Romancing Melody

by Carrie Daws

  Brittany grabbed Ryan’s arm and looked at him. “Did they give you more details than that?”

  “Umm, something about his heart being bigger than it’s supposed to be. Brittany, I need to know. How bad is that?”

  “Melody, I’ve never worked with infants, so I’m really at a disadvantage here. Do they know why his heart is enlarged?”

  “No.”

  Brittany leaned into Ryan for support as Melody cried. Daddy, give me words for my friend. What does she need to hear? What can I say to her? After a moment she quietly said, “Melody, do you know God loves you?”

  Brittany heard Melody’s sharp intake of breath. “He loves me? He moved me to the other side of the country, He took my husband and put him in one of the most dangerous places on earth, and now my baby is in the hospital! And you want to tell me that God loves me?”

  Brittany’s heart broke. “Oh, Mel.”

  “Look, I know God’s been good to you. But not all of us get to work beside our husband and go home every night with him. Some of us have to try to go to sleep wondering if our husband is still alive!”

  Brittany stayed quiet, allowing Melody to release her pain.

  After a moment, Melody spoke again. “I’m sorry, Brittany. I just, I don’t know. I’m just tired. And I feel very alone.”

  “It’s okay,” said Brittany. “Can I do anything?”

  “Can I call again tomorrow?”

  “Girl, you call anytime you want. I’ll keep my phone close.”

  Chapter 6

  MELODY?” MELODY JUMPED AS A hand touched her arm. She looked up at the person, trying desperately to focus on the face before her. “Sara?”

  “Hey there. How are you doing?”

  Melody’s eyes watered, and she reached for the tissue box on the floor beside her. “I’m . . . Well, I’m . . .” Melody sighed and shook her head, placing the empty tissue box in her lap. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Is it?” Melody looked at Sara, then out the window at the room of cribs across from her. Two of the other three cribs in the area were occupied with children of various ages and sizes. She’d watched other moms sitting out in the open with their babies as she sat beside Cole in the relative quiet of the isolation room.

  “I’m back at the hospital. David’s gone and doesn’t even know anything’s happening. And every time a nurse comes to check on Cole, I can see it in her face. Something’s wrong. I don’t understand all that the doctor is telling me, but I know it’s really bad. I just want to go home with my baby, Sara.”

  Sara crouched down beside her, putting her hand on top of Melody’s. “I know you do, honey. Can I help by answering some of your questions? I have to be over in the NICU in a bit, but I came in early to see what I could do for you.”

  Melody was touched. She missed David checking in on her to see how her day was going. She missed finding love notes in the oddest places and the way he loved to surprise her with a rose or catch her in the middle of the kitchen and begin dancing with her. His romantic pursuit of her had caught her attention in high school and sustained her as she adjusted to being a military spouse. Now, she felt every foot of the geographical distance between them.

  “The doctor said his heart is enlarged. What does that mean? Could it be normal for him? What would make a heart grow like that?”

  “Well, lots of different things. It could just be the infection he’s fighting, or it could be something genetic or a symptom of something more serious. Has the doctor ordered an EKG or an ECHO?”

  Melody rubbed her temple, sighing deeply. “I know they’ve done several different things today, but I can’t remember what all they said they were doing. I think EKG was on the list. And they stopped doing his breathing treatments. Won’t that make it harder for him to breathe?”

  “It might, but they’re worried about putting too much stress on his heart. All the medicines we normally use to help the lungs are rough on the heart. The lungs will take longer to heal, but that’s a better option right now until they figure out exactly what’s going on.”

  “Sara, I just don’t know what to do.”

  “Keep being a good momma, Melody. Sit here and remind Cole you love him. Ask God to give you understanding about what the doctors are saying . . .”

  Melody began shaking her head.

  Sara continued, “ . . . and wisdom on the decisions you make.”

  “God doesn’t care about me, Sara.”

  “Melody . . .”

  She looked Sara in the eyes. “He doesn’t.” She looked back at her baby lying in a glass-enclosed crib and shook her head. “He couldn’t love me and do this to me.”

  Melody pulled in her driveway that night and turned off the engine of her 2008 Honda Accord. The world was quiet in their small neighborhood about 25 minutes south of the hospital. No ambulance sirens or beeping pulse oximeters to disturb the peace. She just sat.

  David, I need you, she thought. Do I call you? I know you’d want to know, but if the Army won’t let you come home, then you’ll just be distracted. Who do I ask to find out if this is bad enough to bring you home?

  Melody looked at her phone as it began vibrating. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hey, baby. How are you?”

  She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know.”

  “How’s Cole? Did you find out anything new today?”

  “He’s hanging in there. They stopped his breathing treatments.”

  “Why?” Melody imagined her mom’s eyebrows going up with the sharp question. How she missed the comfort of seeing her mom’s face when they talked.

  “Sara stopped by before she had to go to work. She said the medicine they use to help the lungs also stresses the heart.”

  “Oh. I guess you still don’t know what’s wrong with his heart?”

  Fresh tears slipped down her face. She wanted to scream. Her baby’s heart was fine. It was just a little big, that’s all. He was fine!

  “Melody, honey?”

  “I’m here, Mom. California just seems so far away.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know. I wish you were here, but all I do is sit in a hospital room. There’s no point in you coming for that. I can’t even hold him, Mom.” She leaned her head back against the seat.

  “I’m going to check on airline tickets as soon as we get off the phone, okay?”

  Melody sighed. She didn’t have the strength to argue one way or the other. Her mom could do nothing here, but wouldn’t it be nice to have someone here to walk through this with her? “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too, Melody.”

  “Do you think Cole knows I love him?”

  “I’m sure he does, honey.”

  “What if he feels abandoned? Lying in that bed feeling miserable. People poking him and wires hanging all over the place. What if he thinks that if this is what life is like, then he doesn’t want to get better? Do you think babies think like that, Mom?”

  “Ryan Griffin!”

  “Mrs. Guire. Can I help you?” The receptionist stood to help the old woman who’d just walked in the door of the clinic in Crossing, Oregon, Monday morning.

  “You can find me Ryan Griffin! Or do I need to go knockin’ on doors until I find him myself?”

  “Now, Mrs. Guire. What’s got you all fired up this morning?” Ryan stepped back from the door leading to an examination room to allow his sister, Amber, to walk past him.

  Mrs. Guire pointed her finger at Ryan. “You and me got some talkin’ to do, boy.”

  Amber raised her eyebrows as she looked up at Ryan and rubbed her swollen belly. “Four weeks, right?”

  “Yeah, Am. Dr. Williams wants to see you back about 28 weeks. Let me know if those headaches get worse or more consistent, and watch your center of balance as it’s going to keep changing with the pregnancy.”

  “Got it. Thanks.” Amber turned and walked to the front counter, approaching the woman, who stood at a couple
inches less than her own five-foot-two frame. “He’s all yours, Mrs. Guire.”

  “Well?” The woman stood like a fortress in the small waiting area.

  Ryan wondered how many people mistook her small stature for weakness. At 66 years of age and roughly 100 pounds, she was quite a character, and people preferred to stay on her good side. Or stay out of her way. “How about you come in here and tell me what’s on your mind?”

  He followed her back into the examination room, walking over to the exam table to rip off the paper. Wadding it up and tossing it into the wastebasket, he turned to find her still standing. “Would you like to sit here?”

  “No. I want to know exactly what is going on with my grand-nephew and why you didn’t think it pertinent to inform me immediately.”

  Ryan put his foot up on the stool at the base of the exam table. “You’re grand-nephew?”

  “Are you dense, boy?”

  “I’ve been told I’m irritating at times, but I don’t think I’m dense.”

  “Cole. Cole Podell. David and Melody’s son.”

  Everything clicked into place as realization of the family relationships snapped into view. “You’re Melody’s aunt!”

  She pointed her right index finger at him. “I thought we’d established that at her wedding.”

  “We did, Mrs. Guire. I’m sorry.”

  “So. Tell me. What’s wrong with Cole?”

  Ryan shrugged. “I don’t really know much, ma’am. Melody called about three nights ago saying he was sick.”

  “Sick. I would say he’s sick. They’ve moved him to Duke University.”

  “Duke?” Ryan straightened up. “What happened?”

  “That’s why I’m here! What do you know about this Duke place?”

  Ryan clenched his jaw. “Mrs. Guire, all I know is that Cole was sick with pneumonia, and they suspected something was going on with his heart. The move to Duke tells me that they probably figured out the heart problem and moved him to the best hospital to treat it.”

  “Would you take your baby there?”

  “If I lived in the Southeast, yeah.”

  “So he’s in good hands?”

  “Ma’am, all doctors are fallible. We’re human. And the body is complex and . . .”

  She stepped forward in the small room and wagged her finger in his face. “Son, I don’t need the standard don’t-sue-me speech. Is this hospital gonna take good care of my boy or not?”

  “I have to believe that they will do their best.”

  “And if their best ain’t good enough?”

  “That’s what prayers are for, ma’am.”

  Chapter 7

  DAVID PODELL WIPED HIS BROW as he looked over the Afghanistan landscape. The cold night had given way to temperatures that soared above 100 degrees, and the pounds of protective gear didn’t help provide any comfort. A breeze would be nice, Lord.

  “Podell!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “You see something out on those ridges I need to know about?”

  David scanned again. “No, sir.”

  “You got any reason to believe there’s something up there to see?”

  Other than the fact that we’re in Kunar? “No, sir.”

  Kunar Province definitely included some beautiful landscape, but the hillsides offered great protection to jihadists and smugglers.

  “Then get back to work! The guys following us out to this remote location are counting on us having some friendlies to work with.”

  “Yes, sir!” But as David tried to reach out to any of the villagers willing to talk to him, he kept one eye on the hillsides. Something didn’t feel right.

  Chapter 8

  MELODY WALKED IN HER FRONT door after the drive home from Duke University Hospital and leaned against it. She eyed the couch in the living room across from her and then the hallway leading to her bedroom. I just want to go to sleep and pretend this is all a bad dream.

  She looked at the kitchen refrigerator where her list of home and cell phone numbers for the families of the men her husband deployed with hung. She’d hated that list from the moment David had put it there. “You know, Mel,” he had said, “you can call on the wives for more than just an emergency. They can be your friends to go shopping with or out to lunch with too. All of you are in the same boat here, waiting for your men to come home.”

  He didn’t understand. Those numbers represented pain; those ladies only showed up to help keep a spouse together when there was a major problem—like one of the soldiers getting shot or a death in the family. Calling the team leader’s wife meant something was horribly wrong.

  And she was about to pick up that phone and admit the fact that something was horribly wrong in her own home to another person. Can I say the words? Can I admit out loud what the doctors have told me?

  Her hand shook as she dialed. The phone rang twice before a woman answered with the typical hello.

  “Is this Lisa?”

  “Yes,” the wife of her husband’s team leader replied.

  “This is Melody, David Podell’s wife.”

  “Oh, hi! How are you?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you at home.”

  “It’s not a bother. Really. What’s up?”

  Melody tried to control the tremor in her voice. She couldn’t remember what the woman looked like, although she was certain she had been among the wives at the pre-deployment briefing given by the commander at David’s work. “It’s our baby, Cole. He’s been sick.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you need some help? Can I come over and take care of him for a bit so you can get some sleep?”

  “Uh, no. It’s . . .” Melody’s voice broke as the sobs started. The words wouldn’t come out. They tumbled around in her brain and mocked her.

  “Oh, honey. What’s wrong?”

  Melody couldn’t stop crying long enough to answer. The fear she’d kept under such tight control since this started ran wild through her imagination. Just a week and a half ago, her baby was fine. Eleven days ago, she’d laid him down for a nap like all the days before. How’d we get here? She sunk down on the kitchen floor.

  “Melody, I’m on my way. We live just about ten minutes from you. I’ll be right there.”

  Melody heard a soft knock, and the front door opened. “Melody?”

  She lifted her head, numb. “I’m here.”

  Lisa, a curly redhead in trim jeans and cowboy boots, came around the corner. “Hey.” She walked over and crouched down near Melody. “What’s going on?”

  Melody twisted the kitchen towel in her hands. “Cole’s in the hospital.”

  “At Womack or Cape Fear?”

  “They just moved him this morning to Duke.”

  “Duke? Melody, what happened?”

  Melody sighed deeply. “It started with RSV. His doctor put him in the hospital when they found out he had pneumonia. As they watched him for that, they found something wrong with his heart.”

  “How long has he been in the hospital?”

  Melody tried to think clearly. “This is Monday?”

  Lisa nodded.

  “This is day five.”

  “Oh, girl. Why didn’t you call me sooner? You don’t need to deal with all this by yourself.”

  The tears started welling up. Melody looked at Lisa, needing her to understand. “I didn’t want to be a bother. I know you are busy, and a lot of ladies are having problems.” Melody untwisted the hand towel, focusing for a moment on the weave of the cloth. “It was just a cold.”

  Lisa sat on the floor beside Melody, putting her hand on her thigh. “So what are the doctors saying now?”

  Melody took a deep breath. “His heart problem is called ASD – Atrial something Defect.” She tried to recall the terms used. Atrial Sep . . . Sepgum? Sep . . . something. “I can’t remember what the S stands for.”

  “How bad is it?”

  Melody tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out. She just shook her head as the tears flowed.


  “Take your time, honey.”

  She gulped. “It’s basically a hole in his heart. Some of the blood that’s already been to the lungs is able to circle through the heart and go back into the lungs instead of going out to the rest of the body. So his heart is having to work extra hard to pump blood through the body, and his lungs are getting too much blood.”

  “Are they talking about surgery? Is it something they can fix?”

  “They said surgery can be an option, and they are going to evaluate him for a catheterization of some sort—going in through his leg to put something in the heart to block the hole. But they are worried about him surviving any procedure because the pneumonia is so bad.”

  “Does your husband know any of this?”

  Melody shook her head. “He tried to call last week, but we were at the hospital and I missed it. I don’t think he’s called since.”

  Lisa confirmed Melody’s suspicions. “The guys have been out for several days. All of us are getting anxious to talk to them. Hopefully, they can call home soon.”

  Melody sat quiet, unsure what to say. She needed so much more than just to talk to David and know he was still alive and unhurt.

  “David’s bosses at Command don’t know anything about this yet?”

  “No. I didn’t know who to call, and I didn’t want David to worry if Cole was just going to fight the pneumonia and be fine again.”

  “Melody, I think it’s time we get them involved. They will want to know this is going on, and David should be updated.”

  Melody nodded her head and tried to keep a fresh onslaught of tears at bay. “What do I need to do?”

  “We’ll start by calling the chaplain.”

  The next 24 hours were a bit of a whirlwind as Melody got caught up in the system. The chaplain called the commander, and then the Red Cross got involved. Word was being sent to David, and they were getting him home on the first thing that moved. The chaplain warned her that it could still take up to a week considering David’s location but that he would get priority seating at every stop.

  Lisa called two other ladies, and they organized around-the-clock care for Melody. They would man the phones, clean Cole’s room from top to bottom, and prepare some easy snacks for her to take with her to the hospital.