Seventeen Years

It started with an accident. A loose hubcap hit her tire causing the car to go out of control. She hit a street sign, flipping it and pinning her. It caused her spleen to rupture not that she knew it then, just that she was hurt. 

The whirl of the ambulance is barely heard as she is almost out by that time it arrives just ten minutes after the accident. She doesn't know it yet, but the accident is the least of her problems.

The jaws of life free her. Strong capable hands lift her. She is stabilized and rushed to the hospital. Her parents are notified.

Georgia is seventeen and the doctors aren't able to do much until they arrive. Her dad arrives first. He was close by, working construction a few miles away from the hospital.

“Where is she? Where is my daughter?” He rushed to the nurse that is manning the front desk.

“Calm down, sir. I need your daughter ‘s name.” 

He runs his fingers through his shaggy brown hair and across his full beard. “Right. Right. Sorry. Georgia Floyd. She was in an auto accident.” 

She pecks on the keyboard in front of her. He knows it doesn't take long but boy does it feel like it does.  She looks up. “Yes Mr. Floyd. She is in bay two.” He runs towards the door and she hits the button to open it. 

He runs sliding to a stop when he sees the two over the door. A peak in rewards him with a glimpse of his daughter.

Her face is all bruised up, her gorgeous hair, red and curly like her mom’s lays limp around her but her eyes are bright at the sight of him. 

“Dad!” She crooks out. He hurries in and takes her hand. 

“Georgia Grace, what happened?” Her fingers cling to him.

“Something hit my tire,” she frowns in concentration and pain, “not sure what. I tried to turn into, like you taught me but…”

“Not your fault,” his voice is thick. When he got the call, he was so scared. She is his only daughter. If something would have happened to her, “accidents happen.”

Her mom rushes in. Their home is a few miles away. She had to get a sitter for their twin boys.

“Georgia, oh my darling!” She runs to her other side, “My baby! Your poor face.”

“Janey, she will heal,” he feels a type of hysterical laughter bubbling up. Their daughter lives! “That is nothing.”

“You are right George.” 

They both look up when the door opens. The doctor enters. “I am Doctor Reid. Are you her parents?” 

“Yes, I am George and this is my wife, Janey. How is our girl?” 

“She is going to need surgery. Her spleen was injured in the crash.” 

Her mom lets out a moan. “Surgery, oh my God!” 

“Is it serious?” George asks. Georgia clings to his hand. 

“Is it?” She adds. They all wait for his answer.

“The good news is, the spleen isn't strictly necessary. It is a major operation but not serious. I mean, it is simple for the surgeons.”

“We want to give blood,” she looks to her husband, “right?”

“Absolutely. If she needs blood, we want to supply it.”

He nods. “We can type and match you both.”

“When does she need to go back?” Janey asks. 

“She is stable but we don't want to wait too long,” he looks down at the chart, “I will have your blood drawn.”

“Thank you doctor.”

At the lab

“This can't be right.” One of the techs running the blood mumbles.

“What?” The other looks up.

“This is the parents of the patient right?”

“Yes.”

“Her father ‘s blood shows he isn't her father.” The other tech comes over.

“Run it again.”

“I have. Three times now.”

“Shit!”

“Mrs. Floyd, you can give blood for her.” the doctor can't meet their eyes. They stand outside her room. Georgia is being prepped for surgery. 

“Wonderful.” 

“What about me?” George adds.

“You weren't a match. I’m sorry.” He feels like squirming. As an ER doctor, he faces a lot of tough situations but this is on a whole new level.

“What aren't you telling me?” The man demands. He doesn't notice his wife’s face turning white. He is focused on the doctor. 

He lets his breath out. “Mr. Floyd, according to the blood results, there is no way possible that you are Georgia ‘s biological dad.”

Like a bomb dropping that explodes late, they feel air around them grow still. Janey wraps her arms around herself, her face down. George slowly turns to her. 

“Janey, do you have something to tell me?” His voice is deceptively calm. 

