Page 17 of Stepping Up

“Hi, I’m Doctor Bennett Maren,” I introduced myself to the distraught mother automatically as I came further into the room.

“Carly,” the woman said briskly. “My daughter is hurt.”

“That’s what I heard,” I said, looking toward my brother. Nate grinned softly at me, and it was good to see him—more so than I thought it would be. I made a note to have a real reunion with him later as I turned my attention toward the child laying on my dad’s couch. “Good to see you again, Ella, even though it’s not under fun circumstances.”

“You’ve met?” Her mother, Carly, sounded surprised.

“Briefly. The other day, when she was here with your mother.”

“Oh,” the woman let out in a puff of breath.

Ella sniffled, looking at me through teary green eyes a bit warily. “Hi, Doctor Ben. I hurt my ankle.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I told her sincerely. “Let me take a look.”

It had been a while since I’d examined something as minor as a playground injury. In Sierra Leone, I had to steel myself to help children with parasites from unclean drinking water, or severe malnutrition, or complications from long-untreated TB. Still, those children were just the same as Ella in every way that mattered—sweet, innocent, afraid. The problem was with their access to the kind of care Ella clearly had. They all needed love and compassion, even when faced with a strange man with a stethoscope.

“Does it hurt when I move it this way?” I asked Ella as I carefully adjusted her ankle. She yelped, nodding frantically, so I stilled my hands. “Alright. I’m sorry, I know it hurts, but you’re doing great. Why don’t you tell me about your favorite insects, hmm? You must have a favorite.”

As Ella’s face started to light up, the stormy expression turning to blue skies as she chattered happily about her love for moths and ladybugs and caterpillars, I finished the exam in no time with no extra tears. Carly watched me the whole time, her gaze scrutinizing in that motherly way I was used to from my other patients’ families. Once I’d wrapped Ella’s ankle with an Ace bandage and sent her on her way, proclaiming she just had a mild sprain, the protective mama bear finally spoke to me. She’d been looking like she wanted to say something for a while, so I braced myself for whatever it was.

“Thank you,” she said softly, surprising me. Ella and Nate were goofing off together at the other end of the living room by now, the sprained ankle not slowing the little girl’s spunk one bit, which left me seated on the couch across from where Carly had settled into my dad’s chair.

“It was nothing,” I told her. “Just doing my job.”

“You were so good with her, though,” Carly reiterated. The soft intensity in her voice made me meet her eyes, and when I did, she met me with a lovely, gentle smile. There was something so familiar in it, an echo of a sultry expression I’d seen years before.

All at once, it hit me. I saw that smile in my mind’s eye, remembering a steamy encounter I’d dreamed about from time to time ever since it happened. She looked a little different back then, her hair longer, her body less voluptuously developed than it was now, but there was no doubt in my mind that this was the girl I’d met at a friend’s frat party about five years ago. The girl I’d uncharacteristically taken to bed, kissed all over her luscious curves, spent myself inside of in a moment of pure bliss.

Shit. How could I not have recognized her instantly? She didn’t look that different. If anything, the intoxicating spirit I’d sensed in her back then was more at the surface now, spilling over in the confident, mature way she carried herself. I’d been in a dark place that night we’d hooked up, which may have been what led me to casually take her to bed and never see her again in the first place. Otherwise, anonymous hookups weren’t my thing back then, and they certainly weren’t my thing now.

I was staring at Carly. I knew it even before she shyly glanced away, a lovely soft pink gracing her cheeks. My mouth formed words before my brain could intervene, letting out a quiet, “It’s you.”

“You guys know each other?” Nate piped up, raising an eyebrow as he looked between me and Carly. I hadn’t noticed before now that he’d come back over to our side of the living room, Ella hanging onto his hand with both of hers. The girl’s eyes were just as observant, just as discerning as her mother’s, even though they weren’t the same color.

“We met in college,” Carly explained before I could even gather my thoughts. “But we haven’t seen each other in a while. It was before I had Ella.”

Something seemed to click into place in my brain. Ella came closer to me, sticking out her ankle for me to adjust the bandage that had slipped as she and Nate played. As I adjusted her bandage, I asked her again, “How old are you, Ella?”

“Five,” she answered simply. I could feel Carly watching me carefully, so I kept my face impassive even as my brain started to whirr at a million miles an hour. Ella’s age lined up perfectly with the one time I’d met Carly before, the magical night we’d shared. And there was no denying either our matching green eyes or the careful, quiet way Carly acted from the second I entered the room, the almost haunted knowing in her expression as she watched me work with her daughter. Our daughter, my brain supplied, and a wave of emotion threatened to drown me.

Could Ella Sanders really be my biological daughter?

11

CARLY

It had been a much longer day than I’d expected when I first got Ella ready to go to the park this morning. Now, after a day of fun and scares and ghosts of the past, we’d gotten a rare fast food dinner that I let Ella eat in the car, and we were finally home. My little girl was clearly exhausted, fighting sleep like kids often did, and I wasn’t far from dozing off myself, either. The shock of seeing your baby’s father for the first time since she was conceived could really take it out of a person.

I called out to my mom when we came into the house, Ella trying hard to stay awake even as she nodded off against my shoulder. She’d been clinging to me all day, and though she was too big to carry for long, I cherished every opportunity to snuggle her close to me, knowing those days were numbered.

“In the bedroom,” Mom’s voice found me. I groaned as I put Ella on the floor, careful not to put too much pressure on her ankle as I steadied her on her feet.

“Oof, you’re getting too big for that,” I told Ella, and she beamed at the idea of her getting older even though it hurt my heart a little. “Go brush your teeth, baby,” I told my sweet girl then. “I’ll come get you ready for bed in just a minute, okay? I’m gonna talk to Grammy.”

Ella carefully plodded off toward the bathroom, and I slunk into Mom’s bedroom and shut the door behind me.

She was organizing her clothes into piles, folding the ones she’d be keeping in the move with her signature care and flair. I felt a little stab of sadness, seeing her clearly getting ready to move out, but I shoved it away. There was something bigger on my mind, and I needed to talk to my mom.

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