"I went ahead and ran the comparative DNA test on the blood samples you drew," said Nurse Becks. "The results are in."
My head flung upward from where it rested on Dr. Green's chest. I nearly took his chin out with my forehead. Every muscle in my body was tense and twitching. I looked like a mess of a Chihuahua jittering with anxiety.
Dr. Green only stared blankly at the door. His eyes weren't even focused on Nurse Becks.
My thoughts went into a panic. He and I were just making headway. We were taking the first steps down the path of healing and acceptance.
Okay, so we were making out on a couch in an office in the basement of a hospital, but that was certainly progress from the festering anger he was in earlier. Right?
We just put a bandage on the wound of his heart when it came to questioning who his parents were. Nurse Becks didn't mean to, but she just ripped that band-aid off his still bleeding gash and exposed the raw nerve endings to the harsh bite of open air.
He made two steps forward, but I feared two sentences sent him falling back three.
What was I to do? Was there anything I could do to help? At this pivotal point, I was in the way. I weighed Dr. Green down, who was still staring catatonically at a door hinge.
I slipped off his lap and settled into the cushion beside him. I smoothed my skirt to make sure I was decent. The little movements helped to hide just how my heart had turned into a stone and weighed heavily in the pit of my stomach.
Sean woke up from his staring spell, pivoted at his hips, and grabbed my cheeks between his palms. A smashing skis pressed onto my mouth with only a shred of warning but still catching me by surprise. My mouth was open.
That was his way to tell me he acknowledged I was there with him. He knew he wasn't alone. He wasn't going to leave me behind again.
"Go ahead and lay it on me," he said to Nurse Becks after he released my face and turned back around. His hand found mind, and our fingers intertwined together between us. "If you don't tell me now, I'll just be calling and bugging you about it in a week. We might as well get it over with now."
I was proud of him in making this choice. I believed it was the right one, even after I managed to set aside my burning curiosity to know the results for myself.
Nurse Becks stepped full into the room and closed the door behind her. She wasted no time in situating into a seat near ours. Her hands shook and waved in front of her, like she was trying to rid her arms of a case of the jitters. She spoke when her fingers stilled in her lap. "It's positive, sweetheart. Jackie is your blood mother."
Silence surrounded us.
Sean's hand squeezed mine. Tears were falling down my cheeks, and I didn't know why.
Nurse Becks closed her eyes. She looked apologetic. "I have to put the results in my report, but I won't breathe a word of this to anyone. I'll pinky promise if you want me to."
"Thank you, Becks." Dr. Green's tone was deadpan. "I'll take you on your word."
She bit her lip and pushed on her knees to stand. "I'm of no more use here. I'll get moving so this news can soak in. Y'all know how to reach me or Ty." Nurse Becks looked over the shoulder of her navy blue scrubs just before she disappeared through the door. "Just…don't let it marinate too long. It'll go rancid before you know it."
Sean and I sat side-by-side with hands clasped together. We stared at a filing cabinet The sticky note I left on one drawer was bright and called attention to itself.
He pulled his fingers from mine and stood. I panicked silently until I saw he just went over to the table and pulled a tissue from a box. He sank to a squat in front of my knees and dabbed the tissue against my face to soak up my tears. As soon as he mopped those up, new tears formed to replace them.
"Pookie, why are you crying?" he asked me with concern.
I had to peel my tongue from the roof of my mouth to speak. "I don't know." My voice quivered only a little. "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to feel. I'm afraid for you. This changes everything."
His lips pursed, and he looked to the side. Then, he sat beside me and gathered me up to sit across his lap. My arms went around his neck, and I clung to him. His fingers reached down my legs and slipped my sandals off my feet, dropping them to the floor.
"No, it doesn't change anything," he said with his lips against my scalp. The breath with his words was warm. "All this means in the long run is that there is a new name or two added to my file. I've thrown my tantrum. That's all done. I have my family. I've chosen you, and you've chosen me." His arms wrapped around me in a hug. "At least I'm under the impression you at least like me a little."
I cracked a smile against his collar bone.
"My job now is to take care of you," he whispered.
We sat nuzzled into each other for a while, giving me enough time for me to rein in my emotions and get the tears to stop.
Once my brain started thinking coherent thoughts again, I realized we only solved half the equation.
I sat up and looked Dr. Sean in the eyes. "What about Ms. Jackie? Do we tell her?"
Sean took a moment before answering. "I don't know if she even wants to find out."
Part of the problem was that neither did I.
"We can ask her," Sean suggested, then followed up with a cringe. He knew as much as I did how much of a bad idea that way. It would be a crime to approach her and dangle how we knew the answer to her deepest secret. We either had to confront her if we were certain she was receptive to the news, or not bring it up at all. If she didn't want to know, then she certainly would not approve knowing strangers holding the knowledge.
I released a deep breath as my thoughts turned to a different direction. "Dr. Sean. She's hurting This has been eating away at her like a cancer longer than you have been alive."
