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However, the hearing for custody, as well as the hearing for her child endangerment, had been set for three weeks from now. In the meantime, as the father—the confirmed father as of four days ago—I would have sole emergency custody of my son.
“You want to go see Peppa?” I asked, reaching for him.
He came willingly, although a bit hesitantly. “Yes.”
The whispered words hurt.
Fuck, but he was hesitant with everyone. What had his life been like?
It warmed my heart to have him in my arms.
It also hurt it.
Two years.
I’d missed two years of his life.
He was twenty-five months old.
His birthday was just last month.
I’d missed his second birthday by mere days.
Which only made me angrier in the grand scheme of things.
I mean, how fucking hard was it to tell your baby daddy that he was, in fact, a baby daddy?
Knowing that line of thought would just lead me down a dark path that I didn’t want to be on, I said, “Let’s go to the bakery and see Miss Peppa.”
The nurse walked with me out of the hospital, giving me his medications with a smile once I reached the truck I’d pulled around.
“Don’t hesitate to call if you have any questions,” she suggested. “But also, Dr. Howser is fantastic with the kids. He’ll be able to help you as well anytime. Just call his on-call service if it’s after hours.”
Handing me the paperwork, she left me to strap my boy into his car seat, which gave me a flashback of PTSD.
I was obviously not the only one, because when I started to put him into the seat, he started to freak the fuck out.
My stomach knotted.
And in the end, I ended up breaking the law and putting him in the front seat with me in his car seat.
He was sitting facing forward, too.
It’d taken me fifteen minutes to figure out how to turn the passenger side air bag off.
His eyes were wide and taking everything in as we pulled out into traffic.
My heart was in my throat.
Obviously, I’d driven kids around a lot before.
Nieces. Nephews. Hell, friends’ kids.
But something was different about driving your own.
Was this what it would’ve been like had I come home from the hospital with him?
Would I be with Emory right now had she told me?
