Chapter Four
Patience
I had an eerie feeling as I proceeded down the hall to my father’s hospital room. I’d arrived the night before and only had a few minutes with my father before visiting hours were over. At his insistence, I agreed to return early the next morning. I rounded the last corner of the hallway where his and only one other room resided. It was just after nine a.m. and the nurse at the desk had already informed me that the doctors had done their rounds and my father had been checked. I figured he would be alone, since Wilhelmina had informed me she wouldn’t be in until ten or eleven that morning. I lightly tapped on the door and opened without waiting for a response. As soon as I stepped in, all the air rushed from my lungs. My eyes locked with a pair of hazel orbs that were very much not my father’s.
All rational thought fled my brain and I just stood there, staring at Aaron. He did the same until my father spoke up, breaking into my thoughts.
“Patience, you came back. Come in.”
I finally looked from Aaron to my father, whose perfectly white teeth appeared as he greeted me with a smile. I can’t remember a time, if any, in which my father had greeted me with such enthusiasm.
“I-I can come back if you’re busy.” I cleared my throat, hoping to remove the tremble from it.
“Nonsense. Aaron is an old family friend.”
I began to feel queasy. Then the anger began to start. Old family friend. I bet.
“How’re you feeling?” I asked my father, choosing to ignore the other man in the room. That was the only alternative I had. But I felt him watching me.
“I’ve definitely been better, but for an old man who just had a heart attack, I’m not doing so bad.”
I gave my father a tight smile. It was the best I could do at his attempted humor.
“I was just telling Aaron that the doctors have scheduled my surgery for this Friday.”
I blinked. “Already? Don’t they need to run more tests?”
“Nope. It’s all set.”
A sense of dread filled my abdomen. Open heart surgery was a huge deal. And though I shouldn’t be this emotional over a man I barely kept in contact with, I was.
“Well, if they think it’s for the best.” I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“It is. I’ll be up and around in no time.”
“The world still needs you around.”
I bit my bottom lip, refusing to acknowledge Aaron or the first words he’d spoken since I entered the room.
“The world will be fine with or without me. Anyway, Patience, I was telling Aaron about you living in Oakland.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“You’ve been there what five, six years now?”
“Almost six.” I cleared my throat again. “I’ll let you two catch up and then come b–”
“Nonsense.” My father waved his hand, dismissively. “We were talking about some of the changes Oakland has seen in the last decade. You know Aaron’s company, Townsend Industries, does a lot of donating to literary charities here in Williamsport. I bet you could convince him to extend that to Oakland. She works at a library in Oakland,” my father informed Aaron.
I bit the inside of my cheek, both anger and embarrassment rising up in the pit of my stomach. I will most assuredly not be doing any convincing where Aaron Townsend is concerned. I mostly remained silent while my father continued talking about God knows what. Aaron chimed in a couple of times here and there but I did my best to ignore him, never once looking in his direction. But just as if they were his hands, I felt it every time he looked my way.
I don’t know how many minutes went by, but finally Wilhelmina entered the room. I decided that would be my time to escape and I could make an appearance later in the day once Aaron was gone. I told my father I would be back and didn’t give anyone a second glance as I made a beeline for the door.
I pushed out the air from my lungs as soon as I shut the door behind me, while I rubbed my forehead with my fingertips, attempting to quiet my nerves. Two seconds later, I jumped as my father’s hospital room door was forcefully thrust open again and the man who was the cause of all the stress that just barely begun to unravel in my body emerged. I finally gave him a once over, taking in his immaculately tailored suit. Probably something Italian because Aaron only wore the best. He towered over me by ten inches. I let my eyes travel up his body but I refused to let my gaze settle on his eyes.
“Patience.”
A ringing in my ears sounded. Why did my name sound both like a command and a plea from his lips? I was not going there. I quickly side-stepped him, thanking God that my balance remained intact while I wasn’t so sure about my sanity.
