“When Naomi was admitted to Harborview in late January to have the baby, she listed her grandmother, Helen Gibbons, as her next of kin.”
“Helen is Jasmine’s mother?”
Alan nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Helen is my mother-in-law. After Naomi disappeared, the hospital called Helen, and she called me.”
“You’re saying Naomi disappeared from the hospital?”
“Yes, right after giving birth, she got dressed and walked out before anyone realized she was gone.”
“And left Athena behind?”
“Abandoned her at the hospital,” Alan corrected. “At the time Naomi took off, Athena was locked up in Harborview Medical Center’s neonatal unit because she was both premature and underweight. She was also addicted to methadone. As I said, the hospital called Helen, and she called me. I quit my job—I was working a bus-and-truck show in Cincinnati at the time—and caught the next plane out. By the time I got here, Harborview had already transferred Athena over to Children’s. I’ve been with her ever since.”
“On your own?”
“Yes, on my own,” he said with a hopeless shrug. “Who else is there? Helen has health issues that make it no longer feasible for her to fly. I’ve had a room at the Silver Cloud in Seattle’s University District for over a month now, but I haven’t spent much time there. It’s expensive as all hell, and I wouldn’t be able to cover it if Helen weren’t willing to help. But it’s close to the hospital. While Athena was an inpatient, I generally stopped by the hotel just long enough to grab a shower and eat some breakfast. Most nights I spent in the nursery at the hospital—holding her, rocking her. She was hooked on methadone at birth and had to go through withdrawal.” He shuddered, remembering. “It was horrible,” he managed at last, choking on the words as he spoke. “How a mother could do that to her own baby—feed her that kind of poison—is more than I can understand!”
Alan broke off then. I sat there in the silence trying to figure out where I fit into this unfolding family drama. Was he searching for his missing daughter in hopes of affecting some kind of reconciliation with her, or was he concerned that Naomi had landed in hot water, and he was here hoping to bail her out of it?
“Methadone is what they use to help get addicts off drugs,” I said at last. “Maybe Naomi was trying to get clean.”
“I doubt it,” Alan said. “The thing is, now that Athena has been released from the hospital, I’ll have to locate someplace less expensive for us to stay until we get things sorted out.”
“What things?” I asked.
“If I hadn’t shown up, Athena would have gone straight from the hospital into foster care,” Alan explained. “I’m petitioning to be appointed her legal guardian, but that takes time. I’ve been appointed her temporary guardian for the next thirty days, but achieving legal-guardian status can take up to a year. I’m not even allowed to leave town with her until all of that is settled, and that’s why I have to find Naomi now. The only way to shortcut the process is for Naomi to go before a judge and voluntarily relinquish her parental rights. I won’t be able to take Athena home to Jasper with me until that happens.”
Legal guardianship? Whoa! Here was a widowed guy in his sixties signing on to take full responsibility for a newborn baby? That takes guts—lots of them. My respect for Mr. Alan Dale shot up about ten-thousandfold.
The baby stirred in her carrier and made a tiny bleating noise. Alan immediately dug in the diaper bag and produced one of those foil-covered containers that are advertised on TV for keeping hot things hot and cold things cold. After removing a baby bottle, Alan leaned over and lifted Athena out of her carrier. That’s when I noticed that while we’d been talking, Lucy had silently oozed her way across the hardwood floor until her nose was resting on her front paws less than two feet away from the baby carrier. She had somehow managed to drag the rug along with her. It was still under her rump—barely. That meant she hadn’t officially broken my stay-on-the-rug command, but she was pushing the boundaries.
“Lucy,” I said reprovingly, “what do you think you’re doing?”
Without raising her head, she thumped her long tail at me in acknowledgment, but her intent black eyes remained focused totally on the baby.