Let It Be Me

by Becky Wade

  She’d come home because she’d needed to see Dylan. More often than not, she’d arrive at their apartment complex to find Mom’s car packed and waiting to pull away from the curb. The second after Leah arrived, Mom would depart. She wouldn’t return until two days later—when Leah had to head back to campus.

  Leah had been fourteen years old, yet for weekends at a time, she’d been in charge of Dylan. It had been scary. It had also been oddly wonderful, because she’d been free to do whatever she deemed best. They watched Go, Diego, Go! and visited the playground. She read him The Very Hungry Caterpillar a million times. She made them ice cream sundaes topped with whipped cream and caramel sauce and chocolate sprinkles. They roved through the two parks and the one library within walking distance of their building.

  She’d thought she’d understood what it meant to be responsible for Dylan. But then, when he was seven, she’d received full custody. As soon as Mom had left for the airport to catch her flight overseas, Leah had realized that no, she hadn’t truly known what it was to be responsible for Dylan. The weight of becoming his 24/7 caregiver had crashed down on her.

  The first several days, fear had stalked her. She’d been so overwhelmed that she’d spent hours on her knees after tucking Dylan into bed each night, begging God for strength and mercy.

  God had shown up in those dark hours.

  Patiently, He’d siphoned His courage into her.

  She’d laid every decision before Him that she’d felt incapable of making on her own. Should she move them to Princeton? If not, how should she support Dylan?

  Every time, He’d guided her. Sometimes through a sense of rightness that tugged her in a specific direction or a sense of unease that warned her away from another direction. Sometimes through Scripture. Sometimes through a pastor’s message. Sometimes through a conversation with a friend.

  Obediently, gratefully, she’d followed where He led. Her rock-solid belief that she could rely on Him to make her paths straight turned the impossible job of parenting Dylan while she herself was still a teenager into something she could do—with the Lord’s equipping.

  Dylan had paid her back by continuing to adore her through his elementary school years. He was rambunctious but also kind. Truly kind.

  Then his middle school years had crept in. The little boy who’d built his life around her became a gangly adolescent. He’d started to pull away. Give her attitude. Establish his independence. Indulge in moods.

  As the years marched on, he’d become more reclusive, and now Dylan was a boy-man with long arms and hairy legs and the beginnings of facial hair and a voracious appetite.

  She grieved their former closeness. And, in moments like this one, she ached for the affectionate baby, the trusting preschooler, and the pure-hearted elementary schooler he’d been.

  On good days, she told herself that he’d likely become a contributing member of society one day. On bad days, it seemed frighteningly possible that he’d end up wearing an orange jumpsuit in a penitentiary.

  It was humbling to observe baby Levi because she was certain his parents were praying fervently that he’d simply have the chance to grow into a boy-man with long arms and hairy legs. She hoped Levi received the opportunity God had given Dylan—the opportunity to experience all the passions, trials, and victories that life offered.

  Next, they entered the room of a baby girl. A pink blanket had been folded over and smoothly tucked around her sides. Tape held a ventilator tube to her mouth. IVs snaked into her veins.

  A blond woman set aside the book she’d been reading and rose. Sebastian introduced her as Megan.

  “This is my daughter,” Megan said to Leah. “Isabella.”

  “She’s beautiful.”

  Isabella shifted slightly. She moved her mouth as if to make noise, but remained soundless.

  Sebastian appered to be reading Isabella’s monitors.

  “Do you . . . live in Atlanta?” Leah asked Megan.

  “We live two hours away, in Augusta. At first I drove in every morning and drove home every evening, but that was just too hard. So now I’m staying at the Ronald McDonald House. My husband works during the week in Augusta and joins me here on weekends.”

  “I’ll stop by later,” Sebastian said to Megan.

  “Sounds good.”

  He headed out.

  “Nice to meet you,” Leah said before following Sebastian. They walked back toward the central desk. “How common is it for one parent to live here and the other in their hometown while their child is being treated?”

  “Very common. Spending time with Isabella has become Megan’s full-time job. She’s here most of the day, every day.”

  “What’s Isabella’s diagnosis?”

  “She has a rudimentary ventricle that isn’t composed of myocardium. It’s not functional. She’s seven weeks old, and she’s never breathed on her own, never been fully conscious.”

  Leah recalled how, when Dylan was nine, a bad case of pneumonia had hospitalized him for two nights. Her anxiety had been so all-consuming that she’d barely slept.

  “Isabella’s been here seven weeks?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s her treatment plan?”

  “A heart transplant is her only option.”

  A stone of dismay dropped through Leah. “No.”

  He regarded her steadily. “I’m afraid so.”

  She spotted Dylan standing in front of a series of framed ink-on-paper drawings. Sebastian started toward him and Leah was on the verge of doing the same when a female voice spoke near her shoulder.

  “You’re the only personal friends he’s had here, other than the Colemans.”

  Leah turned to find a sixty-something woman with matte brown hair and false eyelashes.

  “Is that right?” Leah asked pleasantly.

