Malcolm wished the clock could turn back. He wished he’d never heard Karissa’s confession. More than anything, he wished he could be someone who could look past his own pain and forgive her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Before the surgery on Friday morning, Karissa and Malcolm went with Stephanie to the prep room. They talked briefly with Dr. Schmidt, Dr. Mizra, and the anesthesiologist. To Karissa’s surprise, Malcolm began to cry. Tears leaked from his eyes, seemingly of their own accord. She’d never seen him cry before, not ever. Involuntarily, she reached out and clutched at his sleeve.
“I love her so much,” he whispered, looking down at their daughter. “I don’t want to lose her.”
For the first time since her confession, they were drawn together by their love for Stephanie. In that moment the past was gone, and only right now mattered.
“We’ll pray,” Karissa murmured.
He looked at her. “I thought you were mad at God.”
She had been, but that didn’t mean her faith was completely gone. “I know He can help the surgeons make her well.”
Malcolm had said the same thing in the blessing he and her father had given Stephanie early that morning. Funny how impressed her father had been with Malcolm and his new activation in the Church. Under other circumstances, Karissa would have laughed.
If only things could be different, thought Karissa. She longed for Malcolm to hold her in his arms and comfort her, but there was too much keeping them apart. More than anything she wanted to be back in her house taking Stephanie down the slide in the greenhouse.
“We need to get to it,” Dr. Schmidt said.
Dr. Mizra smiled. “Don’t worry. Your daughter’s in good hands.”
Karissa kissed Steph, knowing that she should see her very soon. But there was an unspeakable dread in her heart. What if something went wrong? What if Steph died? She knew she would never forgive herself. If her baby died—again—Karissa didn’t want to live either.
As Karissa and Malcolm left the prep room, the wall went up again between them, strong and immutable. Malcolm’s tears were gone and his fists clenched. Karissa didn’t know what to say to reach him.
She went to the waiting room to talk to her parents, but found it too much effort to carry on a conversation. She tried to read the Ensign Delinda had given her. The few articles the visiting teacher had marked talked about forgiveness, a theme Delinda apparently enjoyed discussing; her lessons for the past months had been full of nothing else. So far, none of the lessons or the reading affected Karissa. Not one of those people had committed the heinous act that tortured her conscience. She deliberately avoided the talks Delinda had marked.
Damon had slipped quietly into the waiting room without alerting her to his presence. He smiled at her with a look so full of love that she was sure everyone must know how he felt, but seeing him made her heart lighter. Damon stayed well away from Malcolm, whose brooding eyes stared into nothingness. Had they talked about her the day before? Karissa found she didn’t care. All that mattered was Stephanie.
She let the Ensign slip to the floor and began saying the longest prayer she’d ever attempted. As she prayed, she kept Delinda’s Jesus pictures in her mind, particularly the one she’d been given at Brionney’s. The baby was Steph; perhaps that vision of her in the Savior’s arms would mean her safe recovery.
Or could it mean her death.
Oh, please, dear Father. Please. I know I’m not worthy, but please!
Karissa didn’t know what else to say. She said the same words over and over. She knew the Lord could save her baby—if it was His will. If not, Stephanie would die.
All at once, she felt a rapidly beating heart inside her ears. It was far too fast for an adult, and she knew it was Stephanie’s tiny heart. For some unanswered reason, God had allowed her to feel the pulse of her daughter’s physical life.
Karissa suddenly had trouble breathing, and she couldn’t move. I’m with you, Steph, she said in her mind. For twenty minutes she couldn’t stir, not even to open her eyes. It was as if every muscle of her body had simply stopped working. She heard worried voices talking to her, but there was no way she would sever the physical and spiritual connection she had with Stephanie by attempting a response. Not being able to move or breathe frightened her—or was it Steph who was afraid?—but through it all the steady thump, thump, thump of her daughter’s heart comforted Karissa.
