by LaQuette
“Would you want me to?”
The little boy picked up a card from the deck and laid his entire hand flat against the table. “Of course I do, silly. Who else am I gonna beat at Go Fish?”
Dante leaned across the table and ruffled the wild curls atop the child’s head. When he pulled his hand back, it was covered in the very same strands he’d just mussed. Dante swallowed the hard lump of realization and wiped his hand on his jeans-clad leg.
Nazario was losing his hair. More and more patches of bare scalp seemed to pop up each day. The doctors had warned them both to expect this, but watching it happen was a reminder that this family togetherness the three of them were sharing wasn’t about fun times.
A loud yawn pulled Dante from his thoughts. He watched fatigue claim the child, and soon Nazario was digging himself into the cocoon of his covers and blankets, settling down for a mid-morning nap.
“He sleep long?”
Dante turned to Sanai’s voice. It was still surprising to look over and see her. Even after being in her presence for a month, he still found himself taking a moment to remember she wasn’t dead.
“He literally just dozed off. I guess kicking my butt at Go Fish was enough to tire him out.”
She laughed a bit as she put the suitcase she’d been pulling in the closet. “Anything to report?”
He looked down at his hand and saw the remnants of his son’s hair still sticking to his palm. “His hair is coming out faster,” Dante offered.
“There’s not much we can do about that,” she answered.
“I’m not a person who sits back and lets shit happen to me, Sanai. I don’t want my son to be like that either. How would you feel about me helping him to take control of this situation?”
She tilted her head and stared at him through her slit lids. “What do you have in mind?”
* * * *
Sanai stood in the doorway of the family waiting room wringing her hands. She was having second thoughts about giving Dante any latitude concerning decision-making where their son was involved. Since Nazario’s birth, she hadn’t needed to consult with anyone about him. Now Dante was here, big and bold as ever in the middle of their lives, and she couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.
If Nazario hadn’t been sick, she would have followed her gut instinct and fled Brooklyn as soon as she’d come in contact with Dante. But running wasn’t an option now. Her little man needed care, and she was going to have to stay put whether she liked it or not.
She looked at her little boy, currently sitting next to Dante, an IV hooked up in one arm, but still playing and laughing with the man he knew only as his mother’s friend.
Something inside her chest squeezed tight every time she saw the two of them huddled together. She hadn’t really thought about the consequences of Nazario growing up without a father. He’d always seemed so well adjusted that she reasoned he wasn’t truly missing anything. But looking at how he lit up, even in the midst of this grueling illness… He seemed to smile more, laugh more…love more when in Dante’s presence.
“They look good together,” called a deep voice from behind her. Sanai turned around to meet Tony Giordano.
“Mr. Giordano,” she answered. “It’s good to see you again. How’s your son doing?”
Cool eyes assessed her. “He’s doing really good. They’re talking about letting him go home and getting him some at-home rehab services so he doesn’t have to stay here. Thanks for taking such good care of him while he was in ICU.”
She hoped that would be the end of their exchange, but his searching gaze just wouldn’t let her go.
“I’m trying real hard to understand how someone who was so caring to me and my kid could be so cruel as to let my best friend believe his world had ended. I’m also trying to understand how you could worsen that pain by keeping his son from him too.”
Her shoulders snapped straight as she met his glare. “Mr. Giordano—”
“Tony, or Big Tony, please,” he interrupted.
“Tony then,” she settled on. “I can appreciate that Dante is your friend, and obviously you’re feeling protective of him. However, I don’t think you know anything about my particular situation, and I don’t feel I need to explain that to you. All you need to know is I did what I thought was best at the time.”
He pointed his finger back in the direction of Dante and their son still playing and laughing on the other side of the room.
“And how about now? You still think your decision to keep those two apart was the right one?”
The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach was more than enough of an answer for her. Watching those two together now, she knew she’d robbed them both of more than she could ever repay.
“I think we both know the answer to my question. Dante called me to help him out with Nazario. You okay with that?”
She gave a weak smile in response. “I don’t know about okay. I never thought I’d have to cut my kid’s hair because of cancer treatments. Dante thinks this will be good for him. You know what you’re doing with a set of clippers?”
He nodded. “Own my own shop. I’m licensed—been cutting hair since Dante and I was kids back in Brooklyn.”
“I know you’ve got a problem with me because I did your boy dirty.” She didn’t look to see if he acknowledged her statement. It was obvious by the way he came at her he took issue with her. “But trust me, if you zeek my kid, you’re really going to have a problem with me.”
He chuckled a bit, his defensive stance relaxing as his shoulders shook. “I understand.”
He moved to step toward Dante and Nazario, then turned back to her. “Dante didn’t give me all the details as to why you chose to keep his child a secret. I just hope whatever made you decide on that path, you’ll give Dante the chance to change your mind.”
“The cat’s out of the bag now. Dante has made it very clear he’s not going anywhere. I don’t have much choice.”
“You might not be able to keep him away from Naz, but you still have a lot of power and sway where that man is concerned. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. Don’t fuck it up by hurting my friend.”
