Chapter 10: SECRET MOMMY?

After 3 years ....
The seasons changed fast. Days changed to weeks and weeks turned into months.
Dmitri"s concerns from sleeping habits now changed into nutritious baby food.
It was hard then, and it is still hard now, Dmitri mused while playing with Melody in the nursery designed by him.
Baby squeals and panting noises would bring Dmitri out of his darkness, only to find himself standing alone and confused on some strange and unfamiliar shore, full of emotions and memories but also feeling utterly lost.
Dmitri headed to daycare, feeling a little apprehensive like every day about how Melody would handle the move away from the comforts of home. He always went through a bit of separation anxiety while leaving her. That gut-wrenching feeling was natural; but Dmitri couldn't help but fret everyday.
"You look so nice today. Did you pick out that beautiful outfit, Doctor ? I can see her different hairdos too daily," Eliza, the attendant at the creche admired as she watched Melody half walk and half crawl up the daycare stairs.
"Oh yes," Dmitri replied with tinted cheeks. "I buy the majority of clothes and dresses for her. Youtube is a good place to learn to do french braids, buns, curls etc." He added, making Eliza chuckle.
"A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she's a woman, he turns her back again to a baby by spoiling her to the max," Eliza said, admiring a blushing Dmitri"s efforts for bringing up his daughter single-handedly. "So how do you get this much time to turn her into a princess so early in the morning and prepare mini-cuisines for her highness, Doctor ?" she questioned while showing the lunch box in her hand and flirted at the same time with the handsome doctor dressed up in a maroon shirt and pressed slacks.
"Ah well, I can make the sweetcorn and spinach fritters- fry 'em up, braid Melody's hair and catch the football game- all at the same time," Dmitri indulged.
"Oh ! So you are superman. It must be the highest honor of your life," Eliza commented while trying to inch closer to the man of any girl"s dreams.
"Sure," Dmitri just smiled and retraced back the steps to keep a comfortable space between them. "Still in spite of all these efforts every week there is something that I forget. Sometimes I can fix it and sometimes I can"t. So just when I think I know everything, when I think I've got it under control, I realized that no, I don"t," he shrugged and looked down the porch with a small frown, feeling a sense of failure all of a sudden.
Eliza ran her palm softly on his arm. Dmitri could smell the fragrance of roses and vanilla from her and it reminded him of his lover.
"Doctor, you have to learn not to beat yourself up," Eliza whispered. "Pat yourself on the back and say You know what, I got through today. I did okay. My baby still loves me, I love her. There are a shit-load of worse off places in the world right now"," the young girl comforted and tried to warm up a place in the vulnerable doctor"s heart.
"Yeah ?" Dmitri gave her a small smile. "I just want to look back on these days with fondness and love, remembering the joy and chaos of life with a small child," he responded.
"Being a single parent is twice the work, twice the stress, and twice the tears," Eliza sympathized. "You can try to find a mother for Melod- .... "
"But also twice the hugs, twice the love, and twice the pride !" Dmitri interrupted the fawning girl who was all over him like white on rice.
"It really can be a lot of fun if you can keep the right frame of mind and be a little bit of a kid yourself, I think," Eliza said while tapping her chin. "A toddler is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it," she added with a giggle.
Dmitri nodded and chuckled courteously before respectfully removing himself from his baby"s caretaker and waved goodbye to Melody.
However, he couldn"t help but feel shocked when his little girl called Eliza, the woman who took care of her for three years, "Mommy !" when he was just within earshot.
He shook his head and pressed his car"s key fob to race to work. A doctor"s bread and butter was seeing patients, and each appointment was essentially a meeting with a client for which he could not afford to get late.
Dmitri didn't have a typical day at the hospital that day.
He generally began the day performing rounds at the hospital, checking on his admitted patients but that day he went straight to the cafeteria and downed two cups of coffee at once. The incident at the daycare had unnerved him more than he cared to admit.
What was happening ?
And as it happened Dmitri ran into Isabelle after her own string of night shift appointments.
"Hitting the black beans hard, Doctor ?" Isabelle observed as she noticed Dmitri reach out for a third cup. "What"s got you so riled up ?" she asked.
"Let"s sit and talk at some private place," Dmitri replied and told her all about Melody"s mother and his lover.
"The process of moving on must have been difficult for Audrey too. After all she lost both her baby and the love of her life," Isabelle finally said, or rather sniffed, a handkerchief dabbing her eyes.
"No doubt," Dmitri agreed. "The aftermath and cluster of feelings after learning about my false betrayal and loss must have been hard for her to face. It must have turned her world upside down and triggered all sorts of painful and unsettling feelings," he woefully said, who at least had Melody with him as a symbol of their true love.
"As a mother of two and a woman, I can feel her anguish after all her world was crushed and dreams shattered. I empathize so much with her as a woman and a mom," Isabelle empathized.
"Hmm," Dmitri nodded. "However, I know my Audrey. She is strong and will pull herself up in her career as well as in life. She will only go through this pain to grow through it."
Dmitri"s bachelor life was marked with the presence of four women- Hazel, Audrey, Eliza and Isabelle- all young and loving women who wished the best for the handsome doctor and even liked him more than he admitted to himself.
However, only one was going to be Melody"s mother. But who ?