The Honourable Maverick / The Unsung Hero

by Alison Roberts / Kate Hardy

  There was genuine interest in his tone. He wanted to know how much Josh knew about his illness. Sarah peered into her coffee cup and caught a bit of leftover cinnamon dusted froth on her finger. She licked it off and went back for more.

  ‘It’s acute lymphoblastic leukaemia,’ Josh said with careful pronunciation and obvious pride in his ability to remember.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Josh rolled his eyes. ‘You should know. You’re a doctor.’

  Rick grinned. ‘I do know. I was just wondering if you knew.’

  ‘‘Course I do. I’ve got it.’ Josh sighed with exasperation but co-operated anyway. ‘It means that my white blood cells are wonky and I get too many of them, which means there’s no room for good blood cells and it makes me really sick.’

  Rick nodded. ‘Wish they’d made it sound that easy at med school.’

  ‘I might get fixed this time,’ Josh continued. ‘Because if I get good bone marrow, it might make white cells that aren’t wonky.’

  Sarah watched Rick drain his small coffee cup as though he needed fuel.

  ‘It’s my bone marrow that you’ll be getting,’ he said to Josh. ‘It’s always done a pretty good job for me.’ A muscle in his jaw bunched. ‘You know why it’s my bone marrow that you’ll be getting, Josh?’

  ‘Yeah. You’re my dad.’

  The statement was completely matter-of-fact but it hung in the air with all the presence of an unexploded bomb. This could be it, Sarah realised, unable to expel the breath she’d sucked in. Josh could be in for a rejection of anything but a genetic similarity.

  ‘Yeah…’ Rick said quietly. ‘I’m your father.’

  The correction was subtle but significant. A dad was involved. Part of the son’s life. A father didn’t have to be.

  ‘I never knew,’ Rick added.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s been a bit of a surprise, really.’

  ‘I know that, too.’ Josh tilted his head to scrutinise Rick’s face. ‘I don’t think you’re really scared, though.’

  ‘Who said I was?’

  Josh turned away, clearly avoiding the need to make a response. He stared out of the window and his face suddenly lit up.

  ‘Look at that dog, Sarah.’

  She looked. The dog was large and very scruffy. It sat on the footpath with its nose almost touching the glass, staring up at Josh.

  ‘Isn’t it cool?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Can I go and pat it? Please?’

  ‘Josh, you know you have to be careful of—’ Bugs, she stopped herself saying. Infection that could kill you so fast you wouldn’t know what hit you. ‘Strange dogs,’ she carried on in a slightly strangled voice. ‘They might bite.’

  ‘He wouldn’t bite,’ Josh said with absolute conviction. ‘Look at him.’

  She took a second glance. The dog’s tongue was hanging out. Its tail was sweeping a patch of the footpath clean. Josh was sliding down from his stool and Sarah was aware of Rick’s stillness. She could feel him staring at her. Clearly, he hadn’t been distracted by the dog’s appearance and was still stewing about who had told Josh he was a coward. Maybe an apology of some sort was due.

  ‘OK,’ she told Josh. ‘Just for a minute, though, and be careful.’

  The small boy streaked out of the door. Sarah met Rick’s gaze.

  ‘I told Josh how scary it was to have a kid land on your doorstep,’ she said cautiously. ‘To have your life tipped upside down and everything.’

  Rick’s closed expression was a warning that he had no intention of letting that happen. It was a clear reminder of the terms he had set out and let her know that if the repercussions of those terms being broken were unfortunate, it wasn’t going to be his fault.

  Sarah merely raised an eyebrow to remind him that the repercussions would affect him as well.

  They both looked out of the window to where Josh was crouched beside the dog, hugging it. The dog wriggled with joy and sent a vast, pink tongue across the boy’s face. Sarah couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward and knocked on the window, shaking her head as Josh looked up. She could see the huge sigh he heaved and the difficulty with which he prised himself away from the dog. He even went back for a final stroke before he came back into the café. The dog watched until the door swung shut and then trotted away out of sight.

  ‘Come and finish your milkshake,’ Sarah told Josh. ‘We should probably head home. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.’

  ‘He didn’t have a collar,’ Josh said unhappily. ‘And he shouldn’t be running around on the road by himself, should he?’

  ‘Lots of dogs do that around here,’ Rick said. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, buddy.’ He raised an eyebrow at Sarah, which seemed like a query about whether it would be a good idea to change the subject. Her nod of agreement was subtle.

  ‘So what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?’ Rick asked brightly.

  ‘Shopping, mainly,’ Sarah responded. ‘We’ve got some Harry Potter episodes to stock up on amongst other supplies. And I’m going to try and get hold of Josh’s teacher, Miss Allen, to get some work to pass on to the hospital tutor.’

  ‘What?’ Josh stopped leaning on the counter to peer hopefully out the window. He sounded aggrieved. ‘Do I have to do extra schoolwork?’

  ‘You don’t want to get too far behind, do you? For when you go back to school?’

  ‘I s’pose not. The other kids would think I’m dumb.’

  ‘You’re not dumb, buddy.’ Rick’s statement was firm and Sarah could see the way Josh straightened his back with pride.

  ‘Can we get a hamburger on the way home?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You said I could have whatever I wanted.’

  ‘As long as it’s proper food. Hamburgers are more like junk.’

  ‘Not all of them,’ Rick put in. ‘There’s a gourmet hamburger joint not too far from where we’re sitting, in fact.’

  Sarah frowned. Was he trying to undermine parental boundaries that were hard enough to get established anyway?

