JAKE HAD LEFT HOLLY MORE THAN ten messages since he’d gotten off the phone with his mom. Mara had tried to phone him a dozen times after that initial call, but he knew all she wanted was for him to get his ass to Hawaii. As she refused to talk to him about Holly over the phone, he was going nowhere.

Kate called him numerous times, too. He eventually picked up, but told her that the wedding needed to wait. It wasn’t easy; as all he accomplished was to make her cry. She didn’t understand why and was freaking out, as everything had been paid for. 

“Kate, I need to sort this out. I’ve just found out I have a child I was convinced had been aborted. If I don’t sort this out, I might never see her again.” His voice was thick with tears

“I can’t believe you are doing this to me! Don’t you care about me at all? Can’t you figure all this out after the wedding? Are you even sure this child is yours?” she sniffled.

“Kate, listen to me. If I don’t figure this out right now, I’ll never get to see her. Put yourself in my shoes. Don’t you want me to have this chance to meet my child—my flesh and blood? And of course she’s mine. Aggie said she’s my spitting image.”

“You should be thinking about me and Michael right now, Jake. We’re about to become a part of your family,” she said in a sarcastic tone as if Michael meant everything and this new little person in his life, Jamie, was nothing.

“Just make the arrangements, Kate. Postpone the wedding for a few days. I really have to go now.”

“Fine, I’ll get Daddy to talk to everyone. Just promise me you’re coming here to marry me when you’ve sorted everything out.”

“I promise,” he said. “And I’m really sorry about this.”

He ended the call. Frustrated, he dialed Holly’s number again. It was nine in the evening, and he was sitting on the deck of his home that was mere yards from the beach. It was a home he’d gotten for Kate, Michael, and him to be a family in. Never in a million years had he realized, or could have imagined, that he already had a family. 

Amelia, Armand, Robin, and his dad were on their way home.

“This is Holly. I can’t take your call at the moment, but please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.” 

Holly’s phone didn’t even ring anymore. That familiar hollow feeling of her being gone ached in his gut. He’d even gone to the airport to see if he could find her, stationing Moira and Aggie at the security line entering the terminals, but she wasn’t there. He’d shown the photo he’d taken out of her file before leaving the hospital, requesting that if she showed up with a little girl who looked like him, they needed to postpone the flight and phone him. He’d paid a shitload of money for that to happen.

On hearing Holly’s recorded message yet again, he sighed; he had heard that message more than a dozen times. When the beep sounded in his ear, he begged, “Holly… please.” His voice broke. “I know it’s late. I’m dead tired, but if you get this, call me. No matter the time. Jamie is mine. too...” He terminated the call.

He’d cried a lot already, especially when he heard her voice message. Then he remembered Rod. Why the fuck hadn’t he thought about him before? Grabbing his phone, he dialed Rodney’s number, but he got a recorded message too. As soon as the beep went off, Jake started talking. “Rod, I know you think I’m a fucking bastard, but you’re wrong. I swear to you, I wanted that baby. Somewhere there was a misunderstanding, and I’m going to find out what. Please, ask Holly to phone me. Please. I know we can sort this out.”

He wanted to kick himself for not having phoned Rodney sooner. He’d completely forgotten about him knowing Holly. This mess could’ve been sorted out hours ago if he’d just remembered. 

He would never forgive himself for not being there five years ago.

Closing his eyes, he lay back on the chair. The ocean was rumbling behind him. The smell of sea salt permeated the air and felt sticky on his face. The stars shone brightly, and it was a full moon. The evening was simply gorgeous, but his emotions didn’t reflect it. Why hadn’t she told him about their daughter? Why hadn’t she fought with him and asked him why he hadn’t been there? Why hadn’t he? They’d had so many opportunities and yet, they hadn’t taken a single one. 