  “That’s right.” Wearing scrubs patterned with llamas, the woman was wearing a badge that proclaimed her to be a PA named Markie. She moved her chin in Sebastian’s direction. “What’s your relationship with him?” She asked the question with unconcealed interest, as well as a trace of protectiveness.

  “We’re friends.”

  “Hmm.” Markie sized her up. “Well. Dr. Grant is bossy.” She made a tut sound. “Bossy’s not really the best word. . . . Hard-charging? Certainly high maintenance. A perfectionist. But here’s the deal: In my opinion, a few of the kids he’s treated have lived mostly because he was so determined that they wouldn’t die.”

  Her words gave Leah chills.

  “Unfortunately,” Markie confided, “that also means that he takes the losses harder than is healthy. We all take them hard, don’t get me wrong. But Dr. Grant takes them too hard. And I want him to have longevity at this because unless I miss my guess, and I don’t think I do, he’s destined to become one of the world’s best.”

  “I see.”

  “It sure would be nice for him to have someone to come home to. Someone he could talk to about things other than medicine and heart defects. Someone who could remind him about the best things in life.”

  Like geometry? “I’m sure that would be very nice, but that someone won’t be me. I don’t do romance.”

  A beat passed. Markie released a cackling laugh. When Leah didn’t laugh in return, Markie sobered and said, “Piffle,” with feeling. “He’s very alone.”

  “I’m also very alone. For many of us that isn’t a detriment.”

  “Dr. Grant’s alone to the point that it’s not good for him. Between you and me, the youngest nurse here, Ellie, is crazy about him. She’s been doing her best to catch his interest—and she’s a pretty little thing—but she’s not having any luck. But you . . .” She eyed Leah speculatively.

  “I’m not girlfriend material.”

  “Piffle!”

  Sebastian approached. “Markie,” he greeted the older woman.

  “Dr. Grant.”

  “Have you been pumping Leah for information?”

  “Not at all!” she said with pret
end outrage.

  “Blasting her with a fire hose full of information, then.”

  Markie tossed another cackle over her shoulder as she went about her duties.

  “Sorry about that,” Sebastian said. “She’s always got her head so buried in everybody else’s business that she doesn’t realize when she’s making people uncomfortable. Did she throw me under the bus or praise me?”

  “A little of both?”

  “I—” A shrill sound interrupted him. He pulled his phone from his pocket. “My pager,” he explained. Clicking off the noise, he read the alert on the screen with a serious expression.

  “I presume you’re needed elsewhere,” Leah said.

  He lifted his head. “I am. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she said merrily to cover her sharp sense of regret. Their time together was at an end. There was no way to know when and if she’d see him again . . . when and if she’d encounter these delightful and highly unusual sparks and pangs. “Thanks for meeting with us.” She poked Dylan’s calf with her toe.

  “Yeah, man,” Dylan said. “Thanks.”

  Sebastian’s forehead wrinkled. “I wish we had more time.”

  “Dylan and I have already taken too much of your time.”

  “Will you be able to find your way out?”

  “I was a math prodigy, remember? I’m more than equal to this hospital’s floor plan,” she said laughingly, waving him off. He was making her nervous about whatever situation awaited him at the other end of that page. She didn’t want to burn precious seconds.

  “Good-bye.”

  “Go save babies!”

  Sebastian vanished around a corner.

  “You have a crush on him, don’t you?” Dylan asked.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, beloved brother of mine.”

  He did an embarrassing impression of her. Big, adoring eyes. Dazed smile.

  “That is not how I acted just now.”

  “You have a crush on him.”

  “I most assuredly do not.” What I have are some dreams of him and melting sensations when he looks at me. Why had two people in the span of five minutes determined that she and Sebastian should be romantically linked?

  “How come you never go on any dates?”

  “I’ve been on some dates.”

  “When was the last one?”

  “Six years ago.”

  “That’s forever.”

  “No. Six years ago is six years ago. Forever is another mathematical concept entirely.”

  “How come you haven’t dated anyone since then?”

  “Because I haven’t been interested in anyone.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “No it’s not. It’s countercultural, but countercultural is not synonymous with weird.”

  “What are you, thirty?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Probably time to get a move on. Tick tock.”

  She sighed. “That’s the most asinine comment you’ve made all weekend. It accepts as logic several illogical conclusions. That women need a man. That women expire at a certain age. That—”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “I haven’t dated because I haven’t met a man I wanted to date.”

  “Well.” Dylan angled his chin toward where Sebastian had disappeared from sight. “Now you have.”

  You have a crush on her, don’t you?” Markie asked Sebastian an hour later. “The woman who visited you today?”

  He accepted the coffee he’d ordered from the barista at the coffee shop a half block down from the hospital. Slowly, he faced Markie. It might be coincidence that she’d made a coffee run at the same time he did. It was far more likely that she’d followed him here like a bloodhound trailing the scent of new gossip.

  “That’s none of your business,” he answered.

  “So you do have a crush on her. How’d you two meet?”

  “No comment.”

  “How long have you known her?”

  “I draw the line at sharing her with you,” Ben had told him. “No comment.” He pushed through the door onto the sunny, busy city sidewalk.

