“Okay?” Phoebe asked.
“No, it’s really great,” Mike said, running both hands over his scalp.
This gesture, Lisa noted, was to become Mike’s characteristic way of combing his hair.
“I’m so nervous to meet your mother and your sisters,” Lisa said as they drove through the light rain toward Nora’s home. “Can’t I take them on one at a time?”
Mike smiled. “You’re going to love them, and they’ll be crazy about you.”
They took the Lafayette exit of Highway 24, and then traveled to Moraga. Nora had a townhouse on the hillside overlooking the main shopping center.
As they pulled up, Mike’s cell phone rang. “It’s the NICU. I told them to give me a report on the Sanchez baby.”
He listened, and then said, “Thanks. Keep it up.”
They parked in the street in front of the three-level, ivy-covered townhouse. Lisa looked at her watch, and said, “We’re late. I hate being late.”
Mike held her hands, and said, “No, we’re not late. Nora wanted everyone here before we came. This is your chance to make a grand entrance.”
Lisa looked into the mirror behind the sun visor, checked her makeup, and then looked down across her chest to her dress and shoes, and said, “How do I look?”
“You look beautiful.”
“No, really, how do I look? Should I put my hair up? I want to make a good impression.”
“Lisa, give me a break. You look fantastic. They’re going to love you.”
Mike opened the front door, and they entered the three-ring-circus that was Mike’s family; aunts, uncles, kids, and all.
As they took their first step into the room, Nora and Mike’s sisters surrounded him with hugs and kisses. “I’d like you all to meet Lisa Cooke, the love of my life.”
The sisters gathered around Lisa, introducing themselves, their husbands, and their broods. Lisa noted a strong family resemblance to Mike in his mother and his sisters.
During dinner, Lisa could feel Nora staring at her. Each time their eyes met, they’d half smile at each other.
She’s checking me out, thought Lisa. Maybe nobody’s good enough for her son?
After the raucous feast, they chased the kids into the backyard, while the adults talked in normal tones, for a change.
Lisa watched Mike as he rolled on the grass in the backyard with his sister’s children. She’d felt Mike’s affection for his tiny preemies and the loving kindness he showed toward their frightened parents, but this was the first time she’d seen him interact with children. His comfort in physical play and his patience in talking with them moved her.
“You’re great with the kids,” she said. “It’s like you’re one of them.”
“Maybe I never grew up,” he smiled.
“You’re going to be a wonderful father.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Would that be so bad?”
He grasped her hand. “Nothing with you can be bad.”
“You’re a smart man.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Later, Lisa found herself in the corner with Nora and Mike’s sisters. They’d been friendly and warm to her, and Lisa now understood more about her husband-to-be. They were part of what made him the way he was.
“I’ve never seen him so happy before, Lisa,” Nora said, “we couldn’t be more pleased.”
“All he does is talk about you, Lisa,” said Sally, the middle sister.
Emma, two years Mike’s senior, said, “You should have seen some of the girls he brought home.”
“Let’s be fair to the boy,” Lilly said. “His choices were more thoughtful than most at his age.” She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “We don’t know that much about you, Lisa, but we know how much Mike loves you. Tell us how you feel about our baby brother.”
Lisa smiled. That was the easiest question anyone could ask. “I didn’t have it easy growing up, especially with my father. I’ll skip that for the moment, but Mike—Mike is a miracle to me. I can’t begin to describe how I feel about him. I know infatuation, I know lust, and the passion of new love, but beyond that, there’s Mike. He’s a man, but he doesn’t need to prove it. He loves and accepts me as I am. He’s sensitive without being overly sentimental, and more than anything, he’s the real thing. He’s open and honest and without artifice. I thought I knew what I wanted in a man, but I didn’t really know until I met Mike.”
“So you like him?” Lilly said with a deadpan delivery, as all the women burst into laughter.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mike rounded on the Sanchez baby four times a day. He’d asked Lisa to put the stomach tube on suction to decompress the baby’s bowel. Afterward, he ordered intravenous feedings.
