Sunlight shines through my eyelids, causing me to wake from one of the best sleeps I’ve had in a long time. I almost forgot where I was. But even before I open my eyes, the smell reminds me. I’m in Kyle’s apartment. In Kyle’s bed.
He insisted on taking the futon in his guest room. He didn’t want to disturb Ellie.
I reach out my arm to find my daughter, but all I run into are pillows. My heart races as I quickly crawl to the side of the bed to see if she’s fallen off. But the floor is empty. I hop out of bed and go out in the living room, stopping in my tracks when I see Kyle holding Ellie.
He’s sitting on the couch, his back to me. He’s singing that song, ‘This is the way the ladies ride . . .’ as he bounces her on his knee.
And I know he must be making funny faces as he sings, because Ellie is laughing.
She’s laughing. At him. A stranger.
I’m mesmerized watching him interact with her. He doesn’t have kids, yet he’s a natural. So calm and confident. I guess it comes from being a doctor.
I quietly walk around the back of the couch, over to the kitchen where I grab a bottle of water from his refrigerator. Kyle hears me open it.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he says. “I heard her wake up, but you were dead asleep. I wanted to give you a few more minutes of shut-eye. I know yesterday was a big day for you, seeing Caden and all.”
“It’s fine,” I say, admiring the way he’s holding Ellie. “She seems taken with you.”
He shrugs. “I have that effect on all the ladies.”
I roll my eyes. “But at least you’re humble about it.”
He laughs and then turns back to Ellie, who is playing with the buttons on his shirt. “Case in point,” he says. “She doesn’t even care that you are over there talking to me.”
I come out from behind the kitchen counter and Kyle’s jaw drops. He rakes his eyes slowly up my body, starting at my bare feet and ending with what is most definitely a bad case of bed head.
I look down at myself, realizing that in my haste to get to Ellie, I forgot pants. The t-shirt Kyle gave me to sleep in covers my undies and hits me mid-thigh, revealing a lot of leg. Nothing he hasn’t seen before, but still, the way he’s looking at me—he’s a starving man and I’m filet mignon.
It makes me wonder what he’s been doing all these months. He says he’s focusing on his career. But he’s a man. A man in his twenties. A gorgeous man. Men like that aren’t celibate.
Ellie starts to squirm around in his lap. She throws her head back and cries. She’s hungry.
“I think she must want breakfast,” he says. “Are you hungry, Ellie? Do you want Mommy to feed you?”
She keeps crying.
I walk around the sofa and tell him, “Put your thumb opposite your fingers and open and close your fist, like you’re milking a cow.” I demonstrate how to do it. “Like this.”
He looks at me in confusion.
“It’s the sign for milk,” I say.
He looks down at Ellie, studying her. I expect him to look sad, take pity on her perhaps. But he doesn’t. He looks surprised, yes, but he doesn’t look at her like she’s any less of a person. “She’s deaf?” he asks me.
“Yes.”
He uses his hand to sign to her as I instructed, and Ellie immediately calms down. Then I walk over so she can see me and she raises up her arms to me.
I sit on the other end of his couch, pulling a blanket over me so I don’t reveal too much when I lift my shirt to nurse her.
“I had no idea, Lexi.”
“I know you didn’t. I left the hospital before they did her hearing test. I promised them I would have my pediatrician do it.”
“And what did her pediatrician say?”
“That she is profoundly deaf.”
“Did he talk to you about cochlear implants?”
I nod. “Yes. But I’m choosing not to go that way. I know most people wouldn’t understand my reasons, least of all doctors who want to fix everything. But, Kyle, she doesn’t need to be fixed. She’s perfect just the way she is and I won’t have anyone telling her she’s not.”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “I would never try to talk you into something you didn’t want, Lexi. As her mother, you know what’s best for her. And I happen to agree with you. In med school, I wrote a research paper on this very subject. Children who are profoundly deaf have no concept of sound. They are visual learners. Having an implant might actually confuse their senses and delay learning.”
I look up at him, floored by his understanding. His unconditional acceptance of her.
“That’s part of why I didn’t want to do it,” I say. “So many people look at deaf people as if they aren’t normal. They try to make them fit into the hearing world. I didn’t want that for her. Being deaf is normal for her.”
“I applaud you for handling it so well,” he says.
I laugh. “You didn’t see me six months ago when I found out.” I look down at my nursing daughter and remember the day I got the devastating news. “I was a wreck, Kyle. I thought I was being punished somehow. That Ellie was deaf because of something I did. Maybe I took an Aspirin early in my pregnancy. Maybe I didn’t eat enough vegetables.”
“There is nothing you did to cause this, Lexi.”
“I know that now. I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject. I could probably write my own research paper.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Kyle says. “I know how smart you are. Literature and education. Double major. Impressive.”
I furrow my brow wondering if I’d ever told him that. I was so careful not to reveal any personal details.
“My brother is a private investigator,” he reminds me. “Once I knew your real name, he dug up whatever he could find on you. Grant, too.”
I gaze down at Ellie, feeling sorry for her not because she’s deaf, but because she got dealt the shitty hand of having the world’s worst father.
“Did you find anything on him?” I ask, wondering what Grant has been up to since I left.
“We found plenty,” he says, shaking his head in disgust. “I’m surprised he’s still working in law enforcement with how dirty he is. You were right to do what you did, Lex. You were right to leave him and protect Ellie.”
I smile because he called me Lex. He’s giving me a nickname for my nickname. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t like me. The way he looked at me wearing his t-shirt. The way he was playing with Ellie.
He must like me.
Maybe he just doesn’t realize it yet.