Laying a Foundation: Bonus volume: Includes series prequel, The Groundbreaking (The Love Under Construction Series) by Deanndra Hall Read Free Book Online Page A

he rocketed up out of the chair and hurried toward her.
    “Now, honey, she won’t be with us long, but you can hold her and talk to her until she goes. I know this is hard, but the doctor said you told him that you wanted to do it, so just be brave, okay?”
    She took him into the hospital room and pointed to a chair. “Just have a seat right there. Vanessa, honey, Steve is here. I’ll be right back with her. Just sit tight.” She turned and shuffled out of the room.
    Steve looked around. Plain white walls, plain white floors, plain green curtains. Vanessa lay in the hospital bed with her face turned away from him.
    He moved to the side of the bed and began stroking her hair. “Hi.” She didn’t turn to look at him or say anything. “How are you feeling?”
    “How do you think I feel?” the girl spat at him. “I’m fifteen, I’ve just had a baby, and the baby is dying! So how do you think I feel?” she snarled. He reached up again to stroke her hair, but she slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch me! My life is ruined! My mom and dad are making me move away, and no guy will ever want me again.”
    Steve didn’t know what to say to make things better, so he sat back down in the chair and waited. In a couple of minutes, the nurse came in with a bundle. “Here you go, honey. Just talk to her and hold her. And call me if you need me.” She handed him the bundle, then pulled the call button from the bed over to his chair and left the room again.
    Steve opened the blanket and looked in. There, in the folds of the blanket, was a baby – his baby. He knew what they’d told him, that her brain was so underdeveloped that it couldn’t make her heart work and she only had a few hours, but she looked perfect. Reaching in with his free hand, he drew his finger under her tiny palm but, unlike most babies, she didn’t grasp it. She just lay there, still and quiet, barely breathing. He noticed that she felt cooler than he’d thought she would.
    Standing, he crossed the room back to the bed. “Vanessa, do you want to hold her? We’ve only got her for a little while. Don’t you want to see her and talk to her?”
    She sat up in the bed, her face a mask of pain. “No! I do not want to hold or talk to that thing! Take it away!” Plopping back down in the bed, she sobbed quietly. Still not knowing what to do, he went back to the chair with his dying daughter.
    “I know what they’re telling us, but I don’t care. Your name is Sarah and I love you.” He kissed the small, soft cheek. “I may only be sixteen, but I really do love you and your mommy, and I would’ve been a really great daddy to you.” Steve spent the next two hours telling the pale, still child about all of the things he’d planned to do with her, like taking her fishing and shopping, about the birthday parties she would’ve had and the pretty dresses he would’ve bought her. The chair wasn’t a rocking chair, so he just rocked forwards and back, holding her and staring down into her face.
    Too soon the nurse came back into the room. She pulled the blanket open farther and put a stethoscope against the fragile-looking chest, then moved it around and around, listening carefully, then gave her head a sad shake. “She’s gone, honey. I need to take her now. Do you have a preference for arrangements?”
    “Arrangements?” he asked, confused.
    “You know, a funeral or something?”
    “I don’t have any money for that. What do I do?” he asked the nurse, trying hard not to cry.
    “Well, the county will bury her for free. She won’t have a stone or anything, and it’ll be in the pauper’s cemetery, but at least you’ll know where she is. Do you want us to put that on the forms?”
    “Yes, please,” he told her as she took the bundle from him.
    He stopped her just before she made it out the door, and pulled the blanket open one more time, then leaned in and laid a gentle kiss on the tiny, cold forehead. “Bye-bye, sweetheart. Daddy loves