But that wasn’t the number one thought lingering on his mind. How on earth had she managed to sleep with him over and over within the span of two months? To kiss him like he was the only one for her, to give him the choice of coming home, and him throwing it back in her face when he couldn’t choose her. She would never forgive him. He thought about the outcome if he had chosen her that day. She might have told him about their child. If it wasn’t for Moira, he wouldn’t even know her name: Jamie. 

It was her sister’s name, her twin. He remembered that dream he’d had. He’d dreamed out of nowhere the night he’d fallen asleep in the doctor’s room with her—two of them to be precise. He been so angry at her when he’d woken up from that amazing dream, angry that she hadn’t waited for his dad to speak to her and assess the formula again. He would’ve found something to make the pregnancy easier on her.

He’d had to force himself to leave her a note. She’d even messaged him that next morning asking him if he remembered what they’d spoken about and for a split second he thought he hadn’t dreamed her words, that she’d kept the babies—because he was certain she’d told him she’d had twins in his dream—and that was why the dream had changed. But when she mentioned Zürich, he’d gotten angry again and just told her to go. He wanted her gone. He had felt the regret a couple hours later. What if she had told him and had just changed it the next day to Zürich? She was a twin... but no, the ultrasound would’ve picked up on a second heartbeat. And there’d only been one girl at the hospital, not two.

Tears flowed down his cheeks again; he’d never cried so much in his entire life. He’d read Holly’s file repeatedly in the past couple of hours to see if he’d missed anything, but there was no mention of a child. Holly had the block marked ‘dependents’ blank, just as she had left her address blank.

Now he knew why she’d left the NICU in such a hurry the night he’d held that premature baby. Seeing him hold a baby had been too much for her, knowing he’d never held his own child. He could never forgive himself, and swore he would find answers as to why she’d never told him. He hoped that he could fix this. Even if it took him years, he didn’t care. He wanted to be in Jamie’s life. He’d already missed so much.

Jake got up and made his way inside to take a shower. He broke down again after he crawled into bed. He struggled to fall asleep and when he did, he dreamed something he hadn’t dreamed about for a long time. In this dream, everything was perfect. Holly had stayed. She still had her long, beautiful curls. There was a baby crying in the background. For some reason, the baby was a boy, never a girl, but that wasn’t the point. The point of that dream was that everything in his life was as it should’ve been. He should never have stopped searching for her. He should’ve carried on. He’d been so close to Seattle. But this dream continued and in it, the boy eventually turned into a girl, and he saw himself crawl around with the baby throughout the house. He played with her, dressed up as the wolf and she as Red Riding Hood for her first Halloween. He’d never loved anyone the way he loved his daughter and her mother.

He was woken up by the ringing of his phone and he grabbed it at once. “Holly?” he answered without looking.

“No,” said Amelia. “Can you please open the door for us?”

Jumping out of bed, Jake pulled on a shirt. He ran down the stairs, his heart still beating erratically. For a second, he’d really thought it was Holly.

Five figures stood on the other side of the door, all sporting red-rimmed eyes. Amelia looked like she’d done a fair amount of crying, too. Stepping forward, she wrapped her arms around her brother. He could feel her body shaking. She was the one crying now, and he just stood there with her in his arms. When Armand stroked her back, she pulled herself from Jake’s grip. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she wiped them away, forcing a smile. “Sorry,” she whispered, then walked past Jake into the house.

His father gave him a hug, too, but didn’t say anything. Robin was not like Amelia, but she was very sensitive in her own way. Jake frowned as he saw his godfather.

“You could’ve stayed and enjoyed Hawaii.” Jake tried to make a joke.

“No, my boy. I had to be here. How are you doing?” Frank Edwards asked. Before he’d opened his own practice, he’d been Jake’s and Amelia’s pediatrician. Where his father was the best gynecologist, Frank was the best at saving children.

“I don’t know.”

