Thirty minutes later, we pulled up in
front of our house; just as the rain stopped.
I paid the taxi driver and waited for him to pull off before taking
Carmina out of the backpack.
I entered the house and headed directly to
the bedroom.
The house was warm; a nice contrast to
the cold wet air outside. The nurse’s
uniform by now was only slightly wet, thanks to the thin material and the warm
taxi.
I’m glad that was the case, because I
didn’t want to take my eyes off of Carmina even long enough to change into dry
clothes. I placed her down on the bed
and just stared at her; not quite believing that I finally had her home.
I snuggled her up close to me and that is
how we slept all night
I was startled awake the next morning by
the sound of Nick’s voice, “You’re so beautiful…yes you are. I’m your daddy and you’re my beautiful little
girl.”
Nick was sitting on the bed talking to
Carmina, who was wide awake in his arms.
“Good morning,” I whispered; glad to see
his face.
“She’s
so beautiful,” was his response. “What’s
her name?” He asked as if he was not the
supposed father.
“Carmina,” I whispered.
“Carmina,”
he repeated before he continued telling Carmina how beautiful she was and how
much he loved her. Suddenly he turned
back to me, “Why are you both home so soon?
I stopped by the house to pack a bag, expecting to spend a night or two
with you and the baby at the hospital. I
was shocked to see that you were already here.”
“We were both so healthy that there was
no reason to keep us,” I lied.
“Good. I’m so proud of you Diane…doing this on your
own. I hate that I wasn’t there for you
both.”
My heart filled with so much love for
him, but I didn’t get a chance to revel in it as my thoughts flashed back to
our real baby who was still at the hospital.
How differently would this moment have played out if Nick was holding
her right now?
“It’s okay,” I finally answered. “I know you would have been there if you
could have...”
“I could barely concentrate during my
business meetings. All I could do was
imagine something going wrong with our baby…or you.”
But something is wrong with our
baby,
I thought...
The worry must have shown on my
face. “What’s wrong?” Nick asked,
placing the baby on the bed between us before pulling me closer.
“Oh nothing,” I said staring down at
Carmina. “What in my life could possibly
go wrong with such a beautiful baby?”
“That’s right,” he agreed before leaning
over to kiss my lips softly.
“Nothing could ever be wrong again,” he
continued.
At
that moment I loved Nick and Carmina so much that I really wanted to believe
his words.
“I’m going to show Carmina her new room,”
Nick said before standing up with Carmina in his arms.
“You make our life full and complete
little girl…you know that?” Nick cooed
to Carmina; lifting her up to snuggle her to his shoulder.
Although I felt the same way, it was hard
for me to be completely happy, because of the truth of what I had done.
The bottom line was that I had stolen
this baby from the hospital and someone had to be looking for her. I thought it would be just a matter of time
before the police would come knocking at our door.
Labels: I Stole Evil