She clasped her arms in front of her chest and met the tall man’s gaze head-on. She expected to see anger or hate in his eyes. It threw her a little when the only thing that stared back at her was concern, worry. He wasn’t threatening her. He was asking her to be careful of someone he loved.
Dante was a grown man. One who looked as if he was more than capable of taking care of himself. Why did Tony feel the need to protect him, to speak on his behalf? The quick retort weighing on her sharp tongue died, and she swallowed it quickly. She said nothing else, simply nodded in acknowledgement of his utterance.
Satisfied with her response, he turned and walked farther into the visitor’s room. He and Dante exchanged a quick hug, then the big man knelt down to her son’s height and extended his hand in greeting.
Her little man mimicked Tony’s actions and placed his tiny hand in Tony’s massive palm. She couldn’t quite make out exactly what was being said. The three of them seemed to be whispering like co-conspirators. Their heads all leaned in together as they talked and exchanged knowing glances.
She watched her son glance back and forth between the two men now sitting on either side of him. He was biting on his fingernails, a nervous habit he had developed when he began school. Sanai’s first instinct was to cross the room as quickly as she could and snatch her baby up. Yeah, it was just hair, and it was already falling out from the chemotherapy, but her protective instincts weren’t exactly running off of logic.
This plan Dante had of cutting it all off sounded rational, but being rational wasn’t really high on her list of priorities. That was her baby, and if he wasn’t on board with the idea, she was shutting this entire plan down.
She moved to take a step in their direction, but Dante’s smile halted her. He wasn’t looking in her direction—probably had no idea she was watching h
im so intently. But the easy way he smiled at her son, the way Nazario mirrored Dante’s same crooked smile that spread slowly across his little mouth and lit up his entire face—the power of it held her in place.
Tony opened his bag. He pulled out a drape and shook out its folds. She saw Nazario stare at the drape with a bit of trepidation shaking his small frame. Tony lifted it in the air and placed it carefully around Dante’s neck.
Her eyes met Dante’s, silently asking for answers. Before she could form the words of her question, Tony turned on his clippers and took a quick pass up the side of Dante’s head. When he pulled the clippers back, she saw scalp, or more aptly described, scalp covered by a short fuzz.
She glanced back at her son. He had a front-row seat of Dante getting his hair shaved off. Nazario stared at the man, his fear morphing into curiosity. Without so much as a word this man took the fear out of something for her child, making it something fun.
In a few minutes, those beautiful dark curls that were Dante’s signature were gone. When Tony was done with Dante, he cleaned him up, shook out the drape, and motioned for Naz to take Dante’s place.
The boy hesitated for just a minute and then settled into his chair. Tony secured the drape and turned the clippers on. Nazario jumped a little at the sound, but Dante calmed him down by leaning in front of him and giving him a thumbs-up. While Dante kept him distracted, Tony shaved the boy’s hair down to his scalp, and with what appeared to be practiced ease, he lined the boy’s edges up, making the haircut look less like they were attempting to cover up illness and more like a trendy haircut a young boy would wear.
Tony dusted off the excess hair from Naz and pulled off the drape. When those dark brown eyes she loved so much looked up with both excitement and approval, she pulled on a trembling smile. She walked up to him, running a gentle hand over his head.
“You look real good, Naz. Mr. Tony did a good job.” Her voice felt thick and heavy as she spoke.
The little boy fell into her arms. She hugged him as tight as she could and lifted watery eyes to Dante and Tony. Too full to speak over the growing ball of emotion in her chest, she simply mouthed a silent thank you to them.
They each nodded, but it was the red rim around Dante’s eyes that pulled her attention. In their depths she found understanding. Her brain questioned briefly how Dante could know just how relieved she was to see a happy smile on her boy’s face.
It almost didn’t compute that someone else could fathom how much it would mean to her that her son looked less like a sick cancer patient and more like an average five-year-old. But when Dante’s watery gaze fastened on to hers, she realized something crucial. Dante was Nazario’s father. Not just in blood, but in every way possible.
Orchestrating this haircut to preempt the trauma of hair loss was something only a parent would recognize as necessary. Only a father would sacrifice his own healthy mane to make his son feel less afraid, less abnormal.
Sanai opened her free arm to Dante, inviting him into the embrace she and their son shared. He hesitated briefly, and she hated that he thought he had to. Truth was, there was no one else she could blame for that. She’d done this. She kept her arm open, and he finally leaned in. He circled them both with strong arms, and she lightly scraped her fingers against his near-smooth scalp.
“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear. He didn’t speak. If he was experiencing the same emotional overload, she understood why. He simply tightened his hold and squeezed Sanai and Nazario closer to him.
Her annoying mind kept trying to bully its way into the moment, but she refused to allow it. She wasn’t going to worry about how right it felt to be in Dante’s arms, how protected she felt with his arms surrounding them. She wasn’t going to listen to the fear screaming in the back of her mind that Dante was getting too close too soon. She simply burrowed into his embrace and let her battle shield fall.
Chapter Nine
Sanai watched Dante place their sleeping son on the hospital bed. The mattress was no bigger than the twin bed he slept in at their home, but somehow the hospital railings made him appear so tiny and helpless.
