empty.
I grabbed my phone and dialed Maddox. He answered on the first ring. “I’m guessing you got the report.”
“Yeah, there’s not much to it.”
“There wasn’t much to find. Which is a good thing, right?”
“Yeah.” It was, but still, I felt disappointed. It hadn’t really told me anything.
“What were you expecting me to find?”
“I don’t know.” When I asked him, I wasn’t sure what he should look for, but now that I had this, I did have a question I wanted answered. “Is there any way to find out who the father of her child is?”
“Do you think… is there a possibility you are the—?”
“No. No,” I quickly clarified.
I heard a voice in the background that sounded a lot like Peyton. “Gotta go. I’ll see what I can find out,” Maddox said before ending the call.
I sat back in my chair and reread the report. It hadn’t really told me much more than I already knew. I was disappointed and even more intrigued. I was just about to get up when an alert popped up on my computer. It was a message from Jada confirming details for the Fostering the Future fundraiser. Normally, I brought a date; this year, the plan had been to bring Anastasia, but since I hadn’t even made it through a dinner with her, that wasn’t going to happen. I had no idea who my plus one would be, but another thought did occur to me.
Without running it by my brain first, my fingers typed back that instead of two tickets, I would need four. I wanted my mother to come and see it. And if she was coming, then I’d need to bring a nurse.