His green eyes bore into me, channeling his undivided attention to what I had to say.
I blushed slightly. "I went to talk to her again. She was the one who did all the talking."
Sean chuckled, making his chest rumble. "That doesn't surprise me. You don't talk much."
I didn't argue with him. He was right. "She didn't say it outright, but she feels like she can't live her life to the fullest. She keeps hiding from facing the truth, and she's tired from it. Jackie finally admitted her guilt that she has been carrying for most of her life. She wants the weight off her shoulders."
"You want to fix her too, hm?" he commented before pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "You're a slave to your big heart."
He took in his own dep breath, then let it out in a whoosh. "Telling her won't take away her guilt. She still has to live with the decision for the rest of her life. Knowing about me might very well make that guilt worse. What she has been in denial about suddenly is right in front of her face changes everything for her, and she may not choose to cope."
"How will you feel if she doesn't cope?" I asked.
"Like shit." He squeezed me to him as he answered. "I will be the guilty one for stressing out the poor woman- the lady who gave birth to me. I'd become her living nightmare, and knowing I exist under her nose will certainly keep her from living her life. I don't know if I can live with that."
I flipped over the proverbial coin. "What about keeping the secret between us? How would you feel then?" He took a moment to think. "Selfish. It's taking the easy way out, and I would be guilty of the same thing she is: burying the truth until it fester and poisons me too. I'd be a phantom, forever haunting her life, and I'm not a big fan of horror ghost stories. That's Nathan's thing."
I pushed at his shoulder to remind him not to get side tracked with jokes.
We sat in more silence for several minutes, contemplating various aspects on how to handle this information.
Maybe I could turn the tide.
"She makes a really good Dutch apple pie."
Sean stopped breathing for several heartbeats.
"My mom," he began, "not Jackie, but the one I know, she never made pie. It's too American for her taste, so she never learned how to make it. We had to buy apple pie from the grocery store. Instead of baking apples, she instead cut them up fresh for me. Every slice she fashioned into a rabbit with just a paring knife. I hated waiting for her to finish up, but how cute they were was worth the patience."
I wondered if I could learn how to cut apples into bunnies to make Sean happy.
"You already have chosen your family," I reaffirmed what we both already knew.
"Yeah, but the question is: do I want to choose Jackie Brown to be family too? Does she want to choose me?" He huffed as his spoken thoughts continued. "She already chose, and she chose no so long ago."
I shook my head at him. "That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what she chooses. This is a matter of acknowledging facts."
Our foreheads rested against each other. Green eyes stared into green eyes.
"I have a big feeling you're right," he whispered with a mischievous glint flashing across the seriousness of his gaze. He was teasing me again.
I sat up, pulling our faces apart. "Of course I'm right. I'm the girl here!"
"Yes," he chuckled. "Yes you are, Sang."
I didn't know if he was saying that about me being right or to me being a girl.
The humor seeped out of him as his face sank to something more serious. "It's a blow to what little pride I have left, but I need to talk to Owen."
I flushed as guilt overcame me. I was supposed to keep reporting in to Mr. Blackbourne to update him on how the situation was progressing. I failed.
However, Sean reaching out to his best friend was a very good sign. I remembered how dejected Mr. Blackbourne sounded when we last spoke on the phone. He cared for Dr. Green and knew just how much an upset Sean hurt those around him.
"Do you want me to give you privacy?" I asked.
Dr. Sean shook his head. "You're welcome to stay here with me. I'm still not allowed to be by myself for longer than a tinkle in the little boys room anyways."
He tapped my thigh, and I slipped off his lap to curl up against the arm of the couch again. He stood and pulled his phone in the purple case from a pocket at his hip.
"I do want to warn you that phone calls between Owen and me aren't always civil," he said as he tapped at the screen. "Don't let that worry you. It's normal for us."
Now that he mentioned it, I wasn't surprised at the confession. They were best friends, but their personalities were polar opposites from one another.
"Owen?" he said into the phone. His eyebrows furrowed together as he listened. "Get inside. You're insane for being out in that weather. I'm supposed to be the crazy one. I need to talk to you anyways."
He paced back and forth in the small floor space that wasn't occupied by furniture. He listened some more before pulling the phone from his ear and pressing end.
I blinked in disbelief. That was the shortest phone call I ever witnessed. Sean wasn't even able to mention the purpose of the call.
"Is he okay?" I asked.
Sean put his phone back into his scrubs pocket. "I don't know. He just said there's something waiting for us at the Welcome Desk." He held out his hand to me. "Want to go see what the water brings in this time?" His eyebrows waggled at me playfully.
"But…what about…" I stuttered. There was unfinished business we still had to attend to. Plus, how did something manage to make it through the flood waters surrounding the hospital campus? I was fairly certain mail trucks weren't amphibious.
"Come on, Sang." His fingers wiggled at me. "Jackie isn't going anywhere. We can afford to procrastinate a little."
My hand went into his, trusting his judgement. Our hands stayed clasped together as we left the office for the elevator.