Enjoy
Sins of the Father
Chapter 2
Black and Blue
...
Ana grabs his chart at the foot of his bed and reads it, swallowing hard at the lump of emotions that are lodged in her throat as she sees what his name is.
"Your name is Christian Williams." She says it out loud, but more to herself.
She can feel her heart racing in her chest. The room starts to spin as alarm bells go off in her head.
"Well, Christian, my name is Ana. And I am very happy to meet you."
His stormy gray eyes perk up at her words.
"Do you want to know why?" She asks him.
He nods yes.
"You remind me of someone. Someone that I love very much. He has the same color hair and the same beautiful gray eyes as you. When I look at you, its like I'm looking at him and that makes me very happy because he's far away and I miss him. Do I remind you of someone, Christian?"
He nods his head yes.
"Do I remind you of your mom?" She asks him gently.
Ana's heart breaks when he starts to cry as he nods his head yes.
She wants more than anything to comfort him, to hold him in her arms, but she knows that he would fight against it and the fragile trust she just built with him would be gone if she even made one wrong move towards him.
Right now, she is having trouble getting her own feelings in check.
Her mind drifts back to her time with Christian.
She would try to get him to have some compassion for the "crack whore" he would so viscously call his mother. She tried to get him to see that she was just a young girl that was clearly fighting a world of demons that had little or nothing to do with him.
But now, she is understanding his venom all too well as she spits her own towards Leila. God only knows what she has allowed to happen to this innocent child, Christian's child.
Once again Ana is finding herself having to take measure in the wake of the mess of destruction that is Leila Williams.
The first time was after she became unhinged and held Ana at gunpoint making her doubt Christian's feelings for her. And now again, as Ana uses her resemblance to her as a way in to help her son.
Ana's heart breaks all over again because she loves this little boy and like his father, he is too broken to allow her to show it. He is more like his father than he may ever know.
"I'm sorry about your mom, Christian. And I know how scared you must be without her here with you right now, but you're not alone. You have people who are here to help you. It will get better. I promise."
One of the nurse aides comes in with a McDonalds restaurant bag.
"Perfect timing." Ana tells her, looking at Christian as he studies the nurse that's unpacking his food.
Ana thanks her and waits for her to leave the two of them alone.
Christian is looking at the Happy Meal. He is very interested in the bright red box with the yellow arches on top, but makes no move to touch it.
"Let's see what we have here." Ana says, being sure to put just the right amount of excitement in her voice as she takes the initiative and opens the Happy Meal for him. She takes out the little box of Mcnuggets, along with the fries, and apple slices. "Are you hungry, Christian?"
He nods his head yes.
Ana opens the bar-b-que dipping sauce while Christian opens the nuggets. He takes out one of the small pieces of meat with his tiny hands and dunks it in some sauce before eating it. He finishes them all before he moves on to the fries, only stopping once to let Ana put the ketchup on and to drink some of his juice box before moving on to the apples.
Ana was glad that the little meal did the trick and lifted his spirits just a little bit.
"You know what." She tells him. "I think there's a prize inside."
She smiles as his eyes light up.
"You want to see what it is?"
He nods his head yes and she hands him the little Happy Meal box. He digs through all the napkins to find the toy wrapped in plastic settled at the bottom.
He pulls it out and inspects it. His expression doesn't change but he is happy with his find.
Ana can't help but feel touched by the gesture when he hands it over to her, entrusting her to open it for him.
"Here you go." She tells him, placing the blue newly opened hot wheels car in his hand.
She watches as he rolls it on his palm, then his pants covered legs, before finding the more suitable surface of his bedside table to roll it on more evenly.
His body changes from one of being on guard to one more relaxed as he gets lost in whatever fantasy world he is creating with his new toy.
Ana turns towards the door to see Nurse Marshall ready to come in to exam him. She holds up her index finger, indicating she needs one more minute with him.
"Christian." She starts gently enough. "I have a friend who wants to come in and check to make sure you're okay."
He shakes his head, withdrawing back into his shell.
"I know you don't want to be touched. I can promise that she will only touch you when absolutely necessary and not in any of the places you don't want her to. I will be right here the whole time making sure. I promise I won't leave you or let her do anything bad to you."
He doesn't agree, but he doesn't shake his head against it either so Ana takes that as a good sign.
She nods for the nurse to come in.
Upon seeing her, Christian inches closer to Ana on his bed before she slowly moves to sit down on the foot of it to be close to him.
With Ana's constant and gentle voice of reassurance that he won't be touched if he doesn't want to be, Christian cooperates with the exam.
Slowly he takes off his dirty shirt, letting Ana and Nurse Marshall get a good look at his upper chest.
The outline of his ribs are much too clearly defined and Ana makes a mental note of all the wonderfully delicious food she has in her fridge that's she's going to prepare for him to eat.
She may have to make a quick run to the market. Buying lots of organic milk is the only thing that comes to her mind and she has no idea why she is obsessing over it. Perhaps its because she can see Christian's rib bones. Kids need calcium is all she can think of as she counts each one.
The nurse instructs him to hold up on arm and then the other and he does what is asked of him.
His arms are covered in bruises. Most are yellow and fading but there are four black and blue ones that wrap around both arms like large fingers.
The skin is also torn away on each finger-marked bruise from the force of the grip. The nurse takes pictures before moving around to get a look at his back.
"Ana." She calls her over. Ana can tell just by the sound of her voice that whatever it is she is looking at is not good. She leans back on the bed but can't quite see what it is that's behind Christian so she gets up and walks around.
"No touching." Ana assures him again as he wrenches his neck to watch what the nurse is doing behind his back.
Christian thinks the nurse lady is nice enough.
