Chapter 2
“I thought men like that had people who did their reading for them.”
“Go back to work.”
She did.
Still staring.
The meeting with social services happened just before noon.
Marissa Bell had worked with Pine Valley for nearly two decades.
She was practical, patient, and impossible to charm.
Sebastian discovered that within thirty seconds.
“You're not a relative,” she said.
“No.”
“You're not applying for guardianship.”
“No.”
“You understand volunteer status doesn't provide decision-making authority.”
“Yes.”
“You cannot contact the birth mother.”
“I haven't asked to.”
“You cannot ask staff to provide confidential updates beyond what volunteers normally receive.”
“I understand.”
Marissa narrowed her eyes.
Sebastian waited.
Finally, she said, “You came prepared for this conversation.”
“I've had lawyers explain boundaries to me before.”
Marissa didn't smile.
I nearly did.
We sat in the small consultation room across from the NICU.
Sebastian had agreed to the meeting because he wanted to understand how the comfort program interacted with long-term placement.
Marissa opened her folder.
“We're making efforts to locate suitable relatives.”
“Have you found any?”
“I can't discuss names.”
“That means yes.”
“That means I can't discuss names.”
Sebastian leaned back.
Point taken.
Marissa continued.
“The baby's mother has not abandoned him in the legal sense. She has remained in limited contact with her caseworker.”
Sebastian's eyes sharpened.
“So she hasn't disappeared.”
“Not entirely.”
That information surprised me too.
“Does she ask about him?” I said.
Marissa looked at me.
“She does.”
I thought about the empty space around bed nine.
The lack of photographs.
The untouched visitor log.
“Why doesn't she come?”
Marissa sighed.
“Because sometimes wanting to see your child and believing you're capable of facing your child are two different things.”
Sebastian went very still.
Marissa noticed.
Maybe because she'd spent her career noticing.
“She is young,” Marissa continued. “She has limited support. She's frightened.”
Sebastian looked toward the NICU windows.
“Does she know he's doing well?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know someone is holding him?”
Marissa hesitated.
“I told her the volunteer program provides comfort when staff can't.”
His expression softened.
“Good.”
There was no resentment in his voice.
No accusation toward a mother he'd never met.
Only relief that she knew her child wasn't alone.
Marissa closed the folder.
“There is another issue.”
“What?” I asked.
“A possible relative has contacted the county.”
Sebastian's gaze returned to her.
“What kind of relative?”
“I can't disclose that yet.”
“Do they want him?”
“We don't know.”
A silence settled over the room.
Then Marissa looked directly at Sebastian.
“Mr. Moretti, may I ask you something?”
“You appear determined to.”
“Why this baby?”
He didn't answer immediately.
“You've volunteered before,” she said. “I checked.”
That surprised me.
Sebastian glanced at her.
Marissa continued.
“Three hospitals. Eight years. Always neonatal or pediatric comfort programs. Always anonymously whenever possible.”
I looked at him.
“You've been doing this for eight years?”
He ignored me.
Marissa didn't.
“You've also funded transportation services for foster families through intermediary charities. Medical equipment. Overnight accommodation near children's hospitals.”
Sebastian's face hardened slightly.
“Those donations were supposed to remain private.”
“They are private. I have professional access.”
He said nothing.
Marissa folded her hands.
“So I'll ask again. Why this baby?”
Sebastian looked through the glass toward bed nine.
“I don't know.”
I believed him.
That was the strange part.
He wasn't hiding the answer.
He genuinely didn't have one.
“Maybe because nobody came,” he said after a while. “Maybe because he weighed four pounds. Maybe because he grabbed my finger.”
His voice dropped.
“Maybe because seventeen years ago another little boy did the same thing, and I thought that meant I had enough time to fix everything.”
Marissa's expression softened.
“What happened to your brother?”
Sebastian stood.
“I think the meeting is finished.”
He left before either of us could stop him.
I found him ten minutes later in the hospital chapel.
I hadn't expected that.
The chapel was small and non-denominational, with pale wooden benches and sunlight spilling through colored glass.
Sebastian sat in the last row.
He wasn't praying.
He was turning the old newborn bracelet between his fingers.
I sat beside him.
“You don't have to tell me.”
“I know.”
We stayed silent for nearly a minute.
Then Sebastian spoke.
“My father remarried when Matteo was seven.”
I waited.
“Her name was Celia.”
There was no anger when he said it.
Only history.
“She was kind. Patient. Better with Matteo than either my father or I knew how to be.”
“What happened?”
“My father decided Matteo needed a normal life.”
“And you disagreed.”
“I was twenty-four when he was born. Thirty-one by then.”
Sebastian looked down at the bracelet.
“My life wasn't normal.”
The admission carried more weight than specifics would have.
“My father believed Matteo should be kept away from our family business. Away from me.”
“Was he wrong?”
Sebastian looked at me.
“No.”
