A Touch of Passion (boxed set romance bundle)

by Uvi Poznansky

  “Me too,” Jason said, the reality he might lose her forever crushing him. “I’d do just about anything.”

  On the Friday of surgery, they repeated the routine of a workday, only they prepared not to come home in the afternoon. “We’d better both take something to read,” Harley said, packing a small bag although she wasn’t sure if she’d have to stay overnight. “In case I get bumped for an emergency.”

  “They wouldn’t dare,” Jason said, his anxiety level at the exploding point.

  “Well, you had better take something to read then, so you won’t get bored.” He grabbed the book off his nightstand, something he started reading at the shore and was interested enough to finish. It was fluff, unrealistic soap opera reading. The opposite of their reality.

  Even though the chance she’d be discharged that evening was possible, Harley took one last lap around her house, making sure everything was in place, just in case she stayed overnight. She’d taken extra care cleaning up and decluttering, doing the laundry, wiping out the refrigerator, cleaning toilets after everyone was in bed the night before. Order was important to her mental well-being.

  Tiptoeing into the girls’ rooms, she kissed each one goodbye with promises that she’d talk to them later in the afternoon.

  Fran arrived five minutes before they had to leave. “Good luck today, my dear,” she said, hugging Harley. “I’ll be praying for you.” Jason picked up her bag and with his other hand on her back, steered her out of the house.

  “Mom, I’ll call you as soon as she’s out of surgery,” he said over his shoulder. They got into the car, the trip to the hospital made in silence like any other workday morning together.

  “I’ll drop you off,” he said, but she wasn’t having it.

  “No, let me go to the parking garage with you,” she said. “It’ll do me good to get some exercise in before they put me to sleep.”

  They made one false step, forgetting why they were there and going to the employee entrance instead of the patient entrance, which was closer to admissions. It led to a stroll through foreign areas of the hospital that the isolation of being in the OR prevented them from seeing.

  “This place needs some updating,” Jason said, looking at the front lobby. “It’s been a while since I’ve walked through.” Harley didn’t say anything in reply, her goal to keep blinders on until she was back home with her children.

  “Less is more,” she said. “I could care less about the lobby.” He nodded in agreement.

  The admissions clerk led her through the admissions process; impersonal questions and little eye contact further diminishing Harley’s sense of wellbeing. She wondered what the woman would do if she broke down crying, or changed her mind about having the surgery and fled the hospital.

  Led to the large waiting room, upon entering a large typewritten notice warned her of what her patient rights included. Growing irrationality pushing her to the brink of tears, Harley pinched her arm and kept her expression as neutral as possible. Shouldn’t there be a priest waiting, armed with a list of platitudes about how unfair it was she’d been chosen by the universe to go through this? The lack of spiritual icons of compassion in the room left her feeling empty and hopeless.

  “I wish we would have gone to Saint Joseph’s,” she whispered to Jason. He patted her hand and looked around the sterile, crowded room, nodding.

  “This definitely sucks,” he replied, reaching for a newspaper. “Look at this. Wednesday’s paper. I’m glad I brought my book.”

  A colleague, a woman in pink scrubs coming into the open waiting room with a chart in her hand, called out Harley. They stood, following her to the pre op area. Jason could stay until they took her in the OR. She instructed Harley to strip and put on a bird’s egg blue patient gown.

  “Your fan club is waiting, so hurry up and change,” she said, smiling. Spared those last minute worries of her dying on the OR table or what the final pathology report would be, irreverent humor and love of other nurses they’d worked with for most of their adult lives made the experience easier.

  Soon, her team came to take her back to the OR. They had her get on a stretcher and she looked so vulnerable, her thinning hair covered by a gigantic bouffant cover.

  “Jay, go get coffee down in the cafeteria,” Andy said. “I’ll call you as soon as she’s done.”

  There was so much Jason wanted to say to his wife at the last minute, but it was too late, it was time for her to go. He bent over the side rails, took her face in his hands and kissed her, their co-workers turning their heads for a moment to give them privacy.