The haircutting session had taken every bit of energy the little one possessed. It wasn’t long before he was curling up in the chair with his eyes hanging heavy. Dante scooped him up and motioned for Sanai to follow him back to Naz’s room.
They’d come in a month ago. She’d known then he’d have a lengthy stay in the hospital. She was hopeful his last round of bloodwork would come back with positive results, and they’d be on their way to getting Nazario back to health, back to his normal self and their normal life.
Being a healthcare worker was both a blessing and a curse in this situation. Even though pediatric oncology wasn’t her specialty, she had some idea how this entire process should work and what things she should expect. Unfortunately, it also meant she couldn’t live in denial about her son’s current state of health.
Sanai knew from the moment she saw Becca and Jared Linares huddled in the doorway whispering furiously over an open folder held between the two of them that something was wrong.
She pulled herself up from the small, cloth-covered couch against the window and walked to the doorway to join the two doctors.
“Dr. Linares, what’s going on?”
“Ms. Ward. Dr. Stevenson and I were just coming in to speak with you.”
His sable eyes looked beyond her, signaling Dante’s arrival to the group. The doctor’s questioning stare prompted her to speak. “This is Dante DeLuca, Nazario’s father.” Dante had been by her side, but she’d made no official announcement about who he was to the boy.
The doctor nodded in understanding and extended his hand to Dante. “Mr. DeLuca.”
Dante nodded and encouraged the doctor to continue.
“Nazario’s latest tests are promising.”
An audible rush escaped her lips as she processed the doctor’s words. This was definitely good news, but she needed more details before she could list this development in the win column.
“So he’s cancer-free?” Dante asked.
Sanai latched on to the doctor’s movements. He was tall, lean, with dark brown hair and eyes. Dr. Linares’s cream complexion was tinted with a slight rose. He dropped his head before he answered Dante’s question, keeping his eyes focused on the chart in his hand. His subtle cues told her all wasn’t as hoped.
“No.” He shook his head. “He is not cancer-free, but we are happy with the progress the first round of chemo has brought. We’d also recommend a bone marrow transplant for him.”
Dante seemed puzzled. He looked down at Sanai for answers. “If he’s getting better…?”
“He’s not getting better, Dante. That’s what Dr. Linares is attempting to tell us. He’s stabilizing, but he hasn’t won the battle yet. A bone marrow transplant would put us closer to a win than the chemo alone will.”
She didn’t even realize she was reaching for Dante until she felt his meaty palm close around hers. He’d been back in her life for a handful of weeks, and already she was instinctively grasping for him.
She didn’t think about it, didn’t need to. He’d created this child with her. Feeling him wrap his hand protectively around hers helped her belief that she wasn’t in this alone.
“What does that mean?” Dante asked.
“His results aren’t worse, but they are moderately better. This means we’ve got to look at chemo as a starting point and start planning for a more effective solution. A bone marrow transplant is the best option available,” Dr. Linares answered.
She closed her eyes and held on a little tighter to Dante’s hand. This was not what she’d wanted to hear.
“Then either Sanai or I will give it to him. We’re his parents. His blood type has got to match one of us, right?”
Sanai shook her head. If only it were that simple. She’d give every last drop of her blood to rid her baby of this disease. “It’s not that easy, Dante. Bone marrow matches aren’t the same
as blood type. If all he needed was a blood transfusion, there’d be no question about you donating. He shares your blood type.”
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“I’m O, he’s B. The only way that combination could happen is if his father’s blood type was B. But again, blood type isn’t the issue. They have to match HLA markers, a protein present in the blood. It helps your body recognize what’s yours and what’s foreign. The closer the match, the more likely the body won’t reject the transplant and attack the new cells.”
Dante’s disbelief was sewn into the worry lines on his forehead. If she wasn’t a medical professional, she’d share in it. How could the two people who made Nazario not be able to save him?
“Ms. Ward is correct, Mr. DeLuca. It’s not about blood type. The truth is, you being his parent means it’s highly unlikely you’ll be a match.”
“Well, if his parents wouldn’t be a match, who the hell would?”
A tear slid down Sanai’s cheek as the answer to that question cut open her heart from the inside out. “The one thing our son will never have.” She sniffed as her eyes found Dante’s. “A genetic copy of the original DNA that made him.”
“What?”
“A full sibling parented by you and me, Dante.”
Chapter Ten
Dante watched Sanai drop her bags at the end of the hall and drag herself to the couch. She was tired, and so was he, but they both knew her fatigue had more to do with emotional duress than physical.
They’d arrived at Sanai’s home a little more than thirty minutes ago. She’d wanted Nazario upstairs with her, but the boy begged to spend the night with Mrs. Rossi.
Honestly, Dante couldn’t blame him. He’d grown up being spoiled by that woman. Waking up to all sorts of baked treats, getting to watch television for as long as he wanted—what kid wouldn’t find that appealing?
It took Dante’s encouragement to get Sanai to agree, but she finally settled on helping the boy get ready for bed and then tucking him into Mrs. Rossi’s big four-poster bed herself. Once he was scrubbed, cleaned, and buried beneath a pile of blankets, Dante watched her kiss the boy on his nose then remind Mrs. Rossi to call them if anything happened.