The Right Decision
Part Two
By Céindreadh
ceindreadh@eircom.net

Meanwhile in Seattle, Doug emerged from a tangled heap of bedclothes and stared at the phone.Usually if the phone rang while he was asleep he roused sufficiently to listen to the message being left, and then went back to sleep (unless it was the hospital calling).

When he had heard Carols voice he thought he was still dreaming.By the time he realised that this was real, she had already hung up. He replayed the message. ““Doug its Carol. I want to talk to you about our children. Please call me back”

Doug hadn’t heard Carols voice for almost six months. She had phoned him on Thanksgiving to tell him about the birth of his daughters, but again she had got the answering machine. 

 Doug had been working through Thanksgiving. Since the move to Seattle, he had volunteered to work through most of the holidays. After all it wasn’t as if he had any reason to stay at home. While Carol had been giving birth to his daughters Doug had been treating children who had eaten too much. He had worked late that shift and rather than rush home and back again he had slept at the hospital. 

 Carols message was three days old by the time he thought to check his machine. Of course he tried to get in touch, but when he finally reached County General Carols OB nurse (Annie of Abby or something like that) told him that Carol wasn’t taking any calls.

At first he worried that she was too ill to speak to him, but a call to Mark informed him that it was just him she was not speaking to. 

 Mark at least had let him explain why it had taken him so long to contact Carol, and he had promised to try and explain to Carol, but all in vain.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you Doug. She’s made up her mind that she’s going it alone.”

“But what about Kate and Tess?  Don’t they deserve a father?”

 “Carol said that when they’re old enough, they can decide if they want to see you or not. I’m sorry Doug.”

Since then Doug had tried to phone Carol on a number of occasions. He had left messages at work, on her answering machine.  Finally one day he got her mother on the phone. She informed him that Carol was doing fine without him and would he stop bothering her. After that he didn’t try so often. He accepted the fact that he had two more children who wouldn’t know who he was. 

He stared at the phone for a few minutes.What did Carol mean? Had something happened to one of the girls? Could he hope that Carol had changed her mind about letting him see them? Or was it just that she had changed her mind about child support and was going after him for maintenance. He dismissed that last thought as being unworthy of Carol. Finally he could bear the suspense no longer and picked up the phone.