  “I love you so much,” he whispered. “You’ll be fine.” She nodded, wiping away an errant tear.

  “Love you, Jay,” she whispered, searching for his hand to squeeze. Standing back, he waved to her as her stretcher disappeared into the hallway leading to the room where she would lose her breast. Jason left the cubicle with his book and did as Andy suggested, going to the cafeteria to get coffee. It was seven in the morning; he’d be at the hospital on a normal day, but preparing his room for a patient. He should be happy not to have to work, to be able to drink coffee leisurely. Hoping she’d be stable enough to go home that night, he wanted her in his bed, or on the couch in her recliner. They’d watch movies all weekend and eat pizza every night with their girls.

  Standing in line with other visitors, Jason needed coffee. Looking out the large, dirty window with its uninspiring urban view, he should have waited upstairs in the employee lounge, and then vetoed that idea remembering the continuous questions and comments he’d probably get. It was wise to stay away. Harley was a patient today and he was her family.

  Sitting down at a table in the corner of the dingy dining area, Harley’s breasts made an appearance in his thoughts. They were perfect for her body, on the small side but useful, having nursed four babies. When Devon was three months old, Harley went back to work but she continued to nurse, pumping during lunch, the proceeds stored in the lounge freezer. Jokes about Harley’s breast milk continued to circulate four years later. Watch out what you put in your coffee was a favorite. Arriving home each afternoon, the first thing she’d do was to wash her hands and put baby Devon to her breast where’d she stay for the next hour.

  Turning his head to the wall, the tears came unbidden. Last night as she got undressed for bed, Jason went to her before she could put her PJs on. Aware of what he was there for, she waited for him, allowing him to hold her breasts. Beyond words, anything he would have said to her would have upset her further, so he embraced her, touching her there, and they cried together.

  Alone in the hospital cafeteria, he tried not to imagine where Andy was in the procedure but it was impossible not to. Harley would already be asleep, intubated and Ken Martin, her anesthetist, would keep her safe. Blue sterile drapes covered her body with her right breast and underarm exposed. Shaking his head before the imaginary scalpel blade touched Harley’s skin; Jason knew a mastectomy was the best thing for her. Weeks ago, she’d had the punch biopsy in Andy’s office on a Saturday morning and the wound still had not healed. She’d taken to padding her bra with gauze to keep the seepage off their sheets, the worry that the cancer was growing exponentially frightening for them both.

  Last night, when he was holding her breast, she said it. “It’s for the best. I can’t live with having an open wound on my chest. The inconvenience is already bugging the crap out of me.”

  “I know,” Jason answered. “I’m sorry you’re going through this. I wish I could take it for you.” He kissed her neck, whispering to her, telling her how much he loved her.

  In the dank cafeteria, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, Jason thought of the next time they’d make love. He was a nurse; he knew what mastectomy wounds looked like. Would he have to avoid touching her there? They hadn’t discussed breast reconstruction but he thought if it was up to him, he’d vote in favor of it. Harley would balk at the idea. Reconstruction meant more surgery, tissue expanders, inconvenien
ce. It might not even be an option for her. She wanted to live her life without those encumbrances, enjoying her children and their life. He ignored the words for as long as she had left.

  While Jason walked to the cafeteria, Harley took a ride to OR #11. “It looks different from this perspective,” she said, taking it in from the stretcher. Her friend, Joan Coleridge was in the room with her and pushed the stretcher along side the OR table.

  “Okay, sweetie, hop over,” she instructed. Ken waited on the other side of the table. The drugs they had given her to help her relax hit and she felt like she was moving in slow motion.

  “Oh boy,” she drawled. “That Versed you gave me just kicked in.”

  “Enjoy it!” Ken said, chuckling. Harley lay on the table and closed her eyes, the sensation she was floating enjoyable. Everyone in the room was doing something to her, hooking her up to the EKG, putting compression stockings on her legs, strapping her to the table so she didn’t fall off.

