DOCTOR Woodworth grabbed another sponge as the machines around him screamed alarms. “I need another set of hands,” he said through gritted teeth. “I can’t stop this bleeding.”
“Doctor –” the anesthesiologist said, the warning in his voice conveying all the information the doctor needed.
“I know. I know!” Woodworth said. He grabbed the intern’s hand and said, “Here. Press right here. Don’t move until I tell you to.”
He grabbed the tweezers and a needle and thread and stitched the hole as fast as he could. Blood still poured out from somewhere else, though, and as fast as the nurse could replace the sponge, it filled up.
“Get some more volume in him,” he ordered, gritting his teeth. “He’s losing blood faster than we can get it into him.” The nurse next to him wiped the sweat on his brow. “Clamp,” he ordered, holding a hand out.
“Doctor,” the anesthesiologist said, as the heart monitor next to his chair flat lined.
SARAH rested her head on Maxine’s knee while her sister ran her hand through her hair. She closed her eyes and prayed, prayed for the doctor, for Derrick.
Her stomach muscles tightened, her heart paused for a moment and then beat furiously. Sarah gasped and sat up, hand to chest, while nausea swirled in her stomach. She pushed herself to her feet, shooing away Barry’s hands that suddenly appeared, ready to catch her should she collapse.
“We need to pray,” she said insistently. She gripped Barry’s hand tightly and looked up at the giant, feeling a little bit crazed. “We have to pray right now. Something’s wrong. Something’s really wrong.”
Robin stood and took Sarah’s face in her hands. “Okay. Let’s pray.” She turned and gestured to her chair. “Looks like a good prayer bench to me.”
Sarah collapsed on her knees and started praying, uttering words like, “Please God,” and “I beg you, Father.” Her spirit, though, spoke volumes to God, speaking for her while her mouth simply just couldn’t form the words.
Her family knelt next to her and they all prayed together. Fervently. Passionately. Faithfully.
DOCTOR Woodworth stitched the hole as fast as he could, listening to the alarm of flat line. “Come on come on come on,” he said under his breath, willing his fingers to work faster, more efficiently, more proficiently.
The second he could, he raised his hands out of the chest cavity. “I’m clear!” he said.
The internal paddles were placed on the newly repaired heart and a jolt of electricity was sent through it, hopefully to spark it back to life.
Every eye in the room was trained on the monitor. One breath. Then another. Nothing.
“Push an amp of epi and charge to 50.”
While the defibrillator charged, he re-examined his work. Double checking to make sure that every hole had been sealed – that none of the life giving blood continued to seep from wounds. “I want another X-ray,” he said. “Before we seal him up I want to make sure we got all the metal.”
“Ready,” said the doctor with the defibrillator. “Clear!”
AN hour went by. Then two. Sarah’s knees started to ache before they finally went numb. Eventually, she shifted up into a chair, but she didn’t stop praying. She held the hands of her sisters, who held the hands of their husbands, who held the hands of Peter and Melissa and her mother. In a circle, they prayed. Sometimes out loud, sometimes quietly.
The intensity of the feeling she originally felt started to abate. The grip on her heart loosened. Knowing she had started the praying and that they would end it only with her, she finally whispered, “Amen.” Around the circle, a chorus of “amens” echoed and one by one, and hands were released.
Sarah rolled her head on her shoulders and stood to stretch. The she noticed the doctor standing in the doorway.
With a voice that screamed fatigue, he said, “I didn’t want to interrupt, but I need to speak to the family of Derrick DiNunzio.”
Sarah didn’t recognize him, but she hadn’t worked surgery in a long time. “We are his family.”
The doctor scanned the faces in the room and finally slipped his do-rag off his head. “I’m Doctor Woodworth,” he said by way of introduction. “I – I don’t know how to explain this.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Derrick was in bad shape. The bullet fragmented when it entered his body, and there were pieces of metal everywhere.”
Sarah focused on the word “was”. Past tense. What did that mean?
The doctor continued. “We worked as fast as we could, but he lost a significant amount of blood. I couldn’t…” Tears burned his throat and he had to clear it to continue speaking. “While we were in there, a fragment pierced his heart. I couldn’t work fast enough to stop the bleeding.”
Sarah’s head started reeling. No. Not possible. “I couldn’t,” were NOT the words that the doctor was supposed to say, especially when speaking in the past tense. He was supposed to say something like, “It was a fight, but he’s in recovery now.”
The family let out a collective gasp. Someone started crying. Sarah reached forward and gripped the doctor’s wrist. “Please,” she whispered.
Male hands touched her shoulders, trying to comfort her or restrain her, she didn’t know which.
“At some point, I was certain all was lost. As I worked, I started praying for God’s help. As I came in here and saw you all in such intense prayer, I know how what happened … happened.”
A glimmer of hope sparked to life in Sarah’s heart.
The doctor continued. “All I know is that Mr. DiNunzio should be dead, and there is no reason why he’s alive and in recovery right now other than God deemed that it would be so.”
A loud sound of relief moved through the group like a wave. “In recovery?” Sarah said.
The doctor smiled. “Yes. I’m sorry. I am in such awe of what happened that I forgot to start with that information. He is severely critical. I’m not even going to guess his chances, medically. But he shouldn’t even be alive and he is. So, let’s go with that and trust God.”
With a sob of happiness, Sarah threw her arms around the doctor’s neck. She started crying and didn’t know how to stop. All she could do was say, “Thank you, God,” over and over again.
Sarah continued her prayer; ignoring the nurse who rushed in moments later, ignoring the deep sigh that the doctor breathed, ignoring the deafening silence that fell over the entire room.
CHAPTER 23
“PUT your foot here,” Derrick said, gripping Sarah’s slim ankle in his hand and helping her find a solid toehold. “Now reach above you and grip that piece of rock with your right hand.”
“What piece of rock?”
Derrick pointed. “That one.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes. “There’s no way that’s going to hold me.”
Derrick grinned. “Trust me.”
With a huff, Sarah reached up and grabbed the little piece of rock jutting out of the mountain face. She pulled herself up and Derrick followed, providing instruction and advice as he lifted, pulled, tugged, and maneuvered both of them up the mountain side.
Sarah stood in the small crevice and put her hands on the small of her back. The hot sun beat down on them, causing her face to glow with sweat. She pulled her canteen off her belt and took a small swallow. “You okay?” she asked him as he pulled himself up and over onto the rock next to her.
With a habitual movement, he rubbed his chest. “I’m perfectly fine,” he said. “This is the best thing for me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t want you over doing it.”
“Yes, doctor.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Just nurse. I’m only thinking about doctor.”
“You can do it. You can do anything.”
She offered him the canteen and he gratefully accepted it. “As long as you’re rooting for me, I believe I can,” she said with a smile.
Derrick turned and looked at the view. The magnificence of God’s creation stared back at him from their vantag
e point high above the beautiful Masachusetts wilderness.
“You know, I stood here, in this spot, about eight months ago.”
“Oh?” Sarah asked.
He walked up to her and slipped an arm around her waist. “Yes. I was distraught.”
Sarah tilted her head back and grinned at him. “You? You’re the picture of contentment. What had you distraught?”
Derrick shifted until he faced her. He slid his hands over her shoulders and down her arms until he held both of her hands in his. “My love for you,” he said, looking deep into her eyes.
Sarah, whose heart had started beating double time with the touch of his hands, felt her chest clench and her breath hitch. She looked up at him, feeling like she would drown in the brown depths of his eyes. He was so strong, so handsome, and she had come so close to losing him that sometimes she had nightmares about it. “I wouldn’t want our love to cause you distress,” she said in a whisper.
With a crooked smile, Derrick raised her left hand and kissed the gold and stones that graced her ring finger. The day he got out of the hospital, long weeks after the bullet fragment pierced his heart, he took the ring with the square cut topaz out of a drawer in his bedroom and, in front of their family, knelt next to where Sarah sat on his couch and claimed his love for her, his adoration of her, and told her how much the topaz paled in comparison to her beautiful honey-brown eyes. He asked her to marry him, and he barely had the question out before she had her arms around his neck as she said, “Yes, yes, yes,” over and over again.
Now here they stood on this beautiful mountain the morning after their wedding night. Sarah could not imagine a more perfect place to spend their honeymoon, learning Derrick’s favorite pastime away from family, friends, and any kind of technology that might beckon him back to work.
“At the time it was simply my love. You hadn’t yet realized that you returned it.” He cupped her cheek and kissed her softly. “I climbed up here and prayed, begging for God’s direction. Then I went to your house to ask you to marry me, but you threw up all over me instead.”
Sarah laughed and stepped back. “I did no such thing. I never missed the bucket.” With Derrick’s cocked eyebrow, she waved her hand. “Well, maybe once.”
His face sobered again and Sarah felt a fluttering in her stomach at the look on his face. “I have loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you, sweetheart. And I will love you until we reach the end of eternity.”
Stepping forward and slipping her arms around his waist, she rested her head on his chest and listened to the beautiful sound of his heart beating. She vividly remembered sitting in the hospital room with him, breathing in time to the machines, listening to the beep-beep-beep as the monitor signaled the rhythm of his heart. “God has given us a beautiful gift in our love,” she said. “He brought us together, then He healed you with a miracle. I sometimes feel like we can never do enough to be worthy of this gift.”
Stroking her cheek with a finger, Derrick smiled. Then he shrugged out of his backpack and dug around in it until he pulled out a couple of energy bars. “All we can do is love Him and serve Him with all our heart.” He winked as he handed her the snack. “Heart, not hearts. Did you catch that? Because we’re one, now, you and me.”
Sarah slipped an arm around his waist and looked out over the beautiful view, admiring the wonder of God’s creation. “I’m blessed.”
THE END
EPILOGUE
IT was October, but the Florida Keys varied little in the sense of changing weather. For a brief time, they worried that the tropical depression sitting a few hundred miles off the coast in the Atlantic would affect their plans. At the last minute, the storm veered in its course and allowed for the perfect day. The sky was blue enough to hurt the eyes. The sun was warm enough to allow short sleeves. The air was fresh enough that spirits felt rejuvenated just breathing it.
Across the sloping lawn that led to the beach, white covered tables nearly bowed under from the weight of the food. Every several yards, drink stations were set up, manned by a wait staff all in white who worked under the expert eye of Mrs. Tony Viscolli. In the kitchen, the army of decorators unwound with cool drinks after hours under the drilling command of Mrs. Barry Anderson. And the children were relaxed and refreshed after an afternoon spent with Mrs. Derrick DiNunzio.
All in all, it was a perfect party.
The guest list ranged from the country’s most prominent to the bartender who ran the seediest bar on the south side of Boston, with dress ranging from black tie to black leather. An hour before, the crowd had buzzed with the surprise arrival of President Cummings, while some had shifted position to avoid being in the way of the big guy with the goatee who went by Hank. But the sisters saw neither political affiliation nor social status. They merely looked out at the hundreds of people and saw Tony’s friends and associates, all those who had come to the extreme southern part of the country to pay homage to him on his fiftieth birthday.
Near the cake that rose six tiers, a lone microphone waited. Antonio Viscolli rarely let an opportunity go by without giving a speech, and his wife knew him well enough to know that and have it installed even under his protests. After the cake was cut and the champagne poured for the toast, she gave a secret smile to her youngest sister as he took the miniature stage.
He waited with a smile on his face as the applause died down, then cleared his throat while he scanned the sea of faces. “My wife worried that no one would come,” he said, then waited until the laughter faded away. “I want to thank you all for being here. The honor I feel at seeing so many friends at one time is a great one, and I feel it deeply.
“Birthdays are a time of gifts, but this year I’ve decided to give rather than receive.”
Robin sat at the table with the rest of the family and glanced up when she felt someone at her elbow. Surprised, she took the thin box from the uniformed waiter. Tony continued to speak. “In December, it will be eighteen years since I asked my wife to marry me. At the time I was willing to do anything at all to get her to say yes. As it was, all it took was offering her a trip to Italy.”
More laughter followed Robin’s surprised gasp. He grinned at her from his spot. “Small change compared to the joy she’s given me over the years. For the two beautiful children. TJ, fourteen and already a championship rower, Madeline, my precious little girl who just became a teenager. It was just yesterday that you two were born, and here we are.” He paused while his children looked at each other and grinned embarrassed smiles. “Cara, about three hundred people are waiting for you to open your present.”
While Robin fought the bright paper, Tony explained his gift. “She’s always complaining that the jewelry I buy her is too much. Too flashy. Too expensive. I’m afraid that she has nearly quit even opening the boxes, very frustrating for a man who enjoys beautiful gems, I assure you.” He felt the familiar glow she always brought him as he watched her hold up the simple sapphire hanging from a thin gold chain. “Maybe this one you’ll actually wear, my love.”
Murmurs flew through the crowd as Robin secured the chain around her neck and clutched at the stone. Maxine was so involved in watching Robin, that she didn’t realize a waiter holding an identical package stood at her arm until he tapped her on the shoulder.
“Maxine, my sweet. So many years ago we feared we’d lost you for good. You who lights up a room just by walking into it, and who has gifted this world with your magnificent art. To Maxi, the mother of my four precious nieces and nephews, to the wife of my best friend and brother. You are the one who always complained that you didn’t get the flashy jewelry. Well, sweetheart, this was the flashiest I could find.”
Other women would have oohed and ahhed over the emerald the size of a robin’s egg centered in three strands of emeralds and diamonds. Maxine, though, threw back her head and laughed. She removed the thick gold band from around her neck and put the new necklace in its place. What should have been tacky and overdone somehow found its home as
it complimented her black sheath perfectly.
Sarah’s face fused with color when Tony turned his attention to her. “This brings me to our little pixie Sarah, the one whose strength binds our family, who is our constant voice of reason. The one who has spent her career in service to others, helping deliver countless babies. She is the wife of the man who is my brother in my heart, and the mother of his almost three children.” He grinned down at her while she hid the fact that she was having another contraction. She wondered if it would be rude to tell him to hurry up.
“Your husband has been about as bad as I am with my lovely wife in showering you with presents. So it was hard for me to find something you may not already have. But somehow, I managed it. The bracelet he gave you for your 30th birthday was a rare find. He wanted the topaz, but he wanted a certain color. He was so proud of it, and discovered during his search that it originally had a matching necklace.”
Sarah felt the man at her shoulder and took the thin box from him. Her hands shook so badly that she worried she’d drop it, and she nearly cried in relief when Angela, her three year old, clambered forward to help her open her present. “After months of searching,” Tony continued, “I finally located the matching necklace. To inspect it, my buyer had to fly all the way to Australia.” Sarah lifted the necklace out of the box and barely saw the strand of pearls interlaced with topaz gems the color of honey through her tears. Maxine crouched behind her and removed her pearl choker, helping her fasten the new necklace.
“You sisters are the jewels in my life, in the lives of my brothers. You are the reason we are complete, the reason we greet each new day fresh, ready to tackle the next thing the world brings us.
Topaz Heat (Christian Romance) (The Jewel Series) Page 19