Pulled(91)
Author: A.L. Jackson

Ten minutes later Erin rushed into the nursery and tugged hard at Daniel’s arm. Her voice was low and alarmed. “Daniel, I need to talk to you.”

“What is it?”

“Just come on.” Urgently, she tugged again, and he pulled me behind him.

The instant we were out the door, Erin burst.

“She’s gone!”

“What are you talking about, Erin?”

Erin shook a folded paper in Daniel’s face. “This is what I’m talking about!”

Daniel ripped it from her hands and tore at it to expose what was written inside. He spat through clenched teeth, “That bitch. I knew it.”

I stood looking between the two of them, waiting for one of them to fil me in on what happened. Neither of them looked my way, so consumed with what they’d found on that paper. I had never seen Daniel so angry. Visibly shaking with rage, his face was pinched, and he wore a hardened scowl. He reached into his pocket and fumbled for his phone, still muttering profanities that Erin continually seconded.

Frustrated, I reached out and plucked the paper from Daniel’s shaking hand. I smoothed the crumpled paper against my chest so I could read it. It wasn’t addressed or signed, but simply stated, “I can’t do this.” I had to read it three times before it sank in. Vanessa had abandoned her son. I was suddenly every bit as angry as Daniel. How could that woman turn her back on her own child? And for what, because she couldn’t have a man that she didn’t even know?

My thoughts went to that precious child in the next room. I found myself unable to grasp how anyone could see his beautiful face and not fal in love with him, especially his own mother. I turned and walked toward the glass. His smal crib was across the room, and I could see nothing of him from where I stood, but I could feel him—the pul , the need within him matching my own.

I barely registered the flurry of activity happening around me as the day progressed. Morning turned to afternoon, and the numerous cal s made to Vanessa still went unreturned. There were whispered conversations between Daniel and Patrick, the quick reappearance of Daniel’s attorney, people coming and going, the faces of all those I loved, strained and concerned as Wil iam Bailey made what seemed to be an unending number of phone cal s. It increasingly wore at Daniel as he tugged on his hair and paced up and down the corridor. His face looked pained when he paused to peer into the quiet nursery where I rocked his son. I spent those hours meeting all of Andrew’s needs while he met mine, comforting the child at the center of the tumult happening just outside.

I kissed Andrew’s forehead, wrapped the

sleeping infant in his blanket, and placed him back in his crib, still unable to pul myself fully away. I held the side of his bed and gazed down upon the child I would forever adore.

I felt Daniel enter, coming up behind me and wrapping me tightly against his body. He looked over my shoulder to peer lovingly down at his son and then leaned in and whispered heaven against my ear.

“Melanie, let’s take our son home.”

Chapter 29

He was so beautiful. The sun shone down over us as I sat barefoot, squishing my toes down into the damp grass, my legs drawn to my chest. I watched as my son ran, untroubled and free, across our backyard. His blond curls played around his face as the faint breeze gave way to sudden gusts of wind.

“Mommy, watch,” he cal ed. As if I’d ever stopped.

He climbed the steps to his smal slide, his three-year-old legs quick and adept in his favorite activity. His hazel eyes flashed with excitement when he reached the top. He swung himself up and onto his butt, digging his heels into the slide to propel himself forward. His face shown euphoric for the few brief seconds it took for him to reach the bottom.

As soon as his feet hit the ground, giggles bubbled up from within him, his chubby, round face succumbing to a fit of laughter as he raced across the lawn and threw himself into my lap. I exaggerated the impact by shielding his body in my arms as I all owed us to fal back into the cool grass. Laughing, I hugged him to me and breathed against his head.

“You are getting too big, Andrew. You knocked your momma right over!”

He wiggled and sat up, grinning at me and showing all of his smal , white teeth. “Daddy said I’m a big boy now.”

“Yes,” I confirmed, my own smile filled with the intense love I had for him. “You are a very big boy!” He was back on his feet, darting away. He sang the first line of his ABCs over and over while he settled down into the dirt to play with his trucks, leaving me to gaze at the little boy I still could not believe was mine.

Even though it had never been her intention, Vanessa giving up this child had been the most unselfish act she’d ever committed. She had given me a son, a child not borne of my body but created specifically for me, just as his father had been. I’d known it the moment I had felt his pul , just as I’d known that very thing when I felt Daniel so many years before.

Without Vanessa, though, Andrew wouldn’t be here. As much as I couldn’t stand the person she was, it didn’t stop me from waking each morning and silently thanking her for being the vessel that had brought my son into this world.

As he played in the sand, the sun warming his pale, smooth skin against the cool breeze, I saw traces of her.

No doubt, Andrew was his father’s twin, his golden curls a near perfect match to Daniel’s at the same age with smal ringlets framing his precious little face and bouncing where they rested at the nape of his neck with each bounding step he took. Patrick had informed me on more than one occasion that most strangers thought Andrew was a girl, but I still couldn’t bear to see the curls cut away. Julia would only laugh and run her fingers lovingly through her grandson’s hair, reminding Patrick that he had said the very same thing when Daniel was young.

Andrew already had Daniel’s smile, the same one that rendered me helpless. I found myself constantly grateful that Andrew was such a good child because I had no idea how I would ever discipline him. And those eyes, they were as if God had seen his perfect work in Daniel and simply replicated the same magic in Andrew.

Stil , Vanessa was there, seen in the faint freckles that ran over the bridge of his button nose and sprinkled out under his eyes and in the hint of red in his hair that could only be seen when the sun hit it just right. It was an odd feeling to be so indebted to someone I hated so much.

That day in the hospital had been a harrowing experience for Daniel. Vanessa had left without signing anything, and the hospital staff questioned whether Daniel was even Andrew’s father. Though we didn’t need medical confirmation that Daniel’s blood flowed through Andrew’s body, the state did. Daniel had wil ingly yielded to a paternity test that confirmed him as Andrew’s biological father. As stressful as that all had been, it had become the single most important day in my life—the day I went home with Daniel and my son. Nothing could compare to arriving in front of our house and walking through the front door with my family. It was the first time in my life I had ever truly been home.