  Leah. Impossibly beautiful. Completely off-limits. He hadn’t had enough time to talk with her, look at her, memorize her presence before he’d been called away. And now she was gone.

  He’d have liked to spend the rest of the day hitting a punching bag, but he had work to do. Which meant no vent for the grief and anger and desire twisting within.

  Markie caught up to him, moving quickly to keep pace. “She told me that she doesn’t do romance. What in the world does that mean?”

  “She’s not interested in falling in love.”

  “Everyone’s interested in falling in love!”

  “Not her.”

  “But—but I could read her like a book. She does like you, Dr. Grant.”

  “She’s never said so.”

  “Maybe she hasn’t admitted it to herself. In time, she will. Don’t give up.”

  “I wish I could give up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because even if she is interested in me, I can’t be with her. Ben loves her.”

  Markie gaped at him, fell back, then rushed up to him again. “Does she love Ben?”

  “No.”

  “Well. Has anyone had the sense to ask her how she feels about you?”

  “No.”

  “I see. You’re determined to be a martyr.”

  He grimaced. “I’m determined to do right by my best friend.”

  “So you’re not going to do anything where this woman’s concerned?”

  “No comment.”

  He was going to do something.

  He was going to fix things with Ben. They hadn’t talked since their phone call because he’d been giving Ben time to cool off. Soon, though, he’d contact him.

  Ben was a brother to him. If Sebastian couldn’t keep his relationship with Ben strong, then something was even more seriously wrong with him than he’d feared.

  It was never a ringing endorsement of Leah’s teaching style when one of her students fell asleep in class.

  It wasn’t terribly unusual to catch a student snoozing. She often dimmed the lights in order to illustrate examples on her whiteboard. And teenagers weren’t exactly known for their disciplined sleeping habits.

  Her policy upon noticing a sleeping student: Do nothing while the other students were present to avoid humiliating the napper in front of their peers.

  Two days after Labor Day, she activated her policy when she spotted Claire Dobney asleep in the back row. After the dismissal bell rang and the rest of the class filed out, Leah approached Claire. The girl had rested her head atop her folded arms. She dressed her round body and soft limbs in enormous shirts, as if hoping the shirts would provide her with a mobile tent to hide inside.

  “Claire,” Leah said.

  Claire’s torso snapped upright. She held her eyes unnaturally wide, in a bid to show how awake she was.

  Lunch period had just begun, which meant they both had a brief pocket of time. Leah made herself comfortable on the chair next to Claire’s. “You fell asleep in class.”

  “I did? Oh. Gosh. I’m sorry, Ms. Montgomery.”

  “Apology accepted. Is everything all right?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Perfectly groomed eyebrows capped small eyes accented with unflattering green eye shadow. Her cinnamon-colored curls formed an oval around a circular face.

  “You’ve looked tired to me for a while now,” Leah said. “I’m just wondering if there might be something in your life that’s bothering you.”

  “Not really.”

  “I’m a good listener.”

  Though Claire existed in a perpetual state of uncertainty, she was bright enough to have made it into Leah’s class—the highest level of math available at Misty River High—last year and this year. Last year, Claire’s sophomore year, she’d earned Bs. So far this year, she was struggling to maintain a C.

  Leah wa
ited, saying nothing.

  “I guess I haven’t been sleeping that well,” Claire confessed.

  “Any particular reason?”

  “There’s been a lot of—” she rolled her wrists in the air—“fighting at my house.”

  “Who’s fighting?”

  “My parents.”

  Leah knew what it was to live on the turf of that battlefield. “Is anyone hurting you physically?”

  “No.”

  “Verbally?”

  “No. . . . I mean, not much.”

  “My parents used to argue, too. I understand how hard that is.” She also understood why Claire would fall asleep here. Here, it was safe.

  “It’s not too bad,” Claire said.

  Claire had confided in Leah, her teacher. Which probably meant that it was really, really bad. “Do you want to talk to me about it?”

  She gave a worried shake of her head.

  “Do you know Ms. Williams, the counselor?”

  “Not really.”

  “She’s great. I’m going to contact her and have her reach out to you and set up a meeting.”

  “If I talk to her, will my parents get in trouble?”

  “At this point, you’re simply going to have a conversation with a counselor. That’s all.”

  A package arrived for you,” Leah told Dylan the following evening when he returned home from football practice.

  “Huh?” He made his way from the mudroom into the kitchen, where Leah was eating one of Tess’s cookies as an appetizer before dinner.

  “A package. Arrived for you.”

  He followed her into the living room, where she’d propped the large rectangular box near the inside of the front door.

  “Who’s it from?” Dylan asked.

  “An art supply company in Atlanta. Did you order art supplies?”

  “I can’t afford more art supplies.” Sweaty and smelling strongly of teenage boy, he carried the package to the dining table and ripped it open. The box contained a huge assortment of products. Paper. Pencils. Erasers. Pens. A T-square, ruler, triangle. A card sat on top. He read it and grinned. “The doctor you don’t have a crush on sent this to me.”