Page 42 of Knocked Up in Alaska

“Plan to start a family?”

She nodded. “Sure. Couple boys, couple girls. Maybe a soccer team. Who knows?”

“Do me favor. When it’s time for…” He waved toward the curtained-off area behind him. “Grab Archer and fly to Juneau. Get the hospital room, the epidural, the works. I don’t think I can go through that”—he tipped his head toward the curtains—“again.”

“Poor Ford.” She surprised him by enveloping him in a hug. “You’re going to have nightmares, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” Definitely.

“Well, if helps at all, you handled things perfectly. If you were scared, it didn’t show. You were there for her, and I, for one, am never going to forget it. I doubt she will, either, and she’s going to be deeply and genuinely grateful. How you want to handle that is up to you, but I will point out she spoke the truth in there.”

“That the baby is beautiful? I agree.”

“No. Well, yes, but that’s not the truth I’m talking about. She spoke the truth when she said she’s not a young, sheltered girl. She’s a fucking woman. ’Scuse my language, but also, get used to it.”

“I’m still trying to get used to what a fucking pain in the ass you are,” he shot back, knowing she’d appreciate the insult.

Her smirk indicated she did. Instead of firing more back at him, though, she tapped the phone he’d slipped into the breast pocket of his T-shirt. “Got a couple nice shots of you and Lilah and the baby. Check them out when you get a moment. I think you’ll find them enlightening.”

“Hmm.” Not liking the satisfied look on her face, he pulled out his phone and woke it, but before he could scroll over to his photo roll, he saw a string of missed call notifications filling the screen. Like, twenty missed calls, all from the same person. He recognized the number, even though its appearance on his phone remained a rare thing.

Jen had called him, repeatedly, and left…what the fuck…seven messages.

“I have to return a call,” he mumbled, unsure if Bridget still stood there or not, and walked to the waiting room for privacy on legs that threatened to give out. He ordered himself not to panic, as whatever the situation, panicking wouldn’t help, but he couldn’t ignore cold, hard facts. Jen didn’t call him with chatty updates on the daughter who didn’t know he existed. This was the Mia-needs-a-kidney call, and that was probably a best-case scenario. A whole lot of more dire scenarios sprinted through his head while he stood there with his phone pressed to his ear, counting rings.

Jesus, he hadn’t even bothered to calculate the time difference between Pittsburg and Captivity. Then again, when someone called twenty-plus times in the space of four hours and left seven messages, that tacked-on an implied ASAP to the callback request.

“Ford!” Jen’s high, urgent voice burst over the line, into his ear, full of tension and recrimination. “What the hell. I’ve been calling you for hours.”

Definitely recrimination.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Hopefully the apology sufficed to prevent a pointless spiral into his failure to respond promptly. But just in case, “What’s going on?”

“It’s Mia. She’s gone.”

“What?” A swarm of bees buzzed around his head while gray dots swam at the edges of his vision. “Gone?” A thousand unrealized dreams died in his heart. Dreams of showing up in her life someday, after college maybe, introducing himself as an old friend of her mom’s, and talking to her. Getting to know her. Hearing all about her life, her friends, her happy, secure childhood. Goals, dreams, fears, triumphs.

“Gone,” Jen confirmed, but her voice brimmed with impatience rather than grief. “I arrived home this afternoon from a business trip to Orlando, and she was gone. She’s been putting us all through quite the teenage phase for the last little while, so I didn’t immediately think anything of it when she didn’t rush downstairs to greet me. I figured she was in her room sulking about—it doesn’t matter—a bunch of things. Things we argued about right before I left on my trip, as she loves to stir up trouble at the worst possible moment—”

“How long has she been gone?” Relief made him terse. Their daughter wasn’t dead, thank God. She’d run away from home. He didn’t have the time or the inclination to listen to motherly frustrations about the trials of raising a teenager, and Jen hadn’t called him to vent or persuade him to take sides. Presumably, she’d called for help. Their daughter was the priority. His only priority.

“I think…well, it looks like she took off a bit after I left. She was supposed to stay with her friend Ami while I was out of town, but I guess she told Ami I’d decided at the last minute to bring her, and Cathy—Ami’s mom—didn’t think to confirm that with me, so—”

“How many days, Jen?”

“Three days. Today’s the third…”

“Three days? Jesus Christ.” He spun away from all the vacant, unblinking eyes of the totem pole mural that decorated the far wall of the waiting room and stared out the long windows that faced the parking lot. “Where the fuck was Jack?”

“Jack moved out last month.” After a stubborn beat of silence, she added, “We’ve separated. We’re getting divorced.”

Well, hell. Maybe that was one of the “things” Mia had wanted to discuss? Maybe Jen could have postponed her fucking business trip and spent some time with their daughter? She’d wanted the mom job. Jack had wanted the dad job. They’d convinced him he didn’t have a role of any kind in their happy little family, but now that the happy had fizzled from the marriage, neither wanted to press pause on their drama and be there for Mia.

Seemed he had a few recriminations of his own. Instead of voicing them, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Unloading now wouldn’t help a damn thing. Then another nasty thought struck, and he couldn’t bite it back. “Who joined you on that business trip?”

“Don’t start. I didn’t cause this.”

“I didn’t, either.”

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