He likes her bright yellow scrubs with the SpongeBob cartoon characters all over them and he thinks her even brighter yellow crocs look like the banana boat stickers his mom brought him once, but he still doesn't trust her, not like he does Ana.
He trusts Ana a little bit but he still has to watch her. She may forget and touch him.
His skin hurts where all the bruises are and it hurts even more when someone touches them.
Ana is nice like his mom used to be before she met the bad man. She looks like his mom used to look before the bad man started giving her the medicine that made her act funny and sleep a lot.
Facing his back, Ana takes a look at what the experienced nurse is clearly upset about. She knows just by working with her these last few months, she's seen more than her share of abused kids, so if this is pissing her off, it must be bad.
They both can clearly see it's a fresh bruise but the shape of it is odd. Its elongated and covering Christian's spine smack in the middle of his back. Ana tilts her head trying to figure out what could have caused it.
"It's a shoe print." Nurse Marshall tells her.
Scenarios run through Ana's head of someone kicking him. Maybe he wasn't moving fast enough or maybe he was running away from whoever it was. He could have been on the floor in front of the TV watching cartoons, Indian style, like he was when she first saw him. Whatever he was doing, someone kicked him hard enough to cause a very large bruise on his back.
Her blood boils as it races just underneath her skin. It does little to warm the cold ice of her veins as she thinks of Leila's role in these scenarios. If she stood by and watched any of this happen that bitch is lucky she's dead because the way she feels about her right now, Ana wouldn't have any issues with killing her.
She moves back to her spot on the bed next to Christian. While the nurse takes pictures of his back.
They move on to his lower body. The nurse taking special care and patience as he shows her both his legs and she takes pictures of the many bruises she finds there.
It all goes well until she makes a move to treat the open skin on his arms.
Upon hearing the explanation of what she planned to do with the long wooden stick with the cotton tip on the end, Christian pushes her hand back before cowering away from her.
"Do you want to try doing it yourself?" Ana asks him, but he doesn't answer.
"Here." She says to him, taking the long q-tip with the antibiotic ointment on it and giving it to him.
Following the nurse's instructions, he dabs the ointment on each sore as best he can, meticulously taking care of each one.
The senior Christian's face enters Ana's mind again with a vengeance as she watches how focused his son is on his task. It's the same approach she's seen Christian take when he is doing something important.
"Very good job." The nurse tells him before instructing him on how to put on his hospital gown. She's buttoned it already so he can just slip it on. "We'll give that ointment a little while to work and then we'll get you into a nice medicated bath. That will help your bruises to feel much better."
"Do you think we can find him some clothes?" Ana asks her. If he gets cleared by the doctor, she plans on taking him home tonight and she wants him in more than a gown.
"I'll have my aide see what she can find in the donation room." The nurse tells her before leaving.
"I appreciate it."
"Are you kidding? You made that go a whole lot easier for me." The nurse tells her, grateful she didn't have to tie the little guy down.
Ana is just silently thanking God she picked up her call. She would hate to have come later after they'd tied him down and surely traumatized him beyond what he already is.
"Bath time." Ana tells him when the aide comes in with towels and some clothes that look like they may fit him.
Of course, its Ana to the rescue again as he only lets her around as he takes his bath.
He allows her to sit on the edge of the tub as he cleans himself. But he still scoots as far away as he can from her as she drains the dirty water and fills the tub again this time so that he can play around in it.
She adds a cup full of the medication as the water runs just like the nurse instructed her to.
She laughs as Christian plays with his blue car, running it along the rim of the tub before letting it fly off the edge into the water with a splash.
Her phone rings. She moves to the doorway so that she can talk more freely and still keep an eye on him. She wipes her wet hands down the sides of her blue jeans before taking her phone out of her bag.
Sasha Kinkaid, her best friend and supervisor for the past year, informs her that she already has a foster home ready to take Christian in. She assures her its a nice family with a great reputation. They already have a little boy they're fostering just a little older than Christian's age.
"Sash, I need a little favor." Ana tells her. "I want him to stay with me."
"Ana, we have been through this. You can't save the world, sweetheart. I know it's hard but you are going to have to let it go. You can only do so much."
"That's not what this is. I can't explain it over the phone but I need you to give me this one, okay?"
"I need more than that because right now you are sounding like the bleeding heart I know you are when it comes to these cases. I swear you are the modern-day Mother Teresa."
Ana turns her back and whispers into her phone at her best friend.
"He's Christian's son, okay. Help me out with this one."
"THE Christian?"
"Yes." Ana says, turning back around just in time to watch the little boy dive bomb his car into the water making her giggle.
"How do you know he's the father?"
"I know. I knew his mother and he has his father's name. He is his twin."
"Give me his information. I'll contact him."
"No Sash. I know him. You cold call him about this and it will have devastating consequences. He'll come charging in here taking names and kicking ass. The one who will suffer for it is his son. Thermonuclear Christian is not what this kid need right now. The damage in seeing that could be irreversible for the two of them."
"This goes against protocol, Anns. We are mandated to inform the next of kin."
"We don't even know, 'officially' who the next of kin is. Its just my gut feeling. I need to be sure before I go disrupting a whole lot of lives, mainly this little boy's."
Sasha sighs into the phone at the mess her BFF is dragging her into.
"Do you know how many strings I'm going to have to pull for this 'little favor'? Do you know how many asses I'm going to have to kiss to cut through the red tape for one of my social workers wanting to keep a kid? I may just have to screw Donald again to smooth this over, thanks to you."
Ana smiles at the spiel she always gets when she asks a favor.
"So, what you're saying is that it's not really that much to get it done."
Sasha laughs.
"I'll blacken him out of the system. That will give us a few days to get it figured out."
"I owe you."
"Yeah, bigtime."
Author's Note: Thank you for reading and reviewing.