A Constant Reminder (29 page)

Roxanne walked over to the booth. Adam looked up at her and tried to smile. But his soul hurt and seeing Roxanne would probably do more damage than good.

Roxanne took a seat in the booth opposite Adam. They stared at each other for eternity. That’s what it felt like to both of them. Both of their faces displayed a blank expression. Adam was eager to hear her voice. The excitement he felt when his mother told him she had come to the house was undeniable.

“You look beautiful.” Roxanne scoffed at his complimentary remark. “I’m so happy to see you.” Roxanne stared at him unresponsive. “Before you say anything. I want you to know I still love you and I’m sorry in ways you can’t imagine.” Adam never meant to say those words but somehow they found their way out of his mouth.

Roxanne looked away from Adam and at a busboy clearing dishes off an unoccupied table. She couldn’t seem to get her mouth to move.

“Please Roxanne, please give me another chance. I love you and Morgan so much. I want us back. I want to be the family that we planned to be.”

Roxanne cut her eyes at Adam. He had a lot of audacity. Did he really think things would just fall into place because he beckoned it?

“I don’t love you.” She finally found some words. “I would never want a family with you. If it were up to me you’d be in jail for the rest of your life. I’m here because my daughter is sick.”

Adam looked perplexed. He didn’t understand what she meant. “Morgan, she’s sick?”

“Yes. She needs bone marrow from a donor that’s a match.”

“What?” A host of frown lines appeared on his forehead, wrinkling his nearly perfect face.

“I want to save my daughter and that’s why I’m here sitting, looking into the eyes of the one person I don’t ever want to see again in this life.”

“Okay wait, Morgan is sick. She needs what exactly?”

“She needs bone marrow from a donor, a blood relative that is a match would be ideal.”

Adam couldn’t speak. He knew the severity of this. He knew this was not at all what he thought. He felt blindsided again.

“Listen Adam, I don’t have time to kiss your ass or listen to your lies or apologies or whatever you’re calling it today. I have one goal and that is to save my daughter’s life.”

“She’s my daughter too.”

Roxanne’s eyes grew large. Her jaw was clenched hard. He had said the wrong thing to her. Her deep brown eyes filled with an anger she had never experienced before. It didn’t matter that it was the biological truth. It was just one more thing on the long list of things she wished to erase.

As soon as the anger subsided then the tears silently leapt from the corners of her eyes. The truth was a painful pill to swallow. She felt like she was choking on the truth.

Adam didn’t know what to do. He looked around the restaurant hoping there was no one looking in their direction. “Roxanne, I love Morgan. I would do anything for her.”

Roxanne wiped the tears from her eyes. “That money you’ve been putting in my account, I don’t use it. It gets transferred into an account so Morgan can go to college.” Roxanne coughed the words out. The possibility existed that Morgan would never grow up. She would never make it to college. This undeniable fact pushed more tears from the corners of Roxanne’s eyes.

“I don’t care what you do with the money. Spend it. Don’t spend it.” Adam leaned on the table and closer to Roxanne. “I’m never going to force myself in you and Morgan’s life. I will financially take care of her. I told you once and I will tell you again. I will never try to get custody or visitation or anything like that. I know what I did to you. I know there’s no proof but I’m not a monster. I’m only going to come when you call me.”

“I’m never going to call you.”

“That’s fine. I’m not going to give up hope that one day you will.”

“I only need you to take this test to see if you’re a match.”

“And I will do this for you, for Morgan. I don’t care. I said I would come whenever you call. I mean it.”

“Do you understand that she could – die?” Roxanne sucked up the air. “My daughter could die.”

“Wait, stop. We will see if I’m a match first.” Adam couldn’t even believe that his daughter could die. He knew that even if he weren’t a match he would find a match and worse case scenario, he would buy a match. He didn’t feel the need to panic just yet. He wouldn’t let anything happen to Morgan. He wished that Roxanne understood this. He had bonded with Morgan the instant he knew she was his blood.

Adam had a great father and when he realized that Morgan was his child it filled him with a sense of hope. Out of all the chaos Morgan was the rainbow at the end of the thunderstorm. He wished he could express to Roxanne just how important Morgan was to him. She was one of the reasons he stayed clean after the break-up ripped his heart to shreds.

Adam believed he would keep Morgan’s paternity a secret forever. He thought he could keep his past hidden. He never thought Roxanne would put the pieces of the puzzle together. He had a chance at having a family and he would tell the lie again and again if he could. He didn’t want to lose the best thing that ever happened to him since he was free.

He tried and failed to keep the family he had. But it was okay because he tried. He was always around. He watched Morgan. He drove by her school. He followed her school bus to make sure she made it home safely. This explained why Morgan wasn’t at school. He wondered what happened to her. He wished he were in their lives and not lurking in the shadows. Someone had to watch over them, even if it was from afar.

***

Adam kept his word. His bone marrow was tested and he was a match. Roxanne was elated because he agreed to have the transplant. She knew it was a painful surgery and it was hard to hold on to her anger when he was saving Morgan.

The sun was shining on Good Samaritan Hospital on the day Morgan underwent the operation. She had received her father’s bone marrow. It was difficult for Roxanne to call Adam her father. It was a painful truth.

Roxanne was in Adam’s private room. She watched him sleep from the doorway and he looked so peaceful. He looked just like he did when they were together and before she knew the truth.

He lay in bed with the blankets pulled up across his chest. He opened his eyes slowly in the dimly lit hospital room.

Adam focused on a person standing in the doorway of his room. It was Roxanne. She tried to back away but after a pause she decided to enter the room.

“Roxanne.” Adam muttered. His throat was dry. “Roxanne, what happened? How is Morgan? Is she okay?” He needed to know that the operation was a success and his daughter was okay.

Adam sluggishly sat up in the bed. He tried unsuccessfully to hide the fact that he was in severe pain. He was in an excessive amount of pain he couldn’t have anticipated.

“Roxanne.” He called out to her again.

“The doctor said the operation itself was successful. He said we have to wait and see. Morgan is still asleep. My mother is there with her.”

Adam propped some pillows up to support his back. “When will they know if the transplant was successful?” He asked a question he knew the answer to. He had researched this topic back and forth and back again. He just wanted to keep Roxanne talking. He knew she was a bundle of nerves. He longed to comfort her. He wanted to be there for her just for now. He didn’t mind that she would cast him aside sooner or later.

“The doctor said a few days. They’re looking for new cell growth.”

“Don’t look so worried. Morgan is strong just like her mother. She will be fine.”

Roxanne’s eyes darted around the room while an awkward silence loomed over them. She wasn’t that strong. She was weak. That’s why she was standing in Adam’s room. She actually cared about his wellbeing. She was checking to see that he had made it out of surgery.

She left Morgan to check on Adam after the doctor told her exactly when Morgan would wake up. He told her to go eat and come back in three hours. He told her Morgan’s body needed rest after the surgery and she would be out for a while.

“Roxanne I--”

Roxanne cut into his words. “You know this is the end.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“Yes, Adam it has to be.” Roxanne walked up alongside the bed. She was feeling brave enough to be this close to him. He couldn’t pull her close. He was too weak. He couldn’t wrap his strong arms around her. This gave her strength.

“Roxanne tell me what to say? Tell me what to do? I will do anything.”

“Don’t you understand? Don’t you get it? There’s nothing you can do. You helped Morgan. Thank you. That’s all.”

“She’s my daughter too. I will always help her. I will always help you. Do you think I just stopped loving you?”

Roxanne shook her head from side to side. “It ends here.”

“You and Morgan are all I have.”

“Adam, you don’t have us.”

“Only because you refuse to be honest with yourself, with your feelings.”

“Honesty is a word you should erase from your vocabulary. The lies, the lies and then more lies.”

“Roxanne please? I know I don’t deserve another chance. But I’m begging you to give me one.”

“I’m grateful, very grateful for your bone marrow. But I’m not coming back in here to see you again. I just wanted to say thank you. So now I’ve said it.”

“You didn’t have to say anything. Why did you come here in the first place?”

Roxanne rolled her eyes and ignored the question. “When you are released from this hospital I wish, no I demand that you leave us alone.”

“Roxanne please don’t cast me aside.”

Roxanne turned away from him. She exited the room. Adam followed her with his eyes until she disappeared. It felt like his heart was breaking all over again.

For some reason it seemed to hurt even more this time. Maybe he believed that this gave him a chance. Maybe it was seeing Roxanne again had given him a glimmer of hope.

There was finality in her words that scared him to death. He would never be able to be with the woman he loved. Never.

CHAPTER 23

Roxanne’s mother would stay in the hospital with Morgan so Roxanne could go home and shower and change. After Roxanne left her apartment she went to visit with Erika. She needed a distraction to take her mind off the situation with Adam. He had done a noble thing for her daughter. She sometimes felt her resolve weakening but he didn’t deserve her forgiveness. His acts had been unforgivable in her eyes.

Roxanne sat alone at a small wooden table in the kitchen in Erika’s apartment. Erika hadn’t arrived home from work yet. So Roxanne was alone with her girlfriend Teri.

It seemed that Erika was a full-blown lesbian now. She had moved her girlfriend Teri in. It was all a bit much for Roxanne considering Erika had been so promiscuous and only into men all the years she had known her. Then again Erika had threesomes with women so maybe Roxanne just chose to overlook those liaisons. She wondered if Erika was going through a phase. It didn’t really matter. Roxanne wasn’t as judgmental as Erika, which made this new lifestyle change even more confusing.

Erika’s girlfriend Teri stood at the stove preparing two mugs of coffee. Teri was a young, large, stocky woman with short dyed jet-black hair and a noticeably huge tattoo on the right side of her neck.

“You want cream and sugar in your coffee?” Teri asked.

“Yeah a lot.”

Teri added cream and sugar to both mugs. “I know it’s none of my business but maybe you should reconsider cutting him off completely.”

“I’m not being mean to him. It’s so much more to the story than you realize.” Roxanne tried to shut down Teri’s two cents.

“Erika told me what happened to you in college. I was raped. So I know it’s traumatic. It’s life changing. It changes your insides, your personality. I get that.”

“I know you didn’t have to look at the man that raped you.”

“No not everyday but I didn’t fall in love with him either.”

“I didn’t even know who Adam was. He lied about everything that was important.”

“I want to tell you that you should forget about him and I would tell you that but I can look in your eyes and see you still got feelings for him. Besides you got a kid with him. Something so good came from that bad experience.” Teri brought the coffee mugs to the table and took a seat opposite Roxanne.

“It’s so complicated. I can’t forgive him. It’s not just the attack. He lied to me for so long. It was all a lie.”

“My family they all think I’m a lesbian because when I was ten I was raped, molested by my teenage uncle. When it came out in the family I was embarrassed and ashamed. For years I was angry I blamed my uncle for everything that went bad in my life. When I was twenty-five someone in the family had a wedding. I saw him. My uncle was there. I just got tired of hating and being angry and I forgave him. In order for me to live my life I had to forgive.”

“Teri I want to forgive. I really do but I see him and I feel sick sometimes. I’m not a bad person. I just can’t forgive him. I’m not a forgiving person.”

“When you found out Erika was gay, she didn’t tell you she had feelings for you. You forgave her.”