“I have no idea what he is talking about.” Her words fall flat as her body screams she is lying. She can't lift her eyes to meet his, her arms tighten farther around her.

“Don't you?” He is angry, in a rage. Face red, his hands fisted to his side. Aware he is at the hospital with his daughter close by, he doesn't let his voice raise, “I am going to see my daughter.” 

He is careful to rearrange his face before entering her room. She lays groggy, the pre-op meds already running through her blood. He takes her hand. She gives him a sleepy grin.

“All over soon.” Her words are slurred. 

He tries to smile. No, just beginning. Does it matter? She has his name, he has raised her. Whoever screwed her mom is long gone. A start as he thinks, ‘ are they?’ 

Samuel and Simeon, are they really his sons? They must be. They both have his hair, the shape of his face. Still…

“Dad?” He focuses on Georgia “Mom?”

He swallows back what he means to say. “She is giving blood. In case you need it.”

“Okay.” her eyes close. 

She arrives before they come to get Georgia for surgery. They have an agreement never to argue in front of the children. Yes, she sleeps, still…

He sits stiffly to one side, holding his child ‘s hand. She seats on the other, holding the other. 

“I see Georgia is all ready for surgery.” The cheerful surgeon says.

“Yes,” her lips are stiff, barely moving, “she will be alright?”

“We will take good care of her. You are welcome to wait here as this is where we will be bringing her after recovery. Or the waiting room is down the hall?”

“We will wait here.” George decides that he will start to have it out with her right here and now. That will take privacy.

“Alright,” He wasn't privy to the bomb that just exploded in their family but knows something is off, “the nurse will keep you informed.” 

A few minutes after they wheeled her out.

“Are Samuel and Simeon mine?” She jerked as if slapped. He longs too but, no. Never ever hit a woman, his dad’s voice fills his head. 

“How could you ask that?” He raises his eyes, “yes. Yes they are yours.”

“A few hours ago I would have sworn on everything that Georgia was mine, as well.” He keeps his voice low. His narrow eyes and clenched jaw show his emotions. This is a hospital, he keeps telling himself.

“She is in every way that counts.” Her heart pounds and her palms are wet. He won't hit her or even raise his voice. There are other ways to show his anger.

“Who is he, her biological father?”

She swallows, staring at her hands.

“Answer me, Janey.”

“We had that big fight. I went to a bar with Lynne. He was a stranger, just a man who caught my eye. It wasn't a long term thing. Not an affair.”

“That is supposed to make it better!” he breathes in and out. Hospital, he reminds himself, “That it was some stranger you… What are we going to tell Georgia? That some random bar stud you screwed once is her father?”

He stands and starts pacing from the chair to the door. Back and forth.

Her lips start to quiver. “Must we tell her anything?” 

He stops in mid stride and stares at her. “Just because you lied to me for seventeen years doesn't mean I will be lying to my daughter, “ her lips quiver more and her eyes tear up, “oh no. Don't you dare cry. Don't you think they will know, even if I stay?” The twins are twelve. Can he do six years to see them to majority? He isn't sure, “they aren't stupid. They will sense something different between us.”

“You would leave us?” 

“No, just you. I will never leave my children.”

“Please George,” she sits, hands clasped in front of her, “Please. We can get past this!”

He stares at her. She has lied for seventeen years about the paternity of his child and she thinks they can simply move past it? 

“Seventeen years. I held her in my arms at a minute old, vowing to give her the world. You laid there knowing she wasn't mine! Not that she isn't now. I love her with everything in me and always will. But Janey, how can I ever see you the same way? It is the betrayal of our wedding vows, the cover up. I have never, and believe that I have had opportunities, but never…” He starts to pace again, “if you would've told me…”

“Would you have forgiven me then?” her voice is hoarse with tears she holds back.

“In time, yes. You are my wife. I believe in the vows we made. I thought you did as well.”

“It was just that one time. I have been faithful every other day!”

“No Janey, you haven't. Every day you lied to me about our daughter, you were unfaithful,” he walks towards the door, “I will wait in the waiting room.”