Repeated abdominal x-rays showed less intestinal distention, but the air in the wall of the intestines persisted.
“At least that’s not getting worse,” he said to Lisa.
When the phone rang at four a.m., and he wasn’t on call, Mike knew this was trouble.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” said Brad Rosin, who was on call, “but I know how much you care about the Sanchez baby.”
“What’s happened?”
“She stopped breathing, her heart rate has fallen, and her temp’s up. I’m looking at her x-rays—it’s bad, buddy.”
“She’s perforated her intestine?”
“I see free air below both diaphragms. There’s no question.”
“I’ll call Matty Benson from Children’s Hospital. She’s got the best surgical hands in the area for operating on a baby. Try to keep the baby stable, Brad. I’m coming in.” He hesitated, and then asked, “Does Maria know?”
“I’m about to call her.”
Mike brushed his teeth, and washed his face. He threw on his clothes and raced to Brier.
As he approached the Emergency Room entrance, Matty Benson waved.
“I’m sure glad to see you, Matty. I think you’ll need to go in. She’s perforated.”
“Can I take a look, first?” Matty said.
Matty was in her mid-forties and was married with four kids. She’d been a gymnast in college and an alternate on the Olympic team. She’d maintained her athletic trim, and her small, but strong, hands had been an asset in operating on these tiny babies.
When the sliding doors of the ER whooshed open, the code blue alarm reverberated through the hallways. He turned to the ER nurse. “Yes, Mike. It’s in the NICU.”
Mike’s abdomen cramped as they raced up the stairs.
Nurses and technicians crowded the room. Brad stood over the incubator listening to Ella’s chest. “She back, Mike, but I don’t know for how long. Had to do some compressions and we finally got her back with adrenalin and dopamine.”
Mike turned to Matty.
She was examining the abdominal x-ray images on the ER monitor. “I’m going in.”
She dialed the operating room, and then turned to Mike. “They’ll be ready in ten minutes. Let’s get her down there.”
“I’m coming, too,” Mike said.
“You bet you are. I’m not doing this without you.”
“What about permission?” Matty asked.
“The mother should be here in a minute,” Brad said. “I’ll get the permit, or we’ll have to operate without it.”
Mike, two nurses, and the respiratory technician pushed the incubator out of the NICU toward the elevator, and to the basement. The tech manually breathed for the baby with an Ambu Bag.
When they arrived in the surgical suite, the staff directed them to operating room two. Matty and her surgical assistant stood before the white porcelain sinks scrubbing up.
Mickey Katz, the anesthesiologist, entered the room, his hair still disheveled from sleep. In moments, he had baby Sanchez asleep, and said to Matty, “Any time you’re ready.”
Matty made a midline abdominal incision through the baby’s paper-thin tissue, and when she entered the peritoneal cav
ity, the room filled with the unmistakable stench of dead bowel.
“Shit,” Matty said, as she widened the incision and applied retractors to visualize the contents of the abdomen. “There it is,” she shouted. “It’s about four inches of the last part of the small intestine. The rest of the bowel looks okay. It’s got to come out. How’s she doing, Mickey?”
“She’s holding her own.”
“She’s on dopamine,” Mike said. “I’m giving her blood. Do it, and get out fast, Matty.”
Twenty minutes later, the black segment of bowel sat in the stainless bowl. Matty placed rubber drains into the abdominal cavity, and closed up the incision with tiny metal staples.
“Let’s get her back to NICU,” Mike said. “We’ll recover her, there.”
Mike and Matty walked into the surgery waiting room.
Maria was asleep with her head on the lap of a Hispanic man in his twenties. He shifted as they entered the room. Maria was instantly awake. She stared at him with intense, dark eyes.
He looked around for a translator, and then said in his fractured Spanish, “Toto esta bien.”
The man rose and offered the doctors his hand. With a heavy accent, he said, “I’m Jose Sanchez, the baby’s father. I speak some English.”
