I closed my eyes as the memory slid over me, stabbing at me with a grief so sharp I should have visibly bled. Lowering his casket. The guns from the shore. The stern face of the soldier who had handed me a folded flag.
“Then I buried Ryan. What kind of God does that? Takes your only brother while toying with the thought of taking your daughter?”
Beckett’s thumb stroked over my knuckle, but he stayed quiet. There wasn’t anything he could say—we both knew it.
“Were you mad? When he died?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from Maisie to look at Beckett.
His focus shifted downward. “Furious.”
“With God,” I assumed.
“With myself. With every soldier in our unit who hadn’t saved him, taken that bullet. With the government for sending us there. With the…” He swallowed. “…insurgents who pulled the trigger. With everyone who lived after he died.”
“How did you get past it?” He was so calm, like the lake at five a.m. before a ripple of wind disturbed her surface.
“What makes you think I have?” His eyes met mine, and I saw it there, the pain he kept meticulously concealed. How deep was it? How much damage had been done to him through the years?
Beckett Gentry knew almost everything there was to know about me, and yet I knew nothing about him. Was it because I hadn’t asked? Because I was so consumed with Maisie? With Colt? Because I secretly didn’t want to know?
“Sometimes I think I don’t really know you,” I said softly.
A corner of his mouth lifted in a wry half smile. “You might not know much about my past, but trust me, you know me, and that’s more important.”
Before I could question him any further, the door opened, and Dr. Hughes stepped in. She had on jeans and a blouse with her standard white coat.
“Hey, Ella.”
“Dr. Hughes.” Her name came out as the rush of relief it was.
“How’s it going?” She picked up the chart at the end of the bed.
“We’re waiting for the meds to work, or not work.” For Maisie’s organs to shut down or not. For her to live or die.
“Ah, and you wait so well,” she said with raised eyebrows.
“Guilty,” I answered.
She looked at Beckett and then our connected hands.
“Ah, this is Beckett Gentry,” I said, slipping my hand free and patting his shoulder. Lame. “He’s…” Holy shit, what was he? How did I introduce him? He wasn’t my boyfriend. The guy wouldn’t even kiss me, even though he was pretty much around twenty-four seven.
“I’m her late brother’s best friend,” he explained as he stood, offering his hand. “I understand you’re Maisie’s neuroblastoma specialist. She loves you.”
Dr. Hughes shook his hand and smiled. “Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that. Maisie is a favorite of mine. And I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Gentry. Ella has definitely needed some support. I’m glad to see she’s getting it.”
“I’ll be here as long as she needs me.” He answered the question she didn’t ask, and her eyes went soft.
Another one bites the dust.
Then we got down to business. She asked a few questions and checked Maisie’s chart for the latest labs, her brows knitting together at times as she read everything over. She listened to her breathing, checked out her IVs, and watched her pressure.
“How worried do I need to be?” I asked, knowing she wouldn’t bullshit me.
Her sigh was deep, and she flipped through the chart again. “I don’t know, and I can’t say until we see how she reacts to the meds. I can tell you that she’s way better off than she would have been in a few hours. You saved her life.”
“Colt did,” I said softly.
“Those two.” She lightly chuckled. “One soul split between two bodies.”
“He said he’d heard her crying in his dream,” Beckett said. “He woke up and went into her room and found her burning up.”
My head snapped toward his, wondering when Colt had— While you were in the truck. When he’d talked to Colt on the porch. The gratitude I felt toward Beckett for his connection with Colt was tempered a little with jealousy that he knew my son in a way I didn’t.
Because Beckett was around more than I was.
“What’s next?” I asked, needing to look past this.
“It will take a few hours, but once we’re certain the meds work—”
“Not with this. With the treatments. Looking forward and all that.” I didn’t want to think about what I couldn’t control. I wanted to focus on what I could. What to research next, to prepare her for. That, I could handle.
Dr. Hughes nodded, like she understood, and then sat in the last empty chair in the room, leaning forward on the small table. “We were supposed to meet next week,” she said.
“Right.”
“You sure you want to do this now?”
I glanced at my little girl fighting a battle I couldn’t pick up a sword for, and instead chose another front. “I am.”
“That last round of chemo didn’t move her levels like we were hoping.”
Having the tumor gone was all well and good, but if her bone marrow was still overwhelmingly cancerous, another one would grow. We’d cut off the top of the tree, but the roots were still alive and fighting.
“Is she developing a resistance to the chemo?”
Beckett’s hand found mine again, and I gripped. Hard.
“It’s a possibility. We’d discussed the MIBG treatment, and I think it’s our best bet.” She leaned down and pulled a pamphlet out of her purse, putting it on the table. “I got you some information on a trial.” She looked over at Beckett, and I knew exactly why.
“You can talk about it in front of him. It’s fine.” Up until now, the only people who knew what my finances looked like were Ada and Dr. Hughes. And probably the cell phone company that had gotten used to me perpetually paying a month late.
“The trial will cover certain aspects, but not everything, and the only hospital in Colorado with the facilities to do this is Colorado Children’s.” She gave me a knowing look.
