Too Late to Be Her Father

Seven years into our marriage, Sawyer Sterling suddenly became the best dad in the world. He showed up at Piper's school every day to pick her up on time, remembered that she would not eat cilantro, and read her favorite fairy tales to her before bed. Piper had waited seven years for this day. She wore the hair clip Sawyer had given her and told everyone she met, "Daddy finally loves me, too. Not just Tatum." However, watching Piper smile, I could not bring myself to feel happy. For the past seven years, Sawyer had treated his first love's son like a prince. He attended Tatum's parent-teacher conferences, celebrated Tatum's birthdays, and never objected when the boy called him Daddy. When Tatum snatched Piper's toys, Sawyer made her apologize. When Piper was running a high fever, he rushed off to celebrate Tatum's birthday with him instead. He had even slapped her across the face for pushing Tatum. Then, one day, he took Piper by the hand and brought her to the hospital. "Be a good girl. It's just a quick checkup. It'll be over soon." That was when I learned that Juliet Valenti's son had leukemia. Sawyer crouched in front of Piper, trying to coax her into it. "If you save Tatum, I'll spend every day with you from now on." Piper burst into tears and curled up in my arms. "Mommy, I don't want Daddy to spend time with me anymore. Can I please skip the shots?" I held Piper close as the last of my hope finally faded. His sudden change of heart had never been about Piper at all. He had only been trying to save Juliet's son. Chapter 1 No Longer Waiting Piper was curled up in my arms, her little hands clutching the collar of my shirt. Sawyer stood in the hallway, talking on the phone. I could hear every word through the door. "We got the initial screening results. Several markers matched, and the doctor says we can move on to the next step." It was Juliet on the other end. "Sawyer, you have to save Tatum. He's only eight years old." I carried Piper toward the door. As I passed Sawyer, he reached out to stop me. "Don't leave yet. The doctor says they need to do one more test to confirm the match." "When did you take her in for the blood test?" His eyes flickered. "Last Wednesday, during her school checkup." Last Wednesday. That day, Piper had come home saying her arm hurt. I had assumed it was from having blood drawn during her checkup. She had pulled off the Band-Aid and shown me the bruise around the needle mark. I rubbed her arm for a long time. "Mommy, the other kids only got poked once, but it took so long for me." I had thought the nurse was just bad at drawing blood. "You went behind my back." "Would you have agreed if I'd told you?" he asked, sounding as though he had every right to do it. "Tatum doesn't have time to wait. We've searched every donor registry we could find, but no suitable match has turned up. Piper is our best hope." "She's your daughter, not a collection of spare parts." "I know she's my daughter." He lowered his voice. "That's exactly why she should do this. Tatum calls me Daddy, too. He's been doing it for seven years." Seven years. … Seven years ago, Juliet had shown up on our doorstep with Tatum, who had just turned one. She had cried and told us her ex-husband had abused her and she had nowhere to go with her baby. Sawyer had let her stay for a week. A week turned into a month. A month turned into a year. When Tatum learned to talk, the first person he called Daddy was Sawyer. Juliet never corrected him. Neither did Sawyer. By the time Piper turned two and learned to call him Daddy, Sawyer was usually busy playing with Tatum instead. Eventually, Piper hardly called him Daddy anymore. On Piper's third birthday, Sawyer had promised to help her blow out her candles. The cake was on the table, and the candles were lit. Then, Juliet called to say Tatum had a fever. Sawyer grabbed his jacket and left. The candles burned out, and the frosting flowers on the cake slumped, leaving cream all over the table. Piper sat in her high chair and sang "Happy Birthday" alone. When she was four, her preschool held a family field day. Sawyer went to Tatum's school instead and joined his team for a three-person relay. Piper stood alone at the starting line. When her teacher asked where her daddy was, she said, "He went to Tatum's school." When she was five, she had a fever of 102.2°F. I called Sawyer, but he was at Tatum's birthday party. "You're there with her, aren't you? Just give her some fever medicine. She'll be fine tomorrow." When she was six, Tatum took the watercolor pens she had spent two months saving up for. She tried to get them back, but Tatum fell and started crying. Sawyer slapped her. After that, Piper never fought with Tatum over anything again. … Now, she was seven. Her daddy had suddenly started picking her up from school, remembering that she would not eat cilantro, and reading her favorite fairy tales to her before bed. She had been so happy. She had worn her new hairpin and told everyone she met that her daddy finally loved her, but she had never been the one he loved. I carried Piper to the car. She asked, "Mommy, aren't we waiting for Daddy?" "No. We're not waiting anymore." Chapter 2 She Didn't Know She Could Say No After we got home, Piper fell asleep on the couch. I noticed three needle marks on her arm. The oldest one had already scabbed over. Sawyer's messages kept popping up on my phone. "Please calm down. Let's sit down and talk." "The doctor said bone marrow donation has very little impact on the donor, and the recovery period is short." "I would never risk Piper's life." I did not respond. … Half an hour later, he came through the door carrying a strawberry cake, Piper's favorite. "I picked it up when I went to get her. She said she wanted some last time." Piper had asked for strawberry cake on her birthday—two months ago. He never remembered a thing she told him. Now, suddenly, he