“Ella made it through surgery,” Mike said. “Dr. Benson did a great job, but she had to remove a small part of the baby’s intestine. We think she’ll do well, but we won’t know for sure for another few days. Do you understand?”
“Si, Doctors,” he said, shaking the doctors’ hands.
“I’ll ask one of our Spanish-speaking nurses to give you a report every few hours until the baby’s out of trouble.”
“Thank you,” Maria said with a heavy accent as she brought the doctor’s hands to her cheek.
Mike slept in the on-call room until nine a.m.
When he entered the NICU, Lisa said, “You don’t look so great, Doctor.”
“Never mind me. How’s baby Sanchez?”
“She has a temp of 100 degrees, but otherwise, she’s stable. I see you had an exciting night.”
“A testimonial to good luck, Lisa. A few minutes more and most of her bowel would have died.”
“Maybe, Mike, but you made the diagnosis and started treatment. Remember what Pasteur said: ‘luck favors the mind that is prepared.’”
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” He smiled.
Ella Sanchez gradually improved.
When Maria and Jose arrived to take Ella home, the nurses dressed her in a pale pink teddy and bunny dress with matching booties, their gift to the Sanchez’s. Maria kissed the nurses, Jose shook everyone’s hand, and Mike again felt the warmth and satisfaction of his small role in this world.
Mike smiled and turned to Lisa. “This is what keeps me in this business.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It amazed them that their minds had moved in the same direction. Mike had never knelt before to ask for her hand, but soon, they were in the full wedding planning mode, or at least Lisa was.
“Whatever you want,” was Mike’s stock phrase that she, at first, interpreted as indifference. Later, she came to understand that Mike, like most men, wasn’t into the details of wedding plans.
“Let me make you an offer you can’t refuse,” Mike said.
“Let’s have it.”
“If you let Nora and my sisters stand in for me on planning the wedding, I’ll cancel the stripper at my bachelor’s party.”
“You’re a physician, right? You’ve seen more than your fair share of female flesh, and yet you feel the need for a stripper?”
“It’s not for me,” he protested loudly, “it’s for the guys. I don’t want to let them down.”
“It’s a deal,” Lisa said.
“Let’s go backpacking in the Canadian Rockies for our honeymoon,” Mike said, smiling.
“That’s great Mike, if you don’t mind honeymooning alone. I’m easy,” she said. “Just give me a romantic place where we can be alone. Good food, drink, and an excuse to wear something pretty.”
Finally, after exhaustive research, they settled on Anse Chastanet, a luxury diving resort on the island of St. Lucia.
They had reserved Heather Farms’ Rose Garden in nearby Contra Costa County for the wedding ceremony. Their guests, family, and friends sat in rows facing the gazebo with the lake in the background.
Lisa walked down the aisle with Sandy, her mother. She glowed in her beaded off-the-shoulder form-fitting gown.
Mike wore a rented Tommy Hilfiger tuxedo with a grey vest. He walked toward the gazebo with Nora on his arm, and then turned to watch Lisa walk down the aisle. He smoothed his hair back with both hands, greeted Lisa, took her hand, and stood before the minister. The ceremony was brief. They’d written their own vows. Lisa, Sandy, Phoebe, the Maid of Honor, the bridesmaids, Nora, Mike’s sisters, and the nurses cried throughout the ceremony.
So many women, so many tears, so many tissues, Mike thought. I’m just glad it’s a happy occasion.
When the minister finally said, “You may kiss the bride,” they remained locked in a passionate kiss until the audience applauded, and then yelled, “Enough—enough.”
Nora found the opportunity to pull Lisa aside, and hugged her, saying, “I’m so happy for you both.”
Lisa smiled, her eyes filling. “I love him so much, it hurts.”
“It hasn’t been easy for me, Mike, or the girls after Aaron died,” Nora said. “How do you bring up children, especially a son, without his father?”
“You did a fantastic job. The girls are amazing, and you know how I feel about Michael.”