The cost was astronomical, and I had no way of covering it in cash. But I’d think about that later. “Submit the paperwork, and let’s get her in.”
“Okay. It needs to be soon.”
“Doesn’t everything?”
…
“Tell me about the MIBG,” Beckett asked seven hours later as we ate dinner in the small cafeteria. Maisie slept upstairs, her pressure hovering, her temp fevered.
She’d woken up once and asked to use the bathroom, which just about made me cry in relief. Her kidneys were still functioning.
I pushed the bland excuse for fried chicken to the side of my plate. Why was all hospital food bland? Because they needed it to be gentle on stomachs? Or maybe I was wrong, and it wasn’t, but I was too numb to really taste it.
Maybe all hospital food was really good, and we were just too preoccupied to ever notice.
“Ella,” Beckett said gently, pulling me from my thoughts. “The MIBG?”
“Right. It’s a relatively new treatment for neuroblastoma that attaches the chemo to the radiation that targets the tumor itself. It’s pretty amazing stuff, and they can do it in only eighteen hospitals across the country, one of which happens to be in Denver.”
“That’s incredible. The same hospital where Maisie had her surgery?”
“The same.” I poked at my mashed potatoes, dropping my jaw when Beckett shoved in forkful after forkful. “How do you eat that?”
“Spend a decade in the army. You’d be amazed at what sounds great for dinner.”
And there was some perspective that had me reaching for my fork.
“Any drawbacks to the MIBG?”
“The trial isn’t covered by my insurance.” And there it was, th
e entrance to the nightmare that was my finances.
“You’re kidding me.” He blinked a couple times, like he expected me to change my answer. “Tell me you’re kidding, Ella.”
“I’m not.” I took a bite of my chicken, knowing I needed the calories, no matter where they came from.
“So what do we do?” Two lines appeared right above his nose as he leaned forward.
“The same thing I’ve been doing. Figure it out. Pay for it.” I shrugged, pausing as I took another bite when I realized what he’d said. What do we do? We. Not you. We. I managed to swallow before I looked like an idiot with a chicken leg stuck in my face.
“What do you mean, the same thing you’ve been doing? How much haven’t they covered?” His tone was calm and even but a little frightening for the intensity.
I shrugged and reached for a roll.
“I’m trying really hard not to lose it, so if you’d answer, that would really help me out.”
I dragged my eyes from the roll, up his chest, to the vein bulging in his neck—yep, he was ticked—to his eyes. “A lot. They haven’t covered a lot.”
“Why haven’t you said anything?”
“Because it’s none of your business!”
He jerked back like I’d slapped him.
“Sorry, but it’s not.” I softened my tone as much as possible. “And what would I say? Hey, Beckett, did you know that I gambled my kids’ health last year? That my insurance plan doesn’t cover half of what Maisie needs? That I’ve blown through Ryan’s life insurance keeping my kid alive?”
“Yeah, you could start by saying that.” He raked his hand over his hair, clasping his hands at the top of his head. “Start by saying something. How much trouble are you in?”
“Some.”
We waged a silent war, each trying to stare down the other. A few heartbeats later, I gave in. He was the one trying to help, and I was just being stubborn for the sake of privacy that I didn’t really need.
“The hospital in Denver where she had her surgery is out of network. That means that anything done there, every time she sees Dr. Hughes there, or has surgery, or a treatment there, it’s not covered by my plan.”
“Is this? What’s happening now?”
“Yeah, this is fine. But the MIBG wouldn’t be. Or the stem cell transplant Dr. Hughes has already suggested.”
“So what are the options?”
“Financially?”
He nodded.
“I don’t qualify for government care, not with owning Solitude. I went through my savings the first month of her treatment, and her surgery wiped out the last of Ryan’s life insurance. I mortgaged Solitude to the hilt last year for the renovations, so that’s not an option, either. Even selling the property right now would barely cover paying off the mortgage. So that leaves me with becoming a super-stealthy bank robber or stripping online for singlecancermoms.com.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.” A moment of silence passed between us as he digested what I’d said. He chewed slowly, like it was my words he was working over. “Look, I’m not the only one this happens to. Insurance companies deny treatments all the time. Or they tell you to go with the less expensive options they’ll cover. Generic drugs, different hospitals, alternative treatments, that kind of thing. There are payment plans and grants for those who can qualify, and some trials will cover drug costs.”
“Is there an alternative for the MIBG?”
“No.”
“And if she doesn’t get it?”
My fork hit the plate, and I slowly brought my eyes to his. “And if she doesn’t respond to these drugs?”
The muscle in his jaw flexed as his eyes turned hard. This wasn’t the guy who tenderly tied cleats or held my daughter—held me. This was the guy who killed people for a living. “You’re telling me that Maisie’s life isn’t just in the hands of her doctors…but her insurance company? They decide if she lives or dies?”
“In not so many words. They don’t decide if she can have the treatment, just if they’ll pay for it. The rest, that’s on me. I’m the one who has to look at her doctors and say whether I can afford the price tag on my daughter’s life.”