Frank shook his head. “I’m going to make you all something to eat.” He walked past him directly to the kitchen. His mom hadn’t come with her family, but Jake wasn’t sure why he’d thought she would. Jake shared one trait with her, or the old Jake did. They were both adamant and stubborn when it came to the things they wanted.  He followed Frank and the rest of his family through the lobby, past the hallway to the living room and eventually into the kitchen.

“So, I take it she hasn’t phoned you?” Amelia asked as she placed her bag on Jake’s sofa.

Jake shook his head and took a deep breath, not wanting his sister to start crying again. 

They all took seats while Frank beat the living shit out of something in the open-floor plan kitchen that faced the living room.

“I left her... I don’t know how many messages, begging her not to run again. To be honest with you, I think she’s far gone by now.”

Amelia closed her eyes and shook her head. “Don’t say that.”

Jake stared at her with worry. He and Amelia were ten months apart, and most of his life she’d felt like his other half, they were that close. Like twins. She’d made Armand celebrate a birthday in March for the past four years, as it was how old Jake’s baby would’ve been if… It wasn’t an if anymore. She existed, and he didn’t even know when her birthday was. He forced that out of his mind. How dismal those days must have been for Holly, how dismal he felt for not having celebrated them with her. He froze as he remembered a call that had been made to Rod that one time in the OR. He’d spoken to a little girl whose name had been Jamie. Jake had heard her voice while Rod had spoken to her. He’d said it was his godchild. Had Rodney been the one to share her birthdays? Who had been the male influence in her life? These thoughts were driving Jake insane, he was distraught and his body shook as tears gathered in his eyes again.

Gus held him tightly. “Please, son, don’t do this.” His father begged in a defeated tone.

Jake collected himself. “I’m fine,” he said, remembering her beautiful, angelic voice. If only he’d known then it was his little girl’s voice enchanting everyone that day in the OR. He should’ve asked Rod for a photo, but in his mind, he saw a chocolate-colored face. Not his.

Sniffing, he sat on the couch, staring through tear-filled eyes at the coffee table; he didn’t want to look at his sister.

“Mom didn’t tell you anything?” he asked his father, breaking the silence.

“Like what, Jake? She told us what happened five years ago. The why isn’t with your mother.”

“Dad, I don’t know anymore.” He was so confused. “Holly told me I made my bed five years ago, and that now I should lie in it. She told Moira… it doesn’t matter. Those are not the actions of someone getting caught with a secret, but rather someone who is really pissed off at being dealt a bad hand of cards.” He shook his head again, trying to push back the tears. “It was as if she blamed me, as if I hadn’t wanted the baby.”

“Jake, let’s be honest. You hardly knew her.”

“I know, Dad, but I knew enough. She forgave her cheating boyfriend... I don’t know how many times. I never got a second chance. It doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t she get in touch with me when she decided to keep the baby? Why didn’t she call you? She must’ve needed the formula, Dad.”

“The formula didn’t work, Jake.”

He shook his head. “I used to believe that this awful feeling I had in my gut was about the decision she made, but now, I don’t think it had anything to do with that.”

His father sighed again. “We will get to the bottom of this, Jake, I promise. Even if we need to involve lawyers for you to meet your daughter—she won’t get away with this.”

“No! I’m not going to take her to court. I refuse for that little girl to stay with a stranger because of whatever happened five years ago that forced her mom to make the awful decision to run away. I will get a lawyer to force her to hear me out if I have to, but I’m not going to let this turn into a bloodbath where she will end up hating me even more.”

“Jake, what if we don’t find Holly ever again? What if she is gone and…” Amelia couldn’t finish her sentence.

“Well, at least I know where she was hiding the last time. I’ll start from there.”

Frank walked into the room. “Did I hear the name Holly?” he asked. “You aren’t talking about Holly Scallanger, are you?”

They all looked at Frank.

“You know her?” Jake asked.

Frank’s face froze, his mouth agape. Jake could see the shock on the man’s face.