“This is going to sound antiquated, Lisa, and I hope you’ll take it in the right way.”
“What is it?” Lisa asked, suddenly leery.
“It’s as if we’re giving Mike to you, like a father giving away the bride. We’re entrusting Mike to you, and if you’ll excuse the colloquialism, we want you to do right by him.”
“I understand,” Lisa said, smiling. “I love him more than life. Please, don’t worry.”
Everyone had a great time at the informal reception, and afterward, Mr. and Mrs. Cooper spent the night at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. Early the next morning, the limousine took them to San Francisco International Airport for their flight to the Caribbean.
The plane descended through the dark clouds overlying the lush tropical island of St. Lucia, but landed without difficulty.
After an hour’s cab ride over barely passable roads, they arrived at Anse Castanet sitting in full view of the volcanic peaks, the Gros and Petit Pitons, volcanic peaks that dominated the western coast. Their ten days passed quickly with gourmet meals, lazy mornings, and some of the best diving in the Caribbean.
They took a boat tour to visit the Castries, St. Lucia’s bustling city and spent the day shopping, eating, and enjoying tropical drinks. A large sign on the front of a house depicted a crystal ball and announced the magnificent Madam Helene. Lisa said, “Let’s get a reading.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Come on,” she coaxed, “it’ll be fun.”
Lisa dragged Mike into the darkened room, where a spider-thin black woman sat before her eight-inch crystal ball. They paid her the equivalent of five dollars, and then sat as she moved her hands gracefully over the ball.
“Look into it, Missy,” she said with a Caribbean lilt. “I see many years of good health, and one or two children, I can’t be sure.”
She looked at Mike’s vaguely hidden disdain, and said, “Look deeply into the ball. Relax, and let yourself go.”
Mike shifted his chair forward, and looking into the clear, sparkly ball, saw nothing.
“I see…” Madam Helene started, and then suddenly stopped, staring into Mike’s face.
“What’s wrong?” Lisa asked.
“I’m not sure. It’s hard to say. The ball is isn’t clear enough to be sure,” said Madam Helene in a soft voice. “It’s difficult to see in the pres
ence of the unbeliever.”
“You saw something,” Lisa said, becoming upset.
“I saw… nothing that I can say with sureness,” said Helene.
“Come on, Lisa. Let’s get going,” Mike said.
“She saw something. Don’t you see it?”
“I see that she’s upset you. For what?”
They stood to leave, but when Lisa looked back at Madam Helene, she thought she saw despair in her eyes.
Afterward, Helene covered the crystal ball with a red silk cloth, and shook her head in sadness.
“Don’t be upset, Lisa,” Mike said. “Crystal ball reading? It’s nonsense.”
I know, she thought, but…
Chapter Twenty-Three
Harvey Russo, a senior obstetrician and gynecologist, and Mike Cooper were taking a break in the doctor’s lounge after morning rounds.
“So, how’s married life?”
“Two months and counting. So far, so good.”
“Want some advice from an old hand?”
“Shoot.”
“Do something every day to please Lisa, and before you open your mouth, even in anger, stop and think…Will I regret what comes out?’ Women, like elephants, never forget.”
The loudspeakers at Brier Hospital blared, “Dr. Harvey Russo, Dr. Michael Cooper, call the emergency room, stat.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, Mike.”
“Let’s walk over so we can enjoy the good news together.”
When they approached the ER’s nurses’ station, the admitting clerk said, “Dr. Blake’s in his office.”
The term “office” was a compliment for the closet the ER docs used when they worked.
“Sorry, guys,” Manny Blake said. “Have a seat.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Manny. Just handle whatever this is by yourself.”
“Usually, I prefer to deal with problems that way, but this one—I’m happy to punt.”
“Let’s have it,” Mike said.
“You guys know the tiny community of Canyon? It’s in the East Bay Hills between Oakland and Moraga. It has an interesting history extending back into the nineteenth century, and, in the 60s, it became, and still is today, a center for alternative lifestyles.”
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