Page 80 of Doctor Daddy

Mom sat on the edge of the hospital bed and took one of my hands hostage. I hit the control button to lift the back of the bed so I could sit up more easily. I couldn’t exactly sit; my body was entirely too torn up for that.

“What do you mean what are we doing here? We’re your parents, you’re in the hospital, where else should we be?” Mom was panicky and shrill.

Dad just glowered at me. He stood there with his arms folded, a frown carving deep creases into his face. He was the embodiment of disappointment.

“I don’t understand why you couldn’t tell us. Tell me. I’m your mother.” She wiped away tears I couldn’t see.

Dad grunted. He wasn’t going to be any help in this.

I hadn’t been prepared to face this on my own. I wasn’t mentally prepared, and I didn’t know if I had the fortitude to see it through. Tears of exhaustion leaked from my eyes.

“Crying isn’t going to help you get out of this,” Dad said.

I flashed a glare at him. How dare he? I was overwhelmed and now they were forcing me into a confrontation.

“Well, where are they?”

Seriously? My children were not available for his inspection.

“What happened to the babies? We were told you had twins,” Mom’s voice started winding up with more panic.

“They’re in the nursery so I can sleep,” I said with a heavy sigh. “How did you find out?”

I was too tired to try to figure it out. I don’t think Angela must have said anything. Mark must have told them. We hadn’t discussed that I didn’t want to tell my parents right away. I knew this was what I was going to have to deal with. I felt like I was under some kind of investigation.

“Mark came by the house and told us. Is it true?” Mom straightened up her back, indignation surged through her posture.

I took my hand back from her and rubbed my face. “I don’t know what he told you, so I can’t…” I shrugged. “I had twins, yes. He was the delivering physician on the floor of the hotel ballroom. Ah—”

“What? He never mentioned that you were on the floor of the hotel!” She looked from me to Dad and back again. “We thought that you must have ended up in a hotel room somehow.”

“What were you doing at that hotel?” Leave it to Dad to make everything sound like an accusation.

“I work there.”

“Did you really come to Chicago to go to school, or were you only hiding this from us?”

I closed my eyes and leaned back in bed. I was too tired to deal with all of this, I wasn’t willing to put forth the effort to be upright for my parents.

“I moved to Chicago with Angela to attend graduate school and get an MBA. I’m doing a hospitality management program. I worked at that hotel; I was on my events rotation. Okay?”

“And the babies? You weren’t hiding them from me, were you?”

I decided to lie to make my life easier. “I didn’t realize I was pregnant until after I got here.”

“But you didn’t say anything when you did bother to call.”

“Mom,” I groaned. I just wanted to be asleep.

“Is that all you have to tell us?”

I didn’t have the energy to look at Dad.

“How about instead of seeing if I’ll confess to something, you just tell me what it is you already know.”

“Why aren’t you telling us who the father is, Brooke?”

“What? If Mark flew all the way back to Atlanta to tell you I had babies, then he told you. Mark is the father, okay?”

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