Horror flashed across his face, this guy who had seen and done things that would probably give me nightmares.
“Pretty screwed up, right?” I asked with a mocking smile.
“How much is it?”
“What part? The twenty-thousand-dollar chemo treatments that she gets once a month? The hundred-thousand-dollar surgery? The medication? The travel?”
He blew out a breath, dropping his hands to his lap. “The MIBG.”
“Probably fifty K, give or take an arm and a leg. But it’s Maisie’s life. What am I supposed to say? No? Please don’t save my kid?”
“Of course not.”
“Exactly. So I’ll figure something out. She’ll probably need two rounds of the MIBG, and then the stem cell transplant averages about a half mil.”
He paled. “A half a million dollars?”
“Yep. Cancer is business, and business is good.”
He pushed away his plate. “I think I’ve lost my appetite.”
“And you wonder why I’m losing weight,” I joked.
He didn’t laugh. In fact, he didn’t give me more than a one-word answer as we made our way back upstairs. I almost felt guilty for unloading on him, but it felt good in a weird way to share all of that, to acknowledge that so much of this wasn’t fair.
He sat by me through the night, never once complaining about the chairs or the monitors. He watched every level like a hawk, flipped through the MIBG brochure, paced the hall outside. He FaceTimed Colt and Havoc, brought more coffee, and read through Maisie’s binder, which at this point was more personal to me than a diary. He pulled his chair as close to mine as possible, and when I fell asleep around midnight, it was on his shoulder.
Beckett was everything I’d desperately needed these last seven months. What was I going to do when he inevitably left? Now that I knew what it was like to have someone like him in times like this, it would be a thousand times harder in his absence.
I woke with a start to find Beckett standing at Maisie’s bedside. He looked at me with a huge grin as the doctor walked in.
Stumbling to my feet, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and gasped. Maisie was sitting up, her smile wide, her eyes clear.
“Hi, Mom!”
Blinking quickly, I looked at the monitors before responding. Her pressure was back up, her temp was down, her oxygen levels up. My hand flew to cover my mouth as my knees buckled, but Beckett caught me by the waist, pulling me to his side without missing a beat.
“Hiya, Maisie-girl. How are you feeling?”
“So much better,” she answered.
My mouth trembled as I looked back at the doctor, who was flipping through the chart, listening to the report of another doctor. It was seven fifteen in the morning. The night shift had changed to day while I was asleep.
“Well?” I asked.
“Looks like the drugs are working. She’s going to be just fine.”
I turned my face into Beckett’s chest before I lost it in front of Maisie. He wrapped his arms around me as I took deep, gulping breaths filled with his scent. I was literally expelling my fear and breathing him in.
“Did you hear that, Maisie? Looks like you’re not getting out of tutoring next week,” Beckett joked, his voice a gravelly, deep rumble against my ear.
He’d driven us here, taken care of me, of Maisie, of Colt. Uprooted his entire life to move in next door. He’d been steadfast every time I’d sworn I didn’t need him and there the moment I did without any hint of I-told-you-so.
I took one last breath and turned back to the doctor, who gave me the satisfied nod of a job well done.
“
We’ll keep her here in the ICU another day, just to make sure, and then move her to pediatrics another few days for monitoring. Better safe than sorry.”
“Thank you.” There weren’t any other words to say.
“You’ve got a little fighter there,” the doctor said before heading out, leaving the three of us alone.
“I don’t have Colt,” Maisie said quietly, looking around her bed.
It took me a second to realize what she was saying. “I’m sorry, we left so fast that I didn’t think to grab him.” The bear was most likely sitting on Colt’s bed, the lone pink spot in a sea of blue.
“Don’t you worry, we’ll have your mom grab him when she runs home tomorrow for a little bit. Sound good?” Beckett offered.
“What? Me run home?” Hell no, I wasn’t leaving my daughter.
“Yep,” he said with a nod. “If you leave by ten, you can get home, shower the hospital off you, and get to Colt’s graduation by two.”
Colt’s kindergarten graduation. My mouth dropped, and my gaze flickered from Beckett to Maisie. How could I leave her here? How could I miss Colt’s graduation? Sure it was a little silly, but I knew how important it was to him. How could I leave her here when she was supposed to be walking across the stage with him? How was any of this fair?
Beckett cupped my cheeks, stopping the ping-pong battle with my concentration. “Ella. She’s stable. She’ll be out of the ICU. I am more than capable of hanging out with her for a few hours. You need to be there for Colt. Let me do this. Stop splitting yourself in two, and let me help. Please.”
“Yeah, Mom. You have to go. I don’t want Colt to be sad,” Maisie added.
“I don’t have a way to get back.”
“You take my truck.”
Wait. What? Trucks were sacred to guys. He might as well be offering his soul on a platter. “Your truck.”
“You do have a driver’s license, right?” he joked.
“Well, yeah.”
“Then it’s settled. You’ll grab Pink Colt when you go home tomorrow. In the meantime, Maisie and I will watch movies and hang out. What do you say, Maisie-girl?” He looked back at my daughter.
“Yes!”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
The Last Letter Page 18