Chapter 4: Are you both married?

“I’m her father.” Someone says behind me. My head turned too quickly on its own accord that I heard it pop. I saw Mr. spy standing there in all his goddamn glory.

“He’s, her father?” the doctor asked both in surprise and suspicion.

“He is her father.” The words were meant to come out as a question but they came out more like an answer. I even nodded my head as a damn confirmation! What in the world’s name is wrong with me?

“I’m Bruce Clark, the father of….” He trailed off, giving me the signal to complete his sentence.

“Jayceline Darren,” I said before the doctor could find anything suspicious.

Mr. spy, I mean Mr. Clark and the doctor shook hands before Mr. Clark settled down on the other empty chair by my left. Moments ago, if the doctor was just suspicious, now he’s triple suspicious.

“Yes, you were saying?” Mr. Clark asked the doctor.

“Are you both married?” The doctor asked instead.

“No.” “Yes.” I and Mr. Clark said at the same time.

“I mean no.” I corrected myself.

“Why the question?” Mr. Clark took over the conversation with the doctor.

“Well, your daughter has sickle cell anemia.” The doctor said quite too casually for my liking. I felt Mr. Clark’s gaze on me for a while. My head and my mind went blank for some seconds.

Jackie’s a Sickler? Why my poor baby? She has always been ill from the very start. When I was to give birth to her, the doctor told me she had a 50% chance at survival but she survived at the end of it all even though she wasn’t breathing when she was born. Did fate allow her to survive just for her to be sick for the rest of her life?

“Does that mean she’s going to be sick for the rest of her life?” I questioned what was on my mind.

“Not necessary.” The doctor answered. “Her blood pressure is quite low; we also discovered some harmful substance in her bloodstream that causes the shortage of blood.” The doctor continued updating us on Jackie and once again Mr. Clark stared at me for a while.

The doctor also advised that Jackie should avoid spicy food for the time being.

“Did it contribute to her blood shortage?” I questioned yet again what was on my mind.

“Not necessary.” The doctor still answered indirectly as he had done before.

“Okay doctor we will try our possible best to keep Jayceline healthier.” Mr. Clark said when he noticed am too lost to conclude our meeting with the doctor. “We’ll go settle the bills for Jayceline and check her out.” He stood up and then turned to help me up also. “We’ll take our leave now.”

He led me outside where he told me to wait while he went back inside to speak with the doctor. I rested my body on the door immediately it clicked close.

Although I rested on the door, I couldn’t hear a thing they were saying inside; it was the least of my worries though.

Kirsten and her shitty-ass boyfriend both had the sickle cell trait in their genotype yet they still had to get laid and produce a zygote with probably the “SS” trait. I’m a bad mother, I cried bitterly. I didn’t even bother to know the health condition of my daughter. This. Is. All. Because. Of. Kirsten. And. Dylan. If they haven’t insisted on Jackie not visiting the hospital a number of times, maybe just maybe, I would have known about her condition. Could it be they knew about this at her birth? Is it possible that… I trailed off not wanting my suspicions to be true.

I suddenly lose my balance, falling backward until someone caught me.

“Easy.” I heard a now familiar voice whisper deeply in my ears. I felt the heat resonating from his body. The heat started cooling off as my eyes were becoming heavy; I tried to keep them open since I knew once they closed, darkness would consume me.

“Really? Is she really fainting on me?” I faintly heard the familiar voice say. “Jeez, she’s such a whore to faint on a guy she doesn’t know.” The words struck me hard in the wrong place. That’s just the empowerment I needed to force my eyes to remain opened. After a long difficult challenge, my eyes finally opened on their own accord after hearing what Mr. Clark has to say.

“That’s rich coming from someone who gets involved with someone they are spying.” I retorted infuriated.

Today, I’ve come to realize that Mr. Clark my supposed spy or whatever isn’t just spying on me for personal reasons. I always wanted to brand him off as a stalker but that incident made me call him a spy. Wait, he’d insisted that he was doing it on his own accord yet he prefers to be called a spy, why is that? That’s not my priority right now.

“You mean someone that’d take any chance to claim Mrs. Clark?” I narrowed my eyes at him at his statement.

“I didn’t jump on the chance of been called Mrs. Clark; by the way that’s a disgusting name to be added to my name.” I stroked back harder.

“Oh, is Darren a better name?” He hit me at the wrong place yet again.

I stood up and straighten myself. How dare he? I was still infuriated. Oh, common his foolish words shouldn’t get to you. I prepped myself to calm my raging heart as I walked back to Jackie’s room.

“I’ll go check her out.” He called out behind me but I didn’t turn to him to make him know that his message was received. Like who cares? It’s his money that’ll waste not mine. I don’t even know why the hell he keeps following me around for the past…what...twelve months? Ah! Bad memory. I thought as I mentally faced-palmed myself.

I entered the room and called my only friend Val. I briefed her on what is going on and sat on the vacant chair in the room.

In no time, Val burst through the door. Sure, she won’t waste any time before getting here. Jackie was like a daughter to her too.

“How’s she? What did the doctor say?” she bombarded me with many questions as she brisk-walked to Jackie’s bed and gently sat on the bed, caressing her face.

With the amount of fury, she came in with, God knows what she’ll do to me when she finds out that I don’t know my daughter’s health condition. Damn! I don’t even know her father. These are the cons of been a surrogate mother.

I was about to answer her when someone came in without knocking. “That’s just out-right rude you know; you just violated our privacy.” I said as I turned to look at the intruder. “Oh.” I muttered upon seeing who came in.

It was the security guard. I forgot he was supposed to be in here. Where in God’s name did, he go to? Yeah; right, you don’t care neither do you want to know.

“I’ll be taking my leave now. My superior just sent for me; Clark will take you home.” He said and turned to leave.

“Wait you know Mr. Clark?” I asked puzzled by the fact that Mr. Clark and this security man might be related in one way or the other.

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What do you think of the characters Bruce and Val?

What do Mr. Clark and the doctor have to discuss?

Why do you think Mr. Clark is spying on Barbara?