Chapter 2

I considered the decision of who would be my child=s father to be one of the most important ones of my life. I took it seriously and so I attacked it like I would prepare for trial. I had to do discovery, find out all the information I could on the prospective candidates.

My first job was to find the donors, Edwards and House. When I Googled Jeremy Edwards I came up with dozens of possible men, so I had review his file for anything that would narrow it down. I knew he would be about 36 now and that he was living in Baltimore when he donated the sperm. His application indicated that he was a student at the local community college taking Administration of Justice. This meant that Jeremy was probably a cop somewhere on the east coast. I started with the police in Baltimore, then the Sheriffs, then the State Police, the Highway Patrol...the list went on and on. I finally found a listing for a Philadelphia cop names Jeremy Edwards. When I Googled him, several articles came up stating that he had won an award for rescuing a young girl from the line of fire between two warring gang members. This sounded promising. A hero, that was nice.

I took off for Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. I don=t know why I love Philadelphia so much, but I do. I love the Franklin Institute of Science and Technology, Elfreth's Alley, Independence Hall and Wanamaker=s (now Macy's) Pipe organ. I enjoy the history in Philadelphia and always felt at home in the city.

I found out that Jeremy (in my mind I was on a first name basis with both potential donors) had been transferred to another precinct and after arriving at the precinct I asked a cop coming out the door.

"Hi, can you help me? I went to school with Jeremy Edwards and was trying to find him. Is he working here today?"

"Sorry Miss, Jeremy's in the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania."

"Oh no, what's wrong with him?"

"Well you know he loves those cheese steaks and that weight around his heart really caught up to him. He had to have bypass surgery."

"He's 34 and he had to have bypass surgery?" I was obviously shocked.

"Sure did. But then his Dad died when he was 49 of Coronary Heart Disease."

My mind was going in circles. If you looked at the paperwork, Jeremy looked great. Of course back then he was 5'11" and 178 lbs., not thin but not fat. And his father would have still been alive when he filled out the form. This did not bode well. It meant that I really needed to dig deep if I was going to find the perfect father. Jeremy was not the genetic material I was hoping for.

I checked into a hotel and plugged in my laptop so I could Google Gregory House. You would have thought I had Googled Elvis, hundreds of entries popped up. I discovered that my Gregory House had become a doctor and so I eliminated all Gregory House hits that were for someone other than a doctor.

I started to sift through the medical articles he had co-authored, authored or had signed off on and started reading other entries as well. I realized that Gregory House was considered brilliant (promising), gifted (great) and a jerk (uhh?). Over and over I read medical forums that Greg House was a God among doctors but an ass as a human being.

This didn't dissuade me. Being a jerk can be part genetics, but more likely a lot to do with how you're raised. So in my book, this wasn't a deal breaker. I'd have to see him in person to determine whether being a jerk was in his gene pool.

I followed the links and pieced together his career. The gossip was that he had been fired from more than one position for both insubordination and unethical actions. But for the last ten years he had managed to hold down a job as head of diagnostics at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Princeton was only an hour away from Philadelphia so I backed a bag and jumped in my car, heading east.

It was the middle of July and hot as hell all over the east coast. I didn't mind the humidity that much, but I hated the heat. When I arrived at the hospital I decided to take this slow. I looked on the directory and found out that Gregory House's office was on the fourth floor. I walked around until I saw his name on the glass doors to a rather large office attached to another conference room. No one was in the office. I didn't go in but I did peer through the glass.

"It's an office..." A male's voice yelled in my ear from behind.

"Aaahhhhhhhhh." I screamed. Turning around, I was staring at a tall, thin man with these fiercely blue eyes staring me down. He had crows' feet and a stubble that looked a couple days old. I'm not easy to intimidate but this man took me off guard.

"What do you want?" He asked, more like an accusation than a question.

"Human resources? I'm looking for human resources."

"No you're not." He stared at me sideways.

Now I was pissed, he might be right but he was being rude. "Excuse me but I am looking for human resources." And I turned around and walked off. I hid behind the corner, and looked around to see if he went into the office. As I cautiously leaned forward and peeked around the corner he was standing within arm's reach.

"Ahhh! What is your problem?" I asked.

"Why are you skulking around here? Who are you?" His body was crowding me in an intimidating manner.

"I need to find human resources and you're freaking me out, who are you and why are you following me?"

"I asked first."

"Yes, but you're the stalker..." I told him.

He grabbed my purse and started to open it. I kneed him in his balls. He dropped my purse and fell to the floor.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I asked.

People were walking by without stopping, almost as if this man writhing on the floor was a normal occurrence. Strangely, no one came to his rescue or even gave us a second glance. I grabbed my purse and took off running as fast as I could downstairs to the free clinic where I took a seat. I was winded and shocked. What was that all about? Was that Gregory House? He had blue eyes and he was about the same height. If it was, then I was interested. He was handsome and had an intelligent look about him, but I was worried about his cane. Why did he limp and have a cane? Was it genetic or an accident? I smiled, I loved a challenge and if that was Gregory House, he might be a challenge. I needed to get close to the subject.

I went to Human Resources and went through the job postings. There was one for office janitor, part time, day. The description said that it was twenty hours a week cleaning the offices, no patient or surgical cleaning duties. I asked about the job and was told that it paid $8.00 an hour and I would be the daytime janitor for the second floor offices and adjacent bathrooms. I filled out the application, lying about my education and work history. When asked why I had a big gap in my work history I claimed that my ex-husband didn't want me to work and now that we were divorced I needed a job.

"Why aren't the offices cleaned at night?" I asked.

"Oh they are, but many of them get used twenty-four hours a day or need additional cleaning. Don't worry, you'll be busy if you take the job."

"I'd like the job, if you're offering it to me."

"You seem qualified..." The interviewer laughed at the idea of someone being qualified to sweep and clean toilets.