Entertaining Angels (32 page)

“Then it’ll take me a while to look her up.” The man turned to the computer at his desk and, using the index fingers of both hands, began poking at the keys slowly and methodically.

He wasn’t kidding; finding Renee could take him all day.

“I’m not sure if this helps,” Dawn said, “but she was in Maternity last night.”

Hopefully, they hadn’t moved her. Several years ago, before her hysterectomy, Dawn had carried one of the babies she’d lost, a little boy, to four months. When she’d miscarried, the nurses had moved her to another floor so she wouldn’t have to be around all the newborns and happy families while she was grieving. Since Joe had mentioned that Renee’s only concern was for her child, Dawn knew what she must be going through.

“That does help,” the man said, as he went back to his hunting and pecking.

Dawn turned her head and scanned the lobby, noting a few people seated on chairs in a waiting area, as well as several lined up at a coffee cart that provided light snacks and beverages. A gift shop staffed by hospital volunteers was still closed, although a woman in a pink smock and white slacks was inside near the cash register.

On her way to the hospital this morning, Dawn had stopped to buy some items she thought Renee might need—a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, lotion. She’d even purchased a nightgown and slipper socks.

“I found a Renee.” The man squinted as he studied the screen. “I can call the nurses’ desk to make sure it’s the patient you’re looking for.”

“She suffered a fall and was admitted last night,” Dawn added. “The paramedics brought her to the ER.”

A click sounded, and Dawn glanced over her shoulder to
see the pink-smocked woman unlock the doors to the gift shop. She wondered if she should pick up some flowers or chocolate for Renee while she was here. Joe had said Renee was really shaken up yesterday, so something cheery might help.

After the man made the call to Maternity, he reported that Renee Delaney appeared to be the patient Dawn was looking for, and that she was in room 422.

“Thank you.” Dawn turned away, but instead of walking to the elevators, she veered to the right and entered the gift shop, a small room that offered a variety of toiletry items, as well as magazines and knickknacks.

A refrigerator display case in back held several small flower arrangements and a few potted plants. She looked them over briefly and chose a bud vase with three yellow roses.

On her way to the cashier, she paused in front of a shelf of stuffed animals. She reached for a teddy bear, then decided she’d better wait. If Renee had lost the baby during the night, the stuffed animal might make things worse. Dawn knew firsthand how badly a woman could grieve after losing an unborn child.

As she waited for the cashier to ring up the flowers, a short, matronly woman entered the shop and went right for the display of stuffed animals. She reached for a fluffy yellow duck.

White lettering on the back of her turquoise T-shirt said:

IF I HAD KNOWN HOW MUCH I WOULD LOVE MY GRANDKIDS, I WOULD HAVE HAD THEM FIRST.

The thought that she and Joe would have neither, tweaked Dawn’s heart. She closed her eyes and tried to shrug off the painful reminder.

You’d think that over the years, after three miscarriages and a hysterectomy, she would have gotten used to the idea
that she and Joe would never hear the pitter-patter of little feet in their own home. They truly had resigned themselves to that fact, but at times it still hurt.

“Will that be all?” the cashier asked.

“Yes.” Dawn reached into her wallet and withdrew her Visa.

As the woman ran the card, Dawn glanced at a display rack that held bracelets. They weren’t fancy or expensive, but they were just the kind of thing a teenage girl might like.

A silver chain adorned with heart-shaped charms caught her eye, and she fingered it. She wondered if Renee had ever received a gift for no reason at all, one of those little surprises that told her someone cared.

Dawn suspected that, if she had, those occasions had been rare, and her heart broke for the young girl who should have had a mother or father to love and guide her.

That baby isn’t the only one in need of parents,
Pastor Craig had said last night.

The truth of Craig’s words struck like an unexpected wallop.

Dawn and Joe had planned to let Renee stay with them after she was discharged from the hospital, but that poor child needed more than a warm bed. She needed love, security. A real home and family.

“Wait,” Dawn told the cashier. She removed the bracelet from the rack. “I’d like this, too.”