Refusing to acknowledge him, I moved toward the opposite end of the hall, toward the nurse’s station, to get to the elevators. He didn’t call my name again, but I felt him. He was still there, following me. I wanted to either break out in a run or pick up the nearest pair of scissors and stab him with them. I couldn’t decide which to do so I kept walking. Within ten steps of the elevator, the door chimed and opened up.
“Mommy! Kyle keeps teasing me!” Kennedy ran to me, circling her little arms around my legs. “Make him stop.”
“Mommy, Kennedy’s a liar! I just told her the truth,” came Kyle’s petulant reply. He also ran up but stopped a few inches from me, cocking his head to the side as he stared behind me.
I squeezed my eyes shut. This could not be happening.
“I’m sorry, Patience. They got restless and wanted to come see you,” Ms. Ryan came rushing around the nurse’s station to inform me.
I gave her a tight smile. “Th-that’s okay.”
“Mommy, I’m hungry!” Kennedy whined, arms still around my legs.
“We’re leaving now, baby.”
“No. Why don’t you stay?” a deep, booming voice sounded behind me and I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me where I stood.
****
Aaron
I had to be losing my fucking mind. I absolutely had to be. Maybe the late nights and early mornings in the office were finally catching up to me. Because I refused to fucking believe what I just saw. It had to be a figment of my imagination. Of course, I doubted I even had a fucking imagination. I didn’t indulge in bullshit fantasies, so whatever I was seeing in front of me had to be reality.
“Are they mine?” I asked Patience, seething, as soon as I slammed the door behind us. I’d practically dragged her into one of the private waiting rooms.
She forcefully pulled her arm away from me, giving me the same deadly glare I was giving her.
“Don’t touch me!”
I flexed my jaw, trying to clamp down on the rage inside. “Are. They. Mine?” It was a bullshit question. I knew the answer before I even asked. The boy. Kyle. He looked just like … me.
“No.”
My head shot back. She was lying.
“They’re mine! Now, if you’ll excuse m–”
“Do not fucking play with me, Patience.” I pressed her back against the door, gripping her arm. Again she snatched it away from me, pushing me back, only because I allowed her to.
“I’m not playing, you jackass,” she hissed. “What the hell are you upset about? I wasn’t going to abort my children. And never, not once, in the last five years have I ever disturbed you after you made it abundantly clear you wanted nothing to do with us!”
I took a step back as if she’d smacked me or pushed me away. What in the hell was she talking about?
“Have you lost your damn mind?”
“Have you?” she shrieked. “Pulling me away from my children like a damn lunatic. You probably frightened them.”
“Your children?”
“Yes, mine. I’m done with this conversation.” She tried to brush past me but my firm hand on the door stopped her.
“What type of game are you playing?”
Her face collapsed into one of confusion. “What game am I playing? Why don’t you ask that of yourself.”
“I don’t need to ask myself anything. How the hell could you have my children and not tell me?”
“What are you talking about?! I told you!” she shouted. “And very unceremoniously, I was informed by your fiancée that I was to never contact you again. Right after she tossed an envelope stuffed with five hundred dollars for an abortion in my face.”
My throat squeezed, stomach clenching. She tried to hide it behind her anger but the pain in those sepia-colored eyes was apparent.
“What?” I managed to get out.
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
She attempted to pull the door open, but once again my hand stopped her efforts. She turned back to me, staring. I pressed my lips together, my free hand clenched tightly at my side. I was doing everything in my power to rein in the outrage I felt. Without removing my eyes from her, I lowered my hand to the doorknob and pulled it open. I took a step back, allowing her to exit.
She frowned, taking one last glance at me, as if asking without words if this was me letting her leave.
Not by a long shot was that what this was. But I silently watched as she exited the door and went over to the shorter, older woman who stood supervising the children while we were in the room. I glared as Patience took both of the children by their hands and walked swiftly down the hall to the elevators, not bothering to look back as the door closed behind them.
I pulled out my phone and began dialing. My whole life had just been turned upside down.