Chapter Text
“Kirsten, are you sure?”
“Yes, that’s her. I told you she worked here.”
The couple in their late teens occupying a bench outside the main entrance of Chastain blended in easily with the scattered assortment of people entering and exiting the hospital at just after six on a beautiful early spring evening. Among the moving crowd, a striking woman in an elegant silk trench coat was swinging a black leather tote up onto her shoulder as she made her way into the hospital’s parking lot, oblivious to the fact that she was being watched.
The young man in dusty jeans and dirty boots from a recent shift at a local construction site gave his companion a doubtful look. “She looks like she’s older than my mom.”
“She’s like in her fifties. Look at her car, Brendan. Look at her clothes. She’s what we want.”
A trim gray-haired man jogging towards the woman, his hand raised as he called out “Kit!” caught their attention.
“Who’s that?”
Kirsten immediately recognized one of her regulars from working the register at a nearby Sprouts food market. “That’s her husband. I told you he was a doctor here and she’s the CEO. They come in all the time. They're rich. You should see her rings.”
“He’s even older than her. Are you really sure?”
Nodding her head eagerly, she squeezed his bicep. “Yes. Definitely. They’re the ones.”
Sighing deeply, Brendan finally nodded in agreement. “I’ll follow her home from here tomorrow so we can figure out a plan for when it’s time.”
“And then we just wait.”
He leaned over and kissed the strawberry blonde’s head. “Yeah, babe, then we just wait.”
Three weeks later…
“Hey, ya, sweet cheeks!”
Randolph Bell smiled brightly as he turned away from a hot grill to find a happy Kit making her way across their twilight-lit patio. “Hey to you, beauty girl.” The feel of her lips on his neck as she wrapped her arms around him from behind made him shiver despite the heat coming off the barbecue. “This is some greeting. Did someone have a good day?”
Kit leaned her cheek against his shoulder as she tightened her embrace. “It was long and tedious, to be honest, but my handsome fella got a good report and he and I both have a three day weekend forecast to be full of sunshine ahead of us, so I am happy as a clam at the moment.”
The week had been a good one health-wise for Randolph, and if his team of specialists were correct, he was at the beginning of a period of remission. This news coming just as they were due a long weekend was proving to create a celebratory atmosphere which Kit only enhanced by turning on the house’s sound system to a playlist of Jobim and Sinatra and mixing a pitcher of margaritas while Randolph finished up the grilling of fish and vegetables.
Flipping on the hanging lights strung over the patio area, she had just delivered his drink when the doorbell rang.
“I guess that answers the question about the guy coming by to install the video doorbell.” Kit alluded to the chime of the bell that came with the house. "You expecting anyone?”
“I’m not expecting anyone. The doorbell guys rescheduled for Tuesday.”
Kit turned back towards the house, but the lack of a second ring gave her pause. “Probably kids with a fundraiser or someone knocking for Jesus. Maybe they’ll leave if we ignore them."
Placing a full platter in the center of the patio table, he started to agree until he remembered having earlier texted their neighbor, a fellow guitar enthusiast, that he had a new amp. “It might be Ken from next door to look at my new Fender.”
“At dinner time?”
He didn’t miss her rolling her eyes, her dislike of their neighbor well-known. “Don’t worry. I’ll tell him it’s not a good time.”
Both of them heading back into the house, he left her gathering plates and silverware in the kitchen as he reached the front door, but upon opening it, found no one waiting. Pulling the door closed, he saw the far corner of the outside front doormat had been flipped back. It was while stepping out to fix it, he noticed the strange shape in the shadowed corner of the porch in his periphery.
Returning from leaving plates and cutlery on the patio, she craned her head, gritting her teeth to see the front door still standing open which meant their loquacious neighbor had Randolph’s ear. “Fucking Ken,” she muttered under her breath. Crossing into the foyer, she called out, “Darling, sorry to interrupt, but you’ve got a call…”
“Kit, everything is okay, I think, but you need to come here, please.”
His voice was oddly calm as it sounded from somewhere beyond the door which, ironically, caused her to panic, but the string of catastrophic possibilities that passed through her mind in the less than ten seconds it took her to get to where he was crouched on the far side of the porch were instantly forgotten as she placed her hand on his shoulder and leaned down to find a baby carrier locked into a car seat base, it’s sleeping occupant so small that upon first glance the black seat appeared to hold only a fluffy white blanket. “Oh, dear God.”
“It's warm...sweet baby.”
His whispered words had a momentary calming effect, but the reality of the situation soon set in and Kit was quickly up and off the porch, her hurried steps taking her across their beautifully manicured lawn as she looked for any sign of a person or an unfamiliar car, but within a minute she gave up and returned to where her husband now had the carrier straps removed and the blanket pulled back to reveal a roughly nine pound baby in a pale pink quilted snap suit.
“Is it okay?”
“I think so and it's a she, if the outfit is any indication,” he answered as she knelt down next to him.
Taking in the baby’s rosy complexion and cradle cap-free head that featured a dusting of pale red hair, both medical professionals made a preliminary judgment that she was, by all appearances, a healthy infant, but agreed to get her inside as soon as possible so Kit could check her muscular and skeletal integrity while Randolph listened to her heart and lungs.
“Well, her lungs sound strong,” Kit grinned as the newly awakened little one began to wail, her displeasure on full display at being undressed and tenderly prodded upon a thick folded towel laying across the counter beneath the bright lights in the master bath.
“Oh, I know, I know. Mean big people. Waking you up and taking off your nice, warm clothes. It’s okay, sweet girl.”
Despite the unexpected turn of events, Kit couldn’t help but smile at her husband’s gentle coos which soon had the baby’s cries down to a whimper. “I think she’s healthy, Randolph. No fever, limbs look and feel good. She’s still got her umbilical cord, clean and dry, but it won’t be there much longer, so what, maybe eight, ten days old?”
“That seems about right. My peds rotation was a long time ago, but yeah, I think so. Her heart is strong and lungs sound good. She's clean and doesn't show any signs of dehydration. Skin is clear, no diaper rash. She’s a perfectly healthy little baby from all indications.”
Their professional inclinations now fulfilled, the fact that they were in possession of an abandoned child hit them simultaneously, although quite differently.
Kit: “We need to call the police.”/Randolph: “We need to go to the store.”
“What?” Their unison question echoed off the tile and the baby was soon wailing again.
“We’re not going to hand her over to a bunch of strangers, Kit.”
“We’re a bunch of strangers! We can't…we need to call the authorities.”
“What she needs are some more clothes and formula and bottles and God, we'll definitely need diapers. Do you want to go or do you want me to?”
He might as well have grown a second head the way she was staring at him. “Randolph, darling, we don’t need to go to the store.”
Having wrapped the bare infant back up in the seemingly clean blanket in which she had been left, he started gently bouncing her on his shoulder. “You’re right. We can order through Postmates. That makes much more sense. You know more about what a baby needs. Why don’t you make a list? I think we can get by with wrapping her bottom half with a dish towel while we wait. She'll be warm enough in the blanket along with our body heat.”
She watched him leave the room, his gentle hum of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely,” fading in the distance as she turned to her reflection in the mirror and whispered, “Oh, shit.”