  “You’re going to get sleepy in a few seconds,” Ken said softly. She felt the medication burn her veins.

  “Harley, you’re in Recovery, surgery is finished. It’s time to wake up.” She could hear her Recovery Room co-worker Margaret’s voice softly calling for her to open her eyes, take a deep breath, asking if she had any pain. Using every bit of strength, Harley opened her eyes.

  “There you go,” Margaret said, smiling. “You’re in recovery! I get to take care of you.”

  “What time is it?” Harley said, closing her eyes again, her throat on fire from the endotracheal tube.

  “Just past eleven,” Margaret answered. “Jason is right outside. I asked him to wait until I had you situated before he started to hover.” Harley laughed, a hoarse, weak laugh.

  “Thank you. Jason will hover,” she replied.

  “Do you feel anything?”

  “Some burning,” Harley said. Burning like fire from the bottom of her neck around her side.

  “I’ll give you something to take the edge off,” Margaret said, winking.

  The next time Harley opened her eyes Jason was sitting next to her, watching the traffic as patients came in from surgery or were discharged to their rooms.

  “Jay, what time is it?” Harley asked, groggy.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he said standing up. Taking her hand, he tried not to look at her chest, grateful the blankets piled on her obscured any dissimilarity. He looked up at the wall clock. “It’s almost one thirty. You ready to go to your room?”

  “I have to pee,” she said. “But I can wait till I get upstairs.”

  “Okay, I’ll let Margaret know you’re ready to go.”

  The pain in her chest was a dull burning that crept up to her chin and down her shoulder, snaking under her right arm. Harley knew Andy was going to do a lymph node dissection to determine how advanced the cancer was, but he didn’t have to tell her. In the weeks before she felt the chain of enlarged nodes in her armpit. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, scared to death but because of her pride, didn’t want anyone to tell her it was natural or that she shouldn’t feel that way.

  “Harley,” Andy said, his hand on her left shoulder. “You did great. We’re waiting for the pathology report on the nodes.” She nodded her head. What was there to say?

  “Waz up?” he said to Jason, returning with Margaret. They gave each other a man hug, Jason wiping his nose on his sleeve like a little boy.

  “Thanks, man,” Jason said. Harley thought she’d start screaming if Jason and Andy commiserated in front of her, but understanding her irrational thought might be drug induced, she bit her tongue.

  “Can I go to my room?”

  “Sure you can,” Margaret said.

  “We’ll evaluate how you’re feeling at five, and if you’re up to it, you can go home,” Andy said.

  “I’m definitely going home,” Harley said firmly.

  Margaret disconnected the EKG wires attached to Harley’s body and took the oxygen cannula off her face as the men continued to chat. While Margaret pushed her bed from the cubicle, Harley reached up for Andy’s arm.

  “Andy, you’re not to tell him anything before you’ve told me, got it?” Andy laughed, shocked.

  “Absolutely,” he said. “I promise.”

  She closed her eyes for the ride through the corridors to the elevator, taking deep breaths to abolish the anger and the sadness that took turns making her crazy. Why couldn’t Jason read her mind? She had certain expectations that seemed too selfish to put into words. It was just overwhelming. I have cancer, she thought. Isn’t that enough? Pay attention to me. Leave me alone.

  By the time she got to her room, she wanted Jason to go home and check on the kids, his well-meaning hovering taking its toll on her sanity. His other speed was talking about her to the nurses and doctors like she wasn’t there, asking questions, prying.

  “Stay home until they discharge me,” she said, giving instructions. “I’ll call you as soon as I hear.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone all afternoon,” Jason said. “Do you want to get up?”

  “Yes,” she answered, trying with all her might to stifle the annoyance she felt with him. He put the side rail down on her bed and put his hand out to take hers. Right arm stiff at the shoulder, she kept it bent at the elbow, across her waist.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Not bad,” she answered. “I am definitely going home tonight.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Jason said.