remembered everything. He set the cake on the coffee table and crouched in front of the couch to look at Piper. He reached out to touch her cheek. Even in her sleep, Piper flinched away. His hand stopped in midair. "I didn't mean to keep this from you. When Juliet came to me, Tatum had already been diagnosed. She'd searched every bone marrow registry she could find and still couldn't find a match. She was falling apart." "So Piper was the first person you thought of." "She's close to Tatum's age. The doctor said stem cells from children around the same age are the most active. I did a lot of research. The whole procedure is safe." "When you were doing all that research, did you ever ask her?" "She's too young to understand." "She doesn't understand?" I stared at him. "When she was five, she already knew to lock her toys away so Tatum couldn't take them. At six, she knew better than to fight him for her things. By seven, she'd figured out that if her daddy suddenly started being nice to her, there had to be a reason. And you think she doesn't understand?" His lips pressed into a thin line. The living room fell silent for a few seconds. Piper turned over in her sleep and mumbled something. I leaned closer to hear her. "Daddy said it would only hurt once. He lied." Sawyer swallowed. He sat down across from me, lowering his voice. "Sienna, I know I haven't done enough these few years, but Tatum really is dying. He's only eight. He doesn't understand any of this. Every day in that hospital room, he asks his mommy when he'll be able to go back to school." "Your daughter's seven. Every day, she knows her daddy loves Tatum more than her. She's never once asked why." He had no answer. Just then, the doorbell rang. Juliet stood outside, her eyes red and swollen. "Sienna, I know you're angry, but Tatum really doesn't have much time left. The doctor said if they can't find a suitable donor, he has six months at most. I know I've been wrong all these years. I've already asked too much of you. But this is my son's life we're talking about. "Please, let Piper save Tatum. I'll beg you on my knees. I'll do anything you ask." Piper woke up. She sat up on the couch and saw Juliet kneeling on the floor. Instinctively, she pulled the blanket around herself, trying to hide. "Mommy." Her voice trembled. "Why is Ms. Valenti crying?" Sawyer answered before I could. "Tatum is sick. Ms. Valenti is worried about him." Piper lowered her eyes to the needle marks on her arm, then looked at Juliet. "Is it because I didn't have enough blood?" No one said a word. The seven-year-old knew everything. She just did not know how to say no. Because no one in this family had ever taught her that she could say no. Sawyer helped Juliet into the living room, getting her water and handing her tissues. As she took them, her fingers brushed the back of his hand. I had seen little gestures like that countless times over the past seven years. The year Juliet moved in, she said she was afraid of the dark. Whenever she heard a noise in the middle of the night, she would knock on our bedroom door. Sawyer would leave in his pajamas and spend half an hour in her guest room. He always said she needed someone to keep her company. Little by little, Juliet had become the woman of the house. And Sawyer had started treating Tatum like his own son. There was always yogurt in the fridge for Tatum. The first shelf of the shoe cabinet was filled with Tatum's shoes. Two-thirds of the toy cabinet in the living room belonged to Tatum. Piper's things had been confined to her bedroom. Eventually, even that room was not big enough. She started stuffing the toys she rarely played with under her bed. Chapter 3 The Color of Daddy One day, while cleaning under Piper's bed, I found a stuffed bear with one ear missing. Sawyer had brought it home from a business trip when Piper was two. She had slept holding it every night for three years. Then, Tatum wanted the bear too, so Sawyer simply took it out of her arms and gave it to him. Piper cried all night. The next day, Tatum said the bear was old and ugly, then tore off its ear and threw it in the trash. Piper went back for it and hid it under her bed. When I washed the bear and gave it back to her, she said something I would never forget. "Mommy, I'm not going to tell anyone what I like anymore. If I do, they'll just take it away." She was only five years old. It hurt to hear her say that, and the pain stayed with me for a long time. Now, Juliet was sitting in the living room, crying, with Sawyer beside her, trying to comfort her. It was no different from any other day over the past seven years. Except this time, what she wanted to take was not a toy. It was my daughter's bone marrow. … Piper was hiding in her room. I brought her a bowl of noodles. She was sitting on the floor with a drawing in front of her. There were three people in it. One tall, one short, and one even shorter. The tallest figure was covered in different colors. Red, blue, all mixed together. "Who's this?" "Daddy." She picked up a black crayon. "I don't know what color to make him. Sometimes, he wears blue when he picks me up. Other times, he wears gray when he leaves." She paused. "I don't know which one is the real him." I crouched beside her. "What color do you want Daddy to be?" She tilted her head and thought for a long time. "Yellow. Because the sun is yellow. It's warm. But Daddy isn't warm." She put down the black crayon. "He's been warm lately, but it's not real." My throat tightened. I could not find the words to respond. … That night, after Piper fell asleep, I went through her backpack. On her extracurricular activity form, she had written my name under emergency contact in her uneven handwriting. The space for her father's name was blank. It had not been left empty. His name had been erased. I picked up my phone and messaged the lawyer a college friend had recommended. "Can