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.