“Uncle Frankie?” Jake’s heart beat a thousand beats a minute. Fuck! His godfather’s practice was in Seattle.

“I’ve always thought they were Peters,” he said under his breath. “I saw it from the minute they put her in my arms.” A tear rolled down his cheek. “I’m Jamie Bernice’s pediatrician, Jake.”

“Her name is Jamie Bernice?” Amelia’s tone was raised.

Frank nodded. “I asked her numerous times who the father was, but all she ever said was that he hadn’t wanted them.” He started to cry. “I’m so sorry, my boy. If I’d known for certain…”

Jake got up and hugged his godfather. “She said the father, me in this case, didn’t want them?” 

Frank nodded.

“I tried so many times to find out who the father was, especially as Jamie got bigger,” he sighed. “She looked increasingly like you. Clever as hell, too. Why, she’s able to say words normal five-year-olds  don’t even know. You can have a decent conversation with her, and she’s only five! I should’ve known. I should’ve told you, even if it turned out that they weren’t yours. I’m so sorry.” Thinking back to the day Rod had received the phone call from Jamie, Jake knew Frank wasn’t exaggerating about being able to have a decent conversation. She was already interested in the human body. She was a Peters through and through. He remembered the laughter from the answers Rod gave her before he said goodbye and told her not to tell her mother she’d called. Holly hadn’t wanted him to find out about her.

“It’s not your fault.” He looked at his father. “Dad, that’s exactly what she told Moira in the OR, that I hadn’t wanted them.”

“What?” Amelia asked, but he ignored it. 

Gus merely stared at the table in the middle of the lounge, his brows knitted with concern.

Then the dream of Holly telling him she’d had twins jumped into his mind because of something Frank said, and he looked at him again. “You said them. Twice.”

Frank looked to the ground. “You should sit, Jake.”

Oh, God, no! “No, tell me now, uncle Frankie,” he said, tears lingering in his eyes again.

“There were two of them, Jake.” 

Amelia cupped her mouth as she sucked in a breath, as the rest of the family.

“Were?” Jake asked, his voice a mere croak, his hands trembling.

Frank just shook his head.

A pain Jake had never experienced before jolted through his chest. He couldn’t breathe. No, no, no! Jake succumbed to his grief. Amelia rushed over to her brother, and both cried.

“One of the babies died?” Gus asked, his voice shaky.

“Romalia wasn’t strong enough. She died nine days later.”

Amelia lifted her head from Jake’s shoulder. “Romalia?” she asked, shock lacing her tone. “She named one of the babies after me and Robin?”

“Romalia…” Robin repeated, tears forming in her eyes, too, but she pinched them shut to keep the tears at bay.

“I’m so stupid. I should’ve caught on to that.” Frank took a seat, covering his eyes with his hands. Sniffing noisily, he continued recounting the memory of baby Romalia fighting to stay alive. “To be honest, it’s a miracle Jamie pushed through. They were born at twenty-five weeks. I don’t know what Holly’s symptoms were… just that it was an emergency C-section. She woke up three days after the girls were born and…” Frank didn’t finish.

Again, Jake thought about the song Rod had rapped in the cafeteria, which had been in November. Twenty-five weeks. Rod had rapped a birthday song over the phone with a couple of interns. He should’ve been at that fucking party dressed up like Dumbo or something. He’d missed five of his daughter’s birthdays, which he would never get back.

“I should’ve looked harder,” Jake finally whispered. 

“We should’ve been there for her,” Amelia cried. Armand wrapped his arms around his wife as she cried for baby Romalia who couldn’t be saved.

“I’m telling you, Dad, something is not adding up. Why would she run away, and why would she have told Frank I didn’t want them?” 

“Jake, don’t you even dare think your mother is behind this. She would never hurt you like that. I know she wasn’t happy, but she was just as excited as I was when she finally came around to the idea.”

“She was?”

“I promise you, she was.” 

