Chapter 7 - Jonah Returns To The Hospital
Jonah sat quietly in the back of a yellow taxi cab, clutching the stuffed fox he had bought with his summer job money. He had slipped out of the house while his father was brooding in the dark, taking a bus and a cab back to the medical center.
Walking through the automatic hospital doors, he bypassed the front desk and headed straight up to the third-floor NICU. The security guard who had pulled him away earlier saw his face and simply nodded, letting him pass without resistance.
Jonah pushed open the door to Theo’s room, where Maren sat in a vinyl chair staring blankly at the floor. She looked up, her eyes puffy and red from hours of uninterrupted crying.
“You came back,” Maren whispered, her voice cracking with profound emotion. “Dad drove away,” Jonah said flatly, sitting down in the chair opposite her without making eye contact. “He said the baby isn’t his responsibility.”
May you like
“He’s hurting, Jonah, just like all of us,” Maren tried to explain, reaching out a trembling hand toward her older son. Jonah pulled his hand away, looking through the glass window at his tiny brother lying under the blue medical lights.
“I don't care who his biological father is,” Jonah declared quietly. “He’s my brother, and I’m not abandoning him.”