That answer startled me more than defensiveness would have.
“He wasn't wrong.”
He closed his hand around the bracelet.
“I kept telling myself I could be both things. The man my father expected me to become and the brother Matteo needed.”
His jaw tightened.
“I couldn't.”
“So your father took him away?”
“Celia did. Eventually.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere else.”
“You don't know?”
“I was told it was better that way.”
I thought of the word he'd used the previous night.
I don't know.
“Did you look for him?”
“For years.”
“And?”
“Then I stopped.”
“Why?”
“Because finding someone and having the right to enter their life are different things.”
The wisdom of that sentence seemed carved from regret.
“He would be seventeen now.”
“Seventeen years, four months.”
Again, exact.
“Do you think about him?”
“Every day.”
“Does he know you're his brother?”
Sebastian's eyes settled on the colored window.
“I don't know.”
Over the next five days, Sebastian became part of our routine.
He came at eight.
He washed his hands.
He asked permission before touching anything.
He read to Baby Boy Miller.
He learned how to change a diaper on a baby who seemed smaller than the diaper itself.
He celebrated every additional ounce as if someone had handed him a winning lottery ticket.
The staff slowly stopped whispering.
Jenny still watched him occasionally, but now it was because she enjoyed seeing what book he'd brought.
Dr. Park began explaining medical details to him at the level appropriate for a volunteer.
Marissa remained cautious but respectful.
And Baby Boy Miller began turning his head toward Sebastian's voice.
That part affected him most.
“You said he'd recognize me.”
“I said he'd become familiar with your voice.”
“He recognizes me.”
“Don't become unbearable.”
“I was right.”
“You're already unbearable.”
He smiled.
The baby had gained six ounces.
His breathing was becoming steadier.
He still had weeks ahead of him, but each day felt less uncertain.
Then, on Thursday afternoon, his mother came.
Her name was Claire Miller.
She was nineteen.
I had expected someone careless because of the story I'd unconsciously created in my mind.
Instead, she looked terrified.
She stood outside the NICU doors in an oversized gray sweater, clutching a folded piece of paper so tightly it had torn along one edge.
Marissa stood beside her.
“Rachel,” she said to me, “this is Claire.”
Claire's eyes immediately searched beyond us.
“Is he okay?”
“He's doing very well.”
Her face crumpled with relief.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that she had to look down.
“Can I see him?”
“Of course.”
Then she noticed Sebastian.
He was sitting beside bed nine, reading quietly.
Claire stopped.
“Who's that?”
Marissa answered before I could.
“A volunteer.”
Claire stared at him.
“That's Sebastian Moretti.”
Apparently nineteen-year-olds recognized him too.
Sebastian heard his name.
He immediately closed the book and stood.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then he stepped away from the incubator.
“This is your son,” he said.
Claire looked at him uncertainly.
“Yes.”
Sebastian moved farther back.
“He's had a good afternoon.”
That was all.
No explanation.
No claim.
No attempt to make himself important.
He simply left the chair empty for her.
Claire approached slowly.
When she saw her baby, she covered her mouth.
“He's so little.”
I stood beside her.
“He's bigger than he was last week.”
She laughed through sudden tears.
“Really?”
“Six ounces bigger.”
She stared at him.
“I didn't know whether I should come.”
Sebastian quietly moved toward the door.
Claire noticed.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
She looked from him to the chair.
“Were you holding him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sebastian considered his answer.
“Because babies shouldn't have to wait until someone feels brave enough to love them.”
Claire flinched.
He immediately understood how the sentence had sounded.
“I didn't mean—”
“I wasn't brave,” she said.
Sebastian's face softened.
“Neither was I.”
Something passed between them.
Recognition, perhaps.
Not of circumstances.
Of regret.
Claire looked at the baby.
“Did he cry?”
“Frequently.”
A tiny smile appeared.
“Does he like anything?”
“The book about the bear is currently winning.”
“Which bear?”
Sebastian picked up the book from the chair.
“Paddington.”
Claire smiled.
“My grandmother used to read that to me.”
Sebastian handed it to her.
“Then you should finish today's chapter.”
He left.
Claire watched him go.
Then she sat down.
“Is he really a volunteer?”
“Yes.”
“That's strange.”
“You get used to it.”
She looked at her son through the incubator.
“Can I hold him?”
I smiled.
“Yes.”
Claire came back the next morning.
And the morning after that.
Not for long.
Sometimes twenty minutes.
Sometimes an hour.
But she came.
Sebastian adjusted without being asked.
Whenever Claire arrived, he stepped away.
At first they barely spoke.
Then one morning she walked in carrying two coffees.
She placed one beside Sebastian.
“Marissa said you drink it black.”
He looked suspiciously at the cup.
“She disclosed confidential information.”
Claire laughed.
It might have been the first time I'd heard her laugh without nervousness.
May you like
“Thank you,” Sebastian said.
She sat beside him.