we meet tomorrow?" She replied almost immediately, "Sure. Also, medical procedures involving minors require informed consent from a legal guardian. If you didn't sign, the consent he obtained on his own may be legally questionable. Do you have a copy of the form?" I did not—because I had not even known such a form existed. However, I replied, "I'll get the records from the hospital tomorrow." When I put my phone down, the living room was empty. Juliet had left. I did not know when Sawyer had gone. The strawberry cake was still sitting on the coffee table. The frosting had started to slump. It looked just like the birthday cake from Piper's third birthday, the one she had waited by until the candles burned out. … Early the next morning, I went to the hospital. The nurse at the registration desk spent some time looking through the records. "This little girl has been here three times in the past month. The first visit was for a complete blood count and preliminary HLA screening. The second was for high-resolution HLA typing, and the third was for additional sample collection." "Who signed the consent forms for all three visits?" The nurse pulled up the electronic records. Sawyer's name was on all three forms. Not one had my signature. "Do both legal guardians need to consent before you can perform HLA testing on a minor?" The nurse hesitated. "Generally, one legal guardian's signature is enough for testing. But collecting stem cells requires a much stricter consent process." "Have they scheduled the stem cell collection yet?" She checked again. "There's a stem cell collection appointment in the file. It's set for next Tuesday." My hands went cold. "Whose signature is on it?" "Sawyer Sterling." Chapter 4 The Three Needle Marks The nurse gave me a cautious look. "I'd recommend discussing this directly with the attending physician." I got copies of all three test reports, along with the appointment slip for the stem cell collection. … When I got home, Sawyer was sitting in the living room. His eyes immediately narrowed when he saw the folder in my hand. "You went to the hospital?" I slapped the appointment slip onto the table. "Your daughter's stem cell collection is scheduled for next Tuesday. When were you planning to tell me?" He picked up the slip and glanced at it before setting it back down. "I was going to tell you today." "Tell me what? That you've already arranged my daughter's procedure and all that's left is to notify me so I can sign a consent form?" "This isn't surgery," he corrected me. "It's a peripheral blood stem cell collection. They'll give her shots to mobilize the stem cells for a few days, then collect them through a vein in her arm. It's basically like donating blood." "Basically like donating blood? She's only seven!" "The initial tests suggest she may be suitable. The full evaluation is next Tuesday." "Which doctors? Yours? Or the ones Juliet found?" His expression darkened. "The chief of hematology at one of the best hospitals. You can ask them yourself." "Do you even know the side effects of those shots? Bone pain, headaches, fever?" "They're all manageable." He stood up, his voice growing more impatient. "Sienna, I know you hate seeing Piper go through this. I do too. But Tatum really can't wait any longer. He's been waiting for three months. The bone marrow registry hasn't found a match, and none of his relatives are a full match. "Juliet is only a partial match herself, so the chances of a successful transplant are too low. Piper is our best option right now." His voice softened again. "She'll recover after a week or two of rest. I'll be with her the entire time." "Like you were there when they drew her blood? When you promised her they'd only stick her once, but they ended up sticking her three times?" He had no answer. I picked up the appointment slip and tore it in half right in front of him. The torn pieces fell at his feet. He bent down to pick them up, his knuckles turning white. "Sienna, I'm her father. I have the right to make medical decisions for her." "You have that right?" I laughed. "What have you done for her in the past seven years that makes you think you have that right? And now you suddenly have that right? Because Juliet needs something?" His chest heaved. Juliet's voice came from the doorway. "Sienna, can't you stop fighting with Sawyer for the children's sake?" When had she gotten here? She was holding Tatum's hand. He was much thinner than the last time I had seen him. His complexion was ashen, and he wore a mask. When he saw us arguing, he shrank behind Juliet without saying a word. She bent down and pushed Tatum toward me. "Tatum, say hello to Ms. Thorne. Ask her to let Piper help you." Tatum looked up at me. His eyes were wide, with dark circles underneath. "Ms. Thorne." His voice was barely audible. "I don't want to stay in the hospital anymore. I want to go back to school." For a moment, something stirred inside me. Piper's bedroom door opened, and she appeared in the doorway. I had no idea how long she had been listening. She looked at Tatum, then at Sawyer, and slowly rolled up her sleeve. Three needle marks dotted her arm. The oldest had already scabbed over. The newest was still covered by a flesh-colored bandage. One edge had peeled back, revealing a dark purple bruise underneath. "Mommy…" Piper's voice was barely a whisper. She stood there, only seven years old and so thin, with three needle marks on her arm like three tiny nails. "Daddy said they'd only take one tube of blood, and then it wouldn't hurt. But they took three." She pulled her sleeve back down to her wrist. "I didn't cry the first time. I didn't cry the second time, either. The third time, it took the nurse a long time to draw my blood. I still didn't cry. Daddy said I was brave." She did not cry. She just looked at Sawyer, dazed. The last bit of color drained from his face. "Daddy, where did my blood go?"