To all the parents of children with special needs,
who tirelessly pour out their hearts on a daily basis
CHAPTER 1
Two vertical pink lines.
Brooklyn squeezed her eyes closed tight, hoping one of the lines might disappear. She looked again, but it was unmistakable. The second line remained. The line that spelled the end of her dreams.
I’m pregnant!
With a bitter laugh at the irony, she considered texting a picture of the positive test to Nathan. She’d deleted his contact information from her cell phone when the final divorce papers arrived in the mail yesterday. But she still knew his number by heart… though he’d torn that heart to shreds.
The moment replayed in her mind, as it had every day since the morning he handed her the divorce petition while she was still lying in bed.
“Just because my periods only come every three months doesn’t mean I can’t get pregnant.” In shock, Brooke had attempted to make sense of the stack of papers in her trembling hands. “What about the fertility specialist?”
“I’m not giving a sample of my sperm to some laboratory just to prove what I already know. You’re the problem. There’s nothing wrong with me.” He’d lifted his chin in pride as he destroyed her with his next words. “Otherwise, Wendy wouldn’t be pregnant with my kid right now.”
She flipped through the pages of the divorce petition, her eyes refusing to focus on the words. The room spun as her voice came out in a wobbly tone, bile rising in her throat. “You had this last night. Why didn’t you give it to me then? Why did you sleep with me?”
“Just something for you to remember me by, baby.”
As it had that morning, his laughter still rang in her ears.
Brooke flung the pregnancy test into the metal trashcan with a satisfying clang. Anger rising, she grabbed the two matching ones from the counter and gave them the same treatment.
“I guess the last laugh is on you, Nathan,” she muttered under her breath, though she wasn’t laughing. At least she wasn’t crying. Not yet. But when reality sank in, she probably would be.
How could she possibly keep her job now? She’d already been worried the board would let her go when they discovered she was divorced. But this sealed her fate. There was no way the strict, religious-based facility would want an unwed, pregnant woman counseling their troubled teenaged girls. She might’ve been able to hide the divorce for the next five months until she’d accumulated the therapy hours she needed to get her counseling license. But she wasn’t going to be able to hide her growing stomach for long.
Her hands slid down to rest on her belly, noting the roundness she’d attributed to water-weight.
A baby!
She could only hope the baby was okay, since she certainly hadn’t been eating well. At least she didn’t drink alcohol, having never acquired a taste for it. She’d written off her fatigue and upset stomach as stress, only this past week noting that the time between her menses was even longer than the usual three months. But this morning, when she’d lost her breakfast of dry cereal, she’d decided to use one of the pregnancy tests in her medicine cabinet, left over from the twelve-month period she and Nathan had purposefully attempted to have a baby.
She couldn’t think about it, now. She had to get up and go to work. No one at Hayward Home had to know about the divorce, and she would hide the pregnancy as long as possible. But eventually, someone would discover the truth and she’d be out of a job.
Maybe, by some miracle, she would find another paying job that allowed her to get the counseling hours required for her license. Even if she did, what were the chances the benefits would include health insurance, like her present employment?
She hurried to her closet and flung the door open, groaning when she spied the only clean work polo, hanging there in all its offensive pink glory, laughing at her.
“I hate pink!”
She snatched the shirt, knocking the hanger to the floor in her haste. Just her luck! All the preferable polo shirts were in the bottom of the hamper. How could she have forgotten to do laundry, again? She’d have to be more organized if she was going to survive life with a baby.
I’m not ready to be a mother… especially not a single mom.
Sixty-six days… the sixty-day waiting period required in Texas, plus one day for her impatient ex-husband to schedule the final perfunctory hearing and five days for the papers to arrive in the mail. There could be no doubt how far along she was in her pregnancy. Maybe she would be more emotionally prepared by the time the baby was born.
Tucking her purse strap over her shoulder, she grabbed a breakfast bar on the way out the door. With any luck, her stomach would settle and she could keep some food in it.
As she climbed into her aging two-door sedan, she tried to imagine maneuvering a baby seat into the back.
“Sorry, Andretti,” she stroked her hand across the cracked vinyl seat beside her. “It’s not that you haven’t been a good car, but I really need four doors.”
Yet she knew she didn’t have the money to buy a vehicle, even if she traded for another used one. And how would she afford her medical co-payments, not to mention her fifteen-hundred-dollar deductible?
Coffee! Coffee would make everything better.
Even though it has to be decaf.
Cole steadied the disposable cup in his prosthetic hand, a task made more difficult by the lack of feeling. It was a delicate balance. Too loose and the coffee would slip from his grip. Too tight and the cup would crumple. He’d worn his favorite prosthesis, a lime-green mechanical arm that offered superior dexterity. Still, the lack of sensory feedback added major limitations. Soon he would have a state-of-the-art prosthesis that could actually feel, though this technology was still in the developmental stage.
He got the usual stares from the coffee shop patrons. Some were probably curious about his neon hand. But a few might’ve recognized him, despite his low-tucked cowboy hat.
Satisfied his coffee cup was secure, he used his “real” right hand to tuck a napkin in his pocket and retrieve his cell phone. He scanned his latest messages as he turned from the condiment counter and started toward an empty table next to the door.
Intent on his phone screen, he didn’t notice the person entering the shop until he collided with her. While the coffee lid should’ve prevented any spills, it was no match for the reflex tightening of his mechanical hand. The cup collapsed, popping the lid off to send coffee splashing to the floor, splattering everything in its path.
Embarrassed, he put his phone away and surveyed the damage, an apology spilling from his mouth before he even got a good look at his victim. “So sorry about that. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
He wondered how much money it would cost him to make up for his moment of carelessness. What was happening to him? He was losing his edge. His painstaking attention to detail had always been his trademark, but lately he’d made a number of serious and costly mistakes… enough to keep his attorney agitated.
