Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
But what she didn’t realize was, I hadn’t wanted to let her go. All I’d needed was that little kick to allow me to keep her. To let me know that I wasn’t going to ruin her dreams by keeping her.
Had I had that…
Well, then I wouldn’t have my son.
And what did that make me when I wasn’t sure what the tradeoff would be? Where I couldn’t say that I would’ve chosen my kid all day long and twice on Sunday over Morrigan?
Fuck, I was a piece of shit.
It wasn’t like I could fix it, either.
Hell, I was the undesirable one now.
I was the one that had gone to prison. I was the one that didn’t have a steady job. I was the one that my son didn’t really like hanging out with.
And definitely not for lack of trying on my part. I did everything I could to relate to the kid, but it was as if he just couldn’t wrap his head around who I was to him.
Which fuckin’ sucked, because he was the reason I’d gone to prison. Why I hadn’t been around.
Not that he knew that.
He was a boy. He saw me leaving as a betrayal.
I’d never been a part of his life, even if, at the time, my doing what I did had been because of him.
How, you say, was it because of him? How could I blame my kid for what had happened?
The truthful answer was, I couldn’t.
I’d done something stupid. I’d allowed my temper to get the best of me.
I should’ve handled the entire thing a hell of a lot differently, and I hadn’t.
When Bowie was still a newborn in the hospital, a male nurse had tried to switch him with another newborn. Danyetta, at the time, had been dead to the world after a traumatic birth. I’d walked in with food in my hand for the two of us after a long as fuck day, expecting to find my newborn.
Yet, he hadn’t been there.
When I’d woken up Danyetta to ask, she’d said that the nurse had taken him for testing.
That’d been my first real clue that something was wrong. Before I’d left, I’d specifically asked if there would be any more testing done, and the nurses had assured me that he was done, and wouldn’t need anything additional done to him until he was at the pediatrician’s office.
After that, I’d left thinking Danyetta could hold down the fort while I grabbed food. So when I got back and he was gone, my radar had been pinging.
I’d gone looking for him and the nurse, only to find a different person’s kid in my kid’s rolling bassinet.
When I’d confronted the male nurse about it, he’d assured me that it was my child.
But he couldn’t have been more wrong, and just remembering it made me slip back into that fog-induced rage.
• • •
“That’s not my kid,” I said stiffly, looking at the baby. “It’s a baby, sure. But that one is definitely not mine.”
The nurses in the station all exchanged a look.
One of which I could tell was a “he’s paranoid, what the fuck?” look.
I wasn’t paranoid.
In fact, I was so dead sure that I pulled out my phone, pulled up the last photo I’d taken of my son, and showed it to the closest nurse.
“That’s my son,” I said. “He has a birthmark on his neck. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but that kid doesn’t.”
The nurse’s eyes widened as she looked at the photo, then at the kid in the bassinet, then back at me.
She got me.
“What did you do?” I snarled. “Where’s my son?”
Some parent heard the commotion and came out into the hallway.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, or I’ll call security.” The male nurse looked nervous.
I crossed my arms, letting him know without words that I wouldn’t be going anywhere.
“Call them,” I suggested. “And while you’re at it, call every single supervisor above you, and them, until we get to the head of the hospital. Because I’m not leaving until you’re fired, and we find out how many other babies you’ve switched at birth.”
“What?” I heard the parent behind me say. “You think he switched a baby?”
“I do,” I said. “Because I walked up to find a baby in the bassinet of my son, that’s most definitely not my son. My son has a birthmark on his neck. And this one, though similar to my own, is definitely not my son. And doesn’t have that birthmark. Correct me if I’m wrong, but those don’t just disappear out of the blue in an hour.”
The nurse’s expression, the female one at least, had a look of absolute horror on her face, as if shit was dawning on her that definitely shouldn’t be.
“Oh, shit,” I heard another parent say. “Oh, fuck.”