Chapter 9 - The Call From the Hospital
I kept my phone face-up on the edge of the caseworker's desk and watched it like it might move on its own.
We were back in the small office at the children's home. Same warm light coming through the big windows, same soft blur of kids' voices down the hall. The caseworker had her folder open to the lab form, a county hospital intake number written on a sticky note, and my daughter sitting on the plastic chair by the window with her legs not quite reaching the floor. Her red dress was folded neatly over the knees, and the big satin bow was still fixed on the right side of her ponytail. She swung her feet a half inch at a time and looked at me, then at the phone, then at me again.
"I told her you'd call," the caseworker said. She checked the clock on the wall. "Lab said by noon. Hospital social worker said she'd call this morning if the wristband led somewhere."
I nodded. My mouth was dry. I'd asked for the welfare check the night before and I hadn't slept after it. I didn't know which call I wanted first.
At 10:17 the desk phone rang. Not my cell. The caseworker picked up on the first ring.
"This is Marisol Reyes," she said, then listened. She put it on speaker without asking me. "You're on speaker with the relative respondent, Mr. Vitari."
The voice on the other end was flat and professional. "Lab confirmation for case number 7721. Paternity analysis. The alleged father, Mr. Vitari, is not excluded. Probability of paternity is 99.99 percent. Letter is being emailed to your office and to the court."
She repeated it to make sure I heard it. I heard it.
Probability of paternity is 99.99 percent.
My hand dropped to the desk. The tattoos on the back of my hand stood out against the pale wood. I breathed once, slow, and looked at my daughter. She was watching my face, trying to read what the words meant.
"Thank you," Reyes said into the phone. "We needed that."
She hung up and turned the lab sheet toward me so I could see the header, the case number, my name typed out. I didn't touch it right away.
"That's legal confirmation," she said quietly. "You're her biological father, Mr. Vitari. It will be filed today."
I nodded again. I couldn't speak for a second. Seven years and a picture her mother had shown her. Mommy showed me your picture. Now it was on paper.
My daughter whispered, "Is that good?"
I looked at her. The little mark above her left eyebrow caught the light.
"Yeah," I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "That's good. That means I get to keep taking care of you."
She didn't smile exactly. Her eyes got shiny and she pressed her lips together and gave me a short nod, like she was trying to be brave about it.
The desk phone rang again at 10:42. Reyes glanced at the caller ID and answered fast.
"This is Marisol Reyes, county kinship."
I sat forward. This time the voice was a woman's, a little tired, with hospital noise behind it — a cart rolling, a PA chime.
"Got your message about Elena Ruiz. Social work, County General Recovery Unit. We have an Elena Ruiz admitted here for three weeks. Overdose complications, then stabilized. She's in our supervised recovery unit on 4 West. She came in through the ER, no ID at first, identified last week."
Three weeks. She'd been there the whole time my daughter was asking where her mom was and I was saying I don't know.
Reyes wrote as she talked. "Status?"
"Stable. Awake, oriented. Still on medical supervision, on the recovery program. Not medically cleared for discharge, not cleared to care for a minor alone. But she's asking about her daughter. She didn't have a phone for a while."
I felt my shoulders tighten. I kept my hands flat on my knees so my daughter wouldn't see them shake.
"Can her family visit?" Reyes asked, looking at me.
"Father of the child with approved kinship placement can be approved for visitation. Child visitation has to be scheduled through our unit and supervised. Mother wants contact but she's still under observation. We don't want to overwhelm her or the child."
Reyes thanked her and hung up. She turned to me.
"You heard it. Elena is alive. She's stable but she's inpatient. She can't care for your daughter alone right now. That's why the county will continue placement with you."
Alive was the word that stuck. I stared at the window light for a beat, breathing.
My daughter had gone very still. She'd picked up on the name.
"Is that my mom?" she asked.
Reyes looked at me, letting me take it. I leaned down so I was closer to her eye level. My knees popped.
"Yeah," I said. "We found her. She's at the county hospital. She's safe, but she's sick. The doctors are taking care of her there."
Her face did two things at once. Relief broke first — her mouth opened, her eyes widened — and then fear came right behind it and pulled her eyebrows together.
"Is she okay?" she whispered.
"She's stable. That means better. She's got nurses with her. She can't come home yet."
She twisted the edge of her red lace dress in her fingers. "Did she get hurt because of me?"
"No," I said quickly, too quickly. I paused and made myself slow down. "No. Not because of you. She got sick and the hospital is helping her get well. You didn't do anything."
She nodded, but her eyes filled. She didn't cry loud. She just sat there with tears sitting on her lashes, looking from me to Reyes and back.
"Can I see her?" she asked.
"Soon," Reyes said. "The hospital will let us schedule a visit when the doctor says it's okay. Your dad can go first, then you."
Dad. Nobody had said it out loud like that since the day she hugged me and said Daddy.
I reached out and tucked a curl behind her ear, careful not to bump the bow.
"She's safe," I told her again, quiet. "And the test says I'm your dad for real. So you're staying with me while Mom gets better. Okay?"
She leaned forward and put her forehead against my shoulder for a second, then pulled back and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She tried to smile and it wobbled.
May you like
"Okay," she said.
Reyes was already writing the supervised visit request on her notepad, and I sat there with one hand lightly on my daughter's back, holding both pieces of news at once — that I was her father on paper now, and that her mother was three floors up in a recovery unit asking for her but not able to be her mom yet.
