Page 61 of The Homewrecker's Fate

“All right, Melinda, take your personal business outside of this room. Julie, Aviva is our patient and she said Braxton gets that bracelet. If Mr. Thomlinson wants to come back to the hospital with a court order stating we need to get him one, too, we will handle it then.” Dr. Martinez called out before turning back to the door. “Melinda, have Shawna send someone else in to replace you. I don’t want you working with Ms. Acker.”

“I would never…” she started to say, but then stopped herself as she realized Rich had already caused her to behave unprofessionally. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized before turning and leaving the room with Rich hot on her heels.

“Well, he didn’t even bother to look at his baby girl, for all the fuss he made about that security band,” Julie noted.

“We’re not surprised,” I told her as Janine was handed back to me.

By the time we were placed in a regular room, the whole maternity floor was talking about the soap opera style drama that had been hashed out as Rich followed Nurse Melinda around telling her she didn’t understand what he meant. Luckily for her, Nurse Melinda seemed wiser than Rich realized, and she wasn’t willing to listen to his shit. Instead, she told him he better have all his things cleared out of her home before the end of her shift.

“Well, I guess now we know why Rich was so secretive about where he was staying,” Mel said as she helped me get Janine latched on to a nipple. “There you go. She’s got it now.”

“Thank you.” I whispered. “I always thought it just happened naturally.”

“Oh, it does, but with a lot of trial and error along the way sometimes.”

“Speaking from experience?” I asked.

“I had a crappy nurse, no mom, and Rich’s mother never breastfed, so she was no help. Gavin and I figured it out eventually, but there were a lot of tears first.

“I wonder how Rich will take it if I give you or Brax the other security bracelet when this little one is born?” Mel mused.

There was a quick knock on the door and then Nurse Melinda came into the room. “I just wanted to stop in and tell you again how sorry I was that…” She stopped and stared at Mel for a moment. Her eyes closed shut and she shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Please, come in,” I said. “Don’t worry, nothing is being held against you. If you’re off the clock, you are more than welcome to get a little scoop of truth from us before you leave.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it. It feels like up is down and down is up right now. I didn’t even know he had a pregnant mistress, too.” Melinda’s shoulders stiffened, obviously worried she offended me.

“How about I tell you what happened to me and how I met Mel?” She nodded her head. As I fed my daughter, I explained our situation, how it started, how I met Mel, the switcheroo Rich tried to pull with me so he wouldn’t get caught, and even how he was so callous about my mother’s situation. I laid it all out for Melinda and watched as Mel took in the other woman. My friend didn’t seem as forthcoming with the nurse as she had been with me, and it made me wonder why. At least it did, right up until she explained.

“Did he tell you that we were talking about reconciling?” Mel asked Melinda.

“No,” the nurse shook her head, but something in her eyes made me think she wasn’t being entirely honest.

“The day he came up to the cabin on Juniper Lake, that was supposed to be the day we told the kids that he was moving back in with me,” Mel explained.

“Oh, Mel, why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.

“I knew it was a dumb decision, but with the pregnancy, and the kids, I just felt overwhelmed, and he was constantly in my ear about how much easier it would be if I would just let him come back home.”

Mel waved away anything I was about to say. as she turned her attention back to Melinda “He said he told you that we were going to give it another go. He told me that it was never serious between the two of you,” she said to the nurse who shook her head in denial the whole time.

“He’s lived with me since the end of May.”

“That must have been fast, considering we only just moved to town at the end of April, and he was still living with me then.”

Melinda grew uncomfortable then. “We started dating in April,” she admitted.

“He just can’t help himself, can he?” I asked.

“Apparently not.” Mel agreed. “Did you know he was married?”

“He said that he was separated and had two children. He told me the reason you were separated was because you cheated and were pregnant with another man’s child.”

Mel sighed and then told her story from beginning to end the same way I did. Melinda could tell by the way everything overlapped that she was telling the truth. “It’s weird that he’s dating a woman named Melinda, right? It’s not just me, is it?”

“He called me Mellie, not Mel,” the nurse insisted.

“Still weird,” I stated. “Anyway,” I added as I swapped my daughter to the other breast the way Mel had explained to do earlier. “I think that about covers everything, including the fact that his wife is still pregnant with their third child. It is definitely his and you see he hasn’t been back to even see his daughter.” I sighed. “That is the kind of man Rich Thomlinson is.”

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