Gradually, the immobilizing effect wore off, and Karissa felt the connection with her daughter slip away, the baby’s heart still beating strongly. Karissa opened her eyes. The first person she saw was her mother, sitting next to her and patting her hand. Malcolm and her father stood in front of her with worried expressions on their faces. Some remote part of her wondered if perhaps Malcolm still cared. Behind Malcolm she could see Damon standing with Brionney and Jesse, who must have come in during the surgery.
“It’s over,” she said. “And Steph’s okay.”
They gaped at her, but Karissa stood and waited by the operating room door. In five minutes Dr. Schmidt emerged, smiling. “Everything went well,” he said, “but we did have some complications. Not only did Stephanie have a web, but her pancreas had also grown around her bowel. We had to cut a new hole in her bowel to bypass the pancreas, then sew the intestine to the new hole in the bowel. So essentially, what we thought was going to be a minor procedure was actually major surgery. But your daughter is a strong little girl, and her chances of full recovery are very high.”
“When can I see her?” Karissa asked.
“She’s in recovery now. When she begins to wake, we’ll call you. But only you and your husband will be allowed in the intensive care unit. When she’s stronger, she’ll be able to have other visitors. I need to warn you that it’s going to take a lot longer than we thought for her to recover. Any time you do surgery like this, you interfere with the way a person can assimilate food. So until the tests tell us she’s ready, Stephanie will be able to eat nothing except the nourishment we can mix in her IV solution. It will probably take a week until she can eat normally.”
Karissa looked at Malcolm to see how he’d taken this news, but he turned away to talk with her father, avoiding her gaze. She felt like crying. Maybe she should leave Malcolm; obviously their life together could never be the same. But she didn’t want to leave him. She loved him.
“You felt Steph during the surgery, didn’t you?” her mother said.
Karissa nodded. “It was the strangest sensation.” Why had the Lord allowed her, a sinner, to have such an experience? Karissa had no answer.
Damon studied her. “You and Stephanie must have a very strong connection—something extremely special.”
Karissa sighed. “I’ll spend my whole life making this up to her, if only . . .”
Nobody cared to finish her statement.
When Karissa was finally allowed to see Stephanie, her heart broke. This wasn’t the same baby she had kissed before the surgery. A long, bloody patch stretched across her stomach, and she had a new IV coming out of a vein in her head. Wires dangling from her thin body were hooked to nearby monitors. Stephanie whined as if she was in agony, pushing her tiny stomach out with the force of her shallow breaths.
Tears blurred Karissa’s vision as she and Malcolm tried to comfort their child. Stephanie’s pain only increased as she came to full consciousness, and she began to scream—bloodcurdling screams that were the stuff of nightmares. My fault. This is my fault. The words echoed in Karissa’s mind.
Finally, the nurse gave Stephanie a dose of morphine. Almost immediately, she stopped crying and went to sleep. Hours passed before Karissa was allowed to hold her daughter, and then carefully because of the wires and IV. She cradled Stephanie gently in her arms until deep into the night, when Malcolm relieved her. Then she went into the bathroom, expressed milk from her swollen breasts, and poured it down the drain.
* * * * *
The next morning, Malcolm prepared to leave for his pare
nts’ house to shower and rest. “Call if she needs me.”
Karissa didn’t miss the insinuation. If Steph needed him, he would come, but not if Karissa needed him. She’d lost the right to need her husband. A sliver of resentment surfaced in Karissa’s heart. He had turned to religion for his comfort, but his treatment of her surely didn’t agree with gospel standards.
You deserve it, she told herself, and she knew it was true.
“Malcolm,” she began.
“What?” He paused, his face stern.
“About us. What—”
His face twisted into some emotion she couldn’t place. Disgust? Anger? Hatred? Probably all three. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t know.”
When he was gone, the nurse came in to give Stephanie another dose of morphine, preventing Karissa from thinking about her husband any further.
“Your daughter will be moved out of intensive care tonight,” the nurse said. “She’s doing really well.”