  She could run a fever or her surgical site could bleed, a slew of reasons she should stay. Maybe she should stay in the hospital overnight, but it didn’t make any difference what he thought. After all the years they’d been together, he recognized the state Harley was in, which he referred to as brittle. She got that way after each baby was born and when he had hernia surgery. It was a way to cope with a situation in which she had no control. He knew she was angry that he was schmoozing with Andy; he caught himself doing it but it was too late.

  “Well, just make sure you don’t tell anyone in charge you think I should stay, because if you do, I’ll be really pissed off.”

  “No worries, darling. I’ll just wait to hear what the verdict is.”

  “Jason, it’s three. Go home and see the girls, have dinner with them. Please.”

  He looked at her, wanting to tell her to stop acting like a spoiled brat, but he really couldn’t.

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” he said softly. “You’re not the boss of me.” It had its effect and Harley laughed a little.

  “Ow. Stop making me laugh,” she said. “Don’t talk then if you’re staying. Read your book, or watch TV or take a nap. And don’t talk to my nurses, either.”

  “I won’t,” he said, picking up the remote. “Do I get to watch my programs?”

  “When are you ever home to watch TV in the afternoon? Be quiet Jason,” she said.

  At five, as her dinner was served and the smell of institutional roast beef permeated the room, Andy Forman came in, looking exhausted, unsmiling.

  “Fuck,” Jason said, simply, reaching for the remote. He turned the TV off in preparation to hear more bad news.

  “You can go home now, Harley,” he said, patting her foot. He walked around the bed and stood at her right side. “Can I take a look at your dressing?” Jason hadn’t seen it, got up and peered over Andy’s shoulder as he untied Harley’s gown, pulling it down. The dressing wasn’t as bulky as Jason expected it to be, a layer of two-inch wide gauze with a cotton pad over it, just a little bit of paper tape holding it in place. It was dry and intact. The area was flat, her breast gone. Jason dug his fingernails into his palm yet the tears came, he turned his back and reached for a tissue. Andy was talking to Harley about what to expect when she got home.

  “No lifting, strenuous exercise, standing for long periods of time, showering. You can sit in a bathtub but don’t get your incision wet. I’ll drop by Sunday afternoon to change your dressing.

/>   “Take pain medication for the next twenty-four hours whether you need it or not. Rest this weekend. Do you have any questions?” She shook her head.

  “My mind’s a blank,” she said. “I know you have other news.”

  “The pathology report is back,” he said.

  “I figured if there’s a lesion on my liver, I’d have positive nodes.” He nodded.

  “We were hoping there would be signs that the chemotherapy was working, but by the condition of your lymph nodes, it appears that it isn’t. All it means is that the drug they were using needs to be changed. Next week you’ll see Jerry Michaels again and he’ll start you on a new, high-dose chemotherapy.”

  “I’m already losing my hair so that’s one thing I won’t have to worry about,” she said. “Tomorrow, it’s getting shaved off, so say goodbye.”

  Andy took her left hand and squeezed it. “Get out of here,” he said. “Rest and watch TV. Nap. I’ll see you Sunday.” He leaned over the side rails and kissed her cheek and turned to Jason to hug just as the nurse came in the room with discharge papers.

  Being a passenger in the car worried Harley, afraid of the seat belt stretching over her incision, but worried not wearing it.

  “I’ll feel like a ballistic if I’m just sitting here,” she said.

  “How about padding it with something,” Jason said. “I’ll run back inside and steal a pillow.”

  “No, don’t. Let’s get out of here,” Harley said. “I just want to get home.” Nodding, he understood.

  Making the trip in silence, Harley was surprised at how bad she felt, both physically and mentally. Pulling into the garage, Jason glanced over at her. She was finally smiling, the look of relief on her face signaling that she’d be okay once she returned to her children and the safety of their life away from the hospital.

  Chapter 6