Page 66 of Wild Devotion
And I was running out of reasons to keep pushing him away.
Week 15
Chapter Twenty-Three
Caleb
The automatic doors slid open, and the rush of sterile air hit me like a fist to the chest. But I kept walking. This place wasn’t going to bring me down. Not today.
I’d been riding a high since the clinic. Zadie’s hand in mine, the whoosh of a baby’s heartbeat filling the room, the look on her face when she realized what she was hearing. That image was seared into me—her wide, wet eyes, her fingers crushing mine, the raw wonder breaking through every wall she’d built.
A heartbeat.
It wasn’t my child. I’d had no part in creating it. And yet, I’d felt something shift when that sound filled the room. Something fundamental. Like a door opening to a future I hadn’t known I was walking toward.
I held onto that feeling as I moved through the corridors of Copper Ridge Regional. Past the familiar faces at the nurses’ station. And past the hallway that led to the wing that had owned too much of my childhood.
“Hey, Renee.” I stepped into the volunteer office.
“Caleb!” She practically launched herself out of her chair. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too.” The words came out automatic, but I realized I meant them. Despite the dread humming under my skin, there was something else building. It was a stubborn, quiet resistance. A refusal to let this place define me.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Renee was already heading for the door. “A girl who could really use a friend.”
I followed her toward the children’s wing, each step pulling me deeper into the part of the hospital I’d spent years trying to forget.
“Abby’s twelve. Sweet girl, but she’s alone more than she should be. Her mom’s single with three other kids at home. She does her best, but there are gaps. Staff try to fill them when we can.”
“How long has she been here?”
“Not long. But this isn’t her first stay.” Renee’s brightness dimmed. “She’s having a stem cell transplant.”
The air locked in my lungs. My muscles contracted so hard my vision blurred for a second.
Could I do this?
Doubt tried to flood my system, but I pulled myself back to the sound. That heartbeat. That fast, fierce whooshing that had filled the ultrasound room and rearranged something inside me.
Miracles were possible. I was walking proof.
“Ready?” Renee asked when we reached the room.
I swallowed past the block in my throat and nodded.
The room was bigger than the one I’d occupied all those years ago. A wide window let the gray November light filter in, softening the space enough that the overhead fluorescents were off.
I’d always hated those lights. The harsh, unnatural glare of them. They made everything feel clinical and cold, and they’d made me crave the sun with a desperation that bordered on obsession.
But it was the little girl in the bed who lit up this room. Pale, fragile, and sporting the biggest grin I’d ever seen.
“Ladies, this is Caleb.” Renee made the introductions. “Caleb, this is Abby and her mother, Melanie.”
Melanie looked exhausted. Her smile was thin and practiced. It was the kind you wore when you’d been smiling for other people’s benefit for too long.
I recognized that smile. I’d watched my own mother perfect it.
“Nice to meet you both.”