For the first time that day, Karissa smiled.
“And oh,” the nurse added, “there’s someone in the hall waiting to see you. He’s been there quite some time. I told him to leave, that only family could visit, but it seems he has some pull with Dr. Schmidt.”
“Damon Wolfe,” Karissa said.
“He wants you to grab some lunch with him at the cafeteria.”
Karissa glanced down at Stephanie.
“I’ve just given her the morphine,” the nurse said. “She won’t wake up. I’ll stay with her until you return.”
Karissa felt comfortable with the care Steph was receiving. She and Malcolm had never left Stephanie alone in the nurses’ or doctors’ care except during the surgery, but maybe now it would be all right for a short time. “Thank you,” she said. “I won’t be long.”
Damon grinned as she came out of the room. She could see his gold filling glint briefly in the fluorescent light. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
Karissa laughed. “You’re nuts, you know that? Here I’ve been sleeping in hospital chairs for five nights, and I’ve bathed only once since we came here.”
“You look good to me.”
They went to the cafeteria. Karissa ate quickly, as was her habit since coming to the hospital. “Slow down or you’ll choke,” Damon said, drawing his thick eyebrows together in mock disapproval. “Chew at least twice before you swallow.”
Karissa tried to slow down, and to her surprise, the chicken tasted good. She smiled at Damon, feeling almost shy. The warmth in his eyes threatened to overwhelm her—especially after Malcolm’s coldness. “I think Malcolm might leave me,” she said.
Damon’s feathery eyebrows drew together. “You sound sad. Is that how you feel?”
Karissa flipped back the ends of her hair, remembering how Malcolm had reacted when she had told him she was pregnant. Oh, how they’d loved each other then! Did all that now mean nothing?
She became aware of Damon’s eyes on her, watching, waiting. “I have to go back,” she said. “I don’t like leaving Stephanie.”
He walked with her to intensive care but hesitated in the hall. “Why don’t you come in and see Steph?” she asked. “They seem to let you do just about anything you want at this hospital.”
“It comes with the job. I’m on the hospital board here, too.”
“Job?” she teased. “You haven’t been to work today.”
“Of course not. It’s Saturday.”
When they reached the door to Steph’s room, they found it open. Karissa was startled to see a doctor bending over the open side of the metal crib. The nurse stood poised with a large needle near the IV line, her face pale and frightened. By contrast, Stephanie’s entire head was blue.
“Stephanie! Stephanie!” Karissa rushed to her daughter’s side. She seemed never to reach the bed. My baby! she cried silently.
The doctor resuscitated Stephanie several times with a hand pump before the baby responded. As he worked, the nurse shot the drug into the IV.
When Stephanie was stable, the nurse said, “I’m sorry about the morphine. It was too much.”
“What?” Karissa asked.
“That’s what made her stop breathing,” the doctor answered. “Too much morphine will put a part of your brain to sleep—in this case, the part that tells you to breathe. It’s hard to judge the correct amount, especially on someone so small.”
“But she’s okay now?” Damon asked quickly.
“Yes. We put a drug in her IV that shocks the brain into waking up. She’ll be all right, but in a while she’ll be in pain again.”
The nurse and doctor withdrew, leaving Karissa and Damon alone with Stephanie. The monitor showed that Steph was all right, but Karissa knew her baby had nearly died.
“It never ends!” Karissa cried. “Never! She’s had to go through too much. Too much! I will never have any more children, ever. What possessed me to think I could do it? I won’t ever risk making another child going through so much pain because of my sins.”
Damon drew her into his arms and held her until her sobbing subsided. “Did you ever think that maybe Stephanie chose this path?” he asked gently.
She froze. “What are you saying—that Steph knew she would go through all this pain but agreed to do it anyway? That’s ridiculous!”
“I’m not so sure. Having a body is a wonderful privilege.”
“She could have any body, not the poor one I gave her.”