Jake nodded. Still, it didn’t make any sense. Uncle Frankie couldn’t tell him more. Even if they were Jake’s babies, his name wasn’t on their birth certificates and it was confidential. He’d already violated HIPPAA enough. Holly would need to sign a form if he wanted to know everything. 

His daughter, Jamie Bernice, had been named after Holly’s twin sister, Jamie, who’d died from cancer at the age of fifteen. And Bernice for her used-to-be best friend. 

He should phone Leo tomorrow and tell them that Holly hadn’t had the abortion. He hadn’t spoken to Leo in the past two years, and they’d been so close. The dream he’d had that night they slept in one of the doctor’s sleeping quarters kept popping into his mind. He was certain now that he hadn’t dreamt Holly’s words, and that she’d lied to him the next day when he’d asked her what she’d spoken to him about. 

“I’m good friends with her mom, Jake. I can phone her tomorrow and explain, if that would help.”

Jake gasped, looking at Frank. “She made peace with her mom?”

Frank didn’t know anything regarding that. “She must have. But her father, I must say, is a fucking asshole. Although he was the one who paid for everything.”

“She went to her father!” He hated that with every fiber of his being. Her father was a dick. He’d left her mother when they were small to marry some bimbo who used to work for him.

“You know her father?”

Jake shook his head, his jaw muscles jumping. He’d forced her to make peace with the asshole to save his babies.

“I’m so sorry…”

“Uncle Frankie, it’s not your fault. You don’t have an inch of cruelty inside of you and you couldn’t have known they were my children 

“Did you see Jamie?”

Nodding, he told his uncle what happened, that she ran past the room, had the most beautiful curls just like her mother, and that that was all he saw.

Frank took out his phone, went into his photo gallery, and then handed the phone to Jake.

Hesitantly, Jake reached for the phone, and on its screen was a selfie Frank had taken of himself with Jamie. Tears welled up in his eyes, and his bottom lip trembled. She was a Peters all right, but Holly was in her, too.

Amelia crawled over to him and peeked at the phone.

“You are that close to them?”

“They were my instant family, Jake.”

Jake gasped. Everyone stared at them. Uncle Frankie had dated a woman who’d had both a daughter and granddaughter. Since his fiancée had left him years ago, Uncle Frankie didn’t believe in love anymore, so had a different woman at his side every four months or so. The instant family was something he’d desperately wanted, but the woman had broken it off. Scallanger girls had no idea what kind of a hold they had over men, which was proven to be true as Frank never got to keep his, either.

“I babysit with Jane, her mother, a lot. Holly works very hard…” he trailed off when guilt washed over Jake’s face. “I should have been more persistent to find out who Jamie’s father was.”

“It’s okay, Uncle Franky.”

“No, it isn’t. Both of you were part of a huge mistake, Jake. I will find out Holly’s side of the story, I promise, and then we can take it from there.”

Jake nodded and got up. He couldn’t pretend he was okay anymore He just wanted to be alone, he wanted to mourn the years he’d lost not knowing his daughter, and he wanted to mourn for the daughter he’d never know. He stopped at the foot of stairs. “When were they born—what date?”

“Thirteenth of November.”

He dialed Rod’s number but it went over to voicemail. Oh, please, don’t help her run away, he thought, disconnecting the call. This was probably why Rod didn’t want to work with him anymore. It wasn’t because he’d found out about the affair, but because he’d found out that Jake was the babies’ father. Holly must hate him so much. For not being there, for not supporting her and their daughters. He didn’t want to imagine what she went through when she’d woken up three days after their birth, but the image of her almost dying filled his mind. Why on earth had she had an affair with him? If he’d been in her shoes, he would never have gone that route. Even if he loved her with all his heart.

He could still hear the soft whispers of his family downstairs as he closed his door, and he was thankful for the soundproof walls in his room. He fell to his knees, as if all his strength was gone, and buried his face between his legs. Jake cried like he’d never cried before.