  ‘You get things like fresh chicken breast with avocado and bacon,’ Rick said calmly. ‘Or steak. The one I like is grilled lamb with mint and cucumber yoghurt. And you can get kumera wedges instead of chips.’

  Sarah’s mouth was watering.

  ‘I just want an ordinary hamburger,’ Josh complained.

  ‘These are better,’ Rick said in a tone that brooked no further argument. ‘Healthier. You can still get a beef and cheese burger.’

  ‘You seem to know the menu off by heart,’ Sarah said.

  Rick shrugged. ‘Jet and I didn’t always have the time or inclination to cook. And these are seriously good, take my word for it.’

  But Sarah looked at her watch. ‘I don’t think we can,’ she said. ‘We need to get your bag, Josh. You’re due for all your pills.’

  Rick barely hesitated. ‘How ‘bout we all grab some burgers and take them back to my place?’

  Sarah’s hesitation was far more pronounced but Josh was nodding vigorously.

  ‘Yeah…that’s what I want to do. Please, Sarah? Can we? We might see that dog again near the hamburger shop.’

  It had been the polite thing to do, inviting them back.

  Maybe the invitation had been a form of expressing his relief at how easily a potentially awkward situation had come and gone.

  Josh simply accepted the fact that Rick was his father as steadily as he appeared to deal with his illness. No recriminations. No promises extracted regarding future involvement.

  It was easier to get along with the boy than his aunt but what prompted the invitation also included a kind of peace treaty. He could let go of the anger he’d been holding for Sarah. Yes, she had pushed him. Manipulated him. But he’d never have offered to spend time with Josh voluntarily, would he? And now it was done and there were no dark secrets and it all seemed much more straightforward and less threatening.

  She had done the right thing, with no as
sistance from him, and Rick could only respect that.

  So, here they all were, lounging in the comfortable armchairs near the window, eating the enormous burgers and watching the lights come on all over the wharf as work continued into the night.

  A bit different from sitting here with his mates, as he’d done so many times in the past, but it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it could be. The company was quite pleasant, in fact. Not that he’d want it all the time, of course, but…now and again didn’t seem like it would be too much of a hardship.

  Especially if Sarah came with Josh. There was most definitely a pleasure to be found in watching her. Rick knew he was going to be haunted later by the memory of her sitting in that café, sucking coffee froth off her finger. There was a slight moral dilemma here, in that he knew it wasn’t exactly appropriate to find himself turned on by his newfound son’s guardian, but he’d grapple with that later as well. As long as he didn’t act on it, and kept hold of the new level of respect he had for Sarah, it was probably no problem.

  They left soon after eating because Josh was clearly exhausted. Rick followed them out. Sarah got Josh installed in the front passenger seat and his eyes were closing even as she shut the door. Rick touched her shoulder to make her pause before she headed for the driver’s seat.

  ‘Is he OK?’

  ‘He’ll be tired out. It’s been quite a day for him.’

  Rick could understand that. It had been quite a day for him as well. ‘This stuff you’re going shopping for tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘They’re things Josh will need for his stay in hospital?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sarah was watching him, her eyebrows raised.

  ‘I’d…um…like to help pay for it.’

  The moment’s silence was heavy. Sarah held his gaze. ‘It’s not necessary,’ she said.

  But she didn’t sound convincing. About to argue, Rick was stopped by the continued eye contact. The intensity behind it.

  ‘What Josh needs from you is something money can’t buy,’ Sarah said softly. ‘He needs something he’s never had. A dad.’

  Rick could feel every muscle in his body tense. ‘I can’t just morph into a dad, Sarah. I wouldn’t have a clue where to begin.’

  Sarah smiled. ‘There’s no “how to” manual.’ She looked away. ‘You just do your best for as long as you can.’ She captured his gaze again. ‘It might not even be for very long. Couldn’t you at least give it a go?’

  Part of Rick wanted to back away. As fast and as far as possible. He thought of Jet and his action to ward off bad voodoo and the idea of doing it himself had momentary appeal before being dismissed as inappropriate, not to mention immature.

  There was another part of him that couldn’t turn away from this. Not now. Something had changed today, thanks to both Sarah and the remarkable kid who was his son.

  Maybe he’d grown up a little as well.

  His nod was slow, but sure. He even managed a smile.

  ‘I’ll give a shot,’ Rick said. ‘I can’t promise I’ll be any good at it but I’ll do my best.’

  ‘That’s all you need to do.’ Sarah’s smile lit up her eyes. She stood on tiptoe and put her arms around Rick’s neck to hug him. ‘Thank you.’

  It was only a brief hug.

  Weird the way he could still feel it, long after she had driven away into the night.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JOSH was readmitted to hospital early on a Monday morning.

  He received sedation to have the Hickman catheter inserted just under his collarbone and by lunchtime the intensive chemotherapy course to destroy his own bone marrow had begun.

  The room in the bone-marrow transplant unit that was to become their world for the next few weeks felt remarkably like a prison to Sarah. It contained a bed for Josh and two armchairs of the kind that had controls to raise a footrest and tip back so they could be slept in comfortably. A small en suite bathroom a few steps away from the foot of the bed had a shower, toilet and handbasin.

  There were windows on the corridor side of the room, directly opposite an identical room that had yet to pull the curtains on their internal windows. On the outside wall was another window but the view was of another wing of the hospital. Dozens more windows that seemed like blank eyes staring back.

  With a determinedly bright smile, Sarah turned away from the less than inspiring outlook. Josh was propped up on his pillows but still looked sleepy