After paying for her purchases, she took the elevator to the fourth floor. All the while, an idea began to fill her heart with hope. She would have to call Joe to run it past him, but only as a marital formality. Joe, who’d come from a family of seven, was an even bigger softie than Dawn was when it came to kids.

An LVN sat at a desk in front of the double door of the maternity wing. When Dawn told her who she was and why she was here, the nurse buzzed the security lock, granting access.

Dawn made her way to room 422 and peered through the
open doorway. The patient’s back was to the door, but Dawn would recognize that blond stringy hair anywhere.

Again, her heart ached for the girl who should be stretched out on a bed in her very own bedroom, munching on a bag of potato chips, sipping a Coke, and texting her BFF about the cute guy in English class.

“Renee?”

The girl rolled over, presenting her face, as well as red-rimmed, watery eyes.

Dawn sensed bad news, and her heart sank. “How are you doing?”

“Okay, I guess.” A tear slid down her cheek, but she didn’t bother wiping it away.

It tore Dawn up to see Renee so sad, so all alone, but she managed a smile. “Are you up for company?”

“Sure. Come in.”

Dawn placed the roses on the tray table and set the bags at the foot of the bed. “I brought some things you might need, like a toothbrush and toothpaste. And I thought you might want some flowers for your room.”

“Thanks. They’re really pretty.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Renee slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so. The nurse told me they’re going to call social services. That’s what I didn’t want to happen. I don’t want them to take my baby away.”

“They can’t take your child, honey.”

Renee’s gaze latched onto Dawn’s. “How do you know? They’re going to put me in foster care again. And what if that family doesn’t want a little baby? Or what if they want the baby and not me? What if they try to make me give her up? I can’t do that, Dawn. The baby is the only family I’ve got. And she needs me.” She swiped at her tears and sniffled. “I know I’m just a teenager, but I love her already. And when I thought that I was going to lose her, I wanted to die.”

Dawn knew the feeling too well, and it saddened her to see
this poor child who’d had enough disappointments in life face the same thing. So she placed a gentle hand on Renee’s cheek. “Let’s hope for the best, okay?”

Renee’s bottom lip quivered, but she nodded.

Some things were out of Dawn’s hands, but she’d do whatever she could to help. “For what it’s worth, I won’t let anyone put you or the baby in foster care.”

“How can you stop it? The court makes those decisions, and that’s all there is to it.”

“I know a way around that.”

Renee studied her, both hope and skepticism etched on her brow. “What is it?”

“I haven’t talked to Joe yet, but I’m certain he’s going to agree.” Dawn brushed a strand of hair away from Renee’s forehead, revealing pretty blue eyes and a freckled nose. “We’ve wanted a family for a very long time.”

Renee sucked in an emotion-laden breath and held it a beat before slowly letting it out. “I know what you’re going to say. You and Joe want to adopt my baby. And that’s probably in the baby’s best interests for me to agree. But I can’t give her up. You might think this is weird, but it’s almost like she’s already here. I think about her all the time. I even talk to her.”

“The baby doesn’t need a mother. She already has you. And it’s clear to anyone with eyes and a heart that you love her more than anything in the world.”

Renee wrinkled her brow. “Then what’s your idea to fix everything?”

“What the baby doesn’t have is grandparents. I’ll need to talk to Joe, but I know he’ll agree. If we adopt you, we’ll have the daughter we always wanted. And, as a blessing on the side, we’d have a grandbaby to love, too.”

“You want to adopt
me?”
Renee asked, the words not quite sinking in. “I’m practically already grown up.”

“You still have most of your teen years left. You ought to be in school, not stressed about providing a roof overhead
and the basic necessities.” As Renee took it all in, Dawn reached into her purse, pulled out her cell, and dialed her husband’s number. “Hi, honey. It’s me.”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m visiting Renee at the hospital.”

“Good. I’m almost there now. How’s she doing?”

“She’s hanging in there. But do you remember that temporary home we talked about providing her?”

“What about it? Doesn’t she want to stay with us?”

“Yes, but I want to offer her a permanent home. I want us to be her parents.”

Joe paused, but only for a moment. “I’d like that, too, honey. Ask her what color she’d like me to paint her bedroom.”

A smile broke across Dawn’s face, and she turned to Renee. “We’re game if you are.”

“Are you kidding?” Renee blinked back a flood of tears as she appeared to struggle with both disbelief and relief. “You really want to be my parents?”

“With all our hearts.”

The morning sun peered through a couple of bent slats in the mini blinds, and birds chattered in the branches of the maple tree outside the bedroom. Apparently, the rain that had battered the community last night had moved on its way.

Kristy glanced at the baby monitor that rested on the bureau and allowed her to hear any sounds coming from her grandmother’s room downstairs. Usually, Gram woke before dawn, needing a glass of water or to use the bathroom.

But she hadn’t last night.

At just after nine o’clock, Kristy rolled out of bed, slipped on her robe and slippers, and headed down the hall to check on Jason, only to find his bed empty. She wondered what he was doing.

Watching television quietly, she suspected.

As she made her way downstairs, eager to put on a pot of coffee, she yawned. Rarely did she get a full night’s sleep, and
after the drama in the canyon and at the ER, she found it surprising that she had.

She planned to call the hospital and check on Renee. Hopefully, everything went well during the night.

In the living room, Jason sat on the sofa, watching cartoons.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice still sleep-laden.

“Oh, hi, Mom.” Jason, who wore his Spider-Man pajamas, smiled. “What’s for breakfast?”

She hadn’t given it any thought yet. “How about pancakes?”

“Cool.” His attention immediately returned to the television screen.

As she continued her morning bed check, she headed down the hall to Gram’s bedroom. With each step she took, she grew a bit uneasy. One of these days, she feared that she just might enter the room and find that Gram had gotten her wish, that she’d passed away.

As she reached the doorway, she peered inside to see her grandmother on her back, her eyes open and staring at the ceiling.

“Good morning.”

Gram turned her head to the side, her gaze lighting on Kristy. “What day is this?”

“It’s Saturday. Why do you ask?”

“Because Craig usually stops by on Wednesdays, and I’d really like to see him today.”

A wave of apprehension strummed over Kristy. “Is something wrong? I can certainly call and ask him to stop by if he can.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Gram said, although her face was all scrunched up as though she was perplexed. “But I had another one of those dreams and I need to talk to him about something.”

“I didn’t realize you’d been having recurring dreams.”

“It’s the second one I’ve had, but it was so real I could
swear it really happened. Last night, I dreamt that the bearded man came and spoke to me again.”

Again? The first time, Jesse had actually been in the house and had carried on a conversation with her. At least, that’s what must have happened.

“What did the man say to you this time?” she asked.

“He said that he was leaving. And that he had a message for me to give Pastor Craig.”

After practice, Ramon waited for the boys to pick up their gear and meet him at the dugout. Their first game was on Wednesday evening, and since they would face National City, last year’s intercity league champs, he wanted to give them a pep talk before sending them home.

He’d hoped to see Craig this morning, but he’d been a no-show. Not that the pastor had actually promised to help out at practice today, but he’d said he would try to stop by. Something must have come up.

“Give it back,” Simon yelled.

Ramon glanced up and spotted Jamal and David playing keep-away with the catcher’s mitt. “Hey, you two. Knock it off.”

David appeared to really give Ramon’s order some thought and tossed the mitt back to Simon, which was a sign that they were finally becoming a disciplined team.

And that was good. Most of the boys had short fuses, so Ramon’s primary goal was to teach them self-discipline. They already had too many cards stacked against them, and he didn’t want their tempers to get them in trouble.

Ramon scanned the park, still thinking Craig might show up, but spotted an attractive blonde instead. It was Shana, and she was heading his way.

If he didn’t know better, he’d think she’d come by just to talk to him. But that kind of thinking would only lead to disappointment.

Still, he headed for the third-base fence, keeping his thoughts and his imagination in check.

“Going for another run?” he asked, even though her clothing—a pair of black jeans and a freshly-pressed lime green blouse—didn’t lend themselves to exercise.

“Not today.” A light ocean breeze whipped a strand of hair across her face, and she swiped it away. “I know that you’re busy now, but do you have a few minutes after practice? I’d like to talk to you.”