Damon shook her, but without anger. “Kar, you are special! Is it so difficult to believe that Stephanie chose to come to you because she loves you and wants to share your life? Well, I can believe it, because that’s exactly how I feel. I would go through hell to make you happy.”
“What is going on here?” Malcolm demanded, suddenly appearing in the doorway.
Karissa stiffened against Damon, and he released her. “I don’t care a hill of beans about what Malcolm thinks,” Damon said, “but I know you do.” He turned to Malcolm. “There’s nothing at all going on here. I’m only doing what you should be doing—taking care of your wife and baby. If you weren’t so blind you’d see that you’re throwing everything away.” He stalked out of the room, and Malcolm glared after him.
Karissa looked at her husband, her eyes full of unshed tears. “We can’t let them give Steph any more morphine. She stopped breathing because of it. I almost lost her . . . like I’ve lost you.”
“Dear Lord,” Malcolm prayed. To her utter surprise, he put his arms around her. She clung to him, letting her fears rush out in heartrending sobs.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Malcolm had never been so confused in his life. Not even when he and Karissa had clashed over his smoking. Yesterday, when he held her in his arms, he had felt love for her. But something wouldn’t allow him to forget that she’d loved another man before him and had lied about it. Not only had she shattered his dream of the woman he thought she was, but she had affronted him by both the action and the lie.
A part of him didn’t care, and that part wanted to protect her, to soothe away her pain. But could he trust her again? And where did Damon fit into the picture?
“There’s someone in the waiting room to see you, Mr. Mathees,” a nurse said, interrupting his thoughts.
“Thanks. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Malcolm looked at Karissa, who was asleep in the easy chair next to the empty metal crib, with Stephanie lying face up on her chest. They had been moved from intensive care the night before, though Stephanie was still on oxygen. She also had a tube going into her nose and down to her stomach. This connected with a pump which extracted anything that might be in her stomach, allowing the intestines and bowels to heal. Stephanie had a new IV in her leg, and Malcolm wondered how long until this vein would blow as the others had. He felt disheartened at Stephanie’s continuing pain, and wondered how Karissa could bear it.
His wife shifted in her sleep. She had dark circles under her eyes, and the hollows in her cheeks were deeper th
an he’d ever seen them. “I wish things could be different,” he whispered. Tears of remorse and pain escaped from the corners of his eyes.
In the waiting room, he found Jesse pacing the carpet. “Hi,” Malcolm said, forcing a weary smile.
“How’re you two holding up?”
“We’re fine,” Malcolm lied. “You don’t have to keep coming by every day.”
“Are you kidding? Brionney would kill me if I didn’t. Besides, I want to see how things are for myself.”
“Well, they’re still getting too much fluid out of her stomach, which means her system might not be healing the way it should. The doctor warned us that she might need another surgery.” Malcolm swallowed hard, finding it difficult to speak. “And her veins keep blowing. They’re worried about not having any good ones left to feed her. They’ve given us two choices, both minor surgeries to put in a permanent type of IV. We’ve agreed to take the one with the least risk. Other than that, Stephanie seems to be holding steady. She’s in constant pain, though.”
Jesse groaned sympathetically. “That’s really tough, Malcolm. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“What I came to ask you was that since you can’t come to church, we wondered if we could come to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The doctors have agreed to let us use one of their staff rooms. We thought we’d get together and have a sacrament meeting. We have it approved by our bishop.”
“The room is no doubt Damon’s gift,” Malcolm said, tasting gall.
“Yeah. Nice guy.” Jesse didn’t appear to notice Malcolm’s displeasure. “Your parents and Karissa’s will be there. And Brionney. Damon, too. What do you say?”
Malcolm thought how good it would feel to take the sacrament. Maybe in the meeting he could find a solution to his problem. “Sounds good. Thank you for thinking of it.”
Jesse slapped him on the back. “Don’t mention it. But when your daughter is baptized, I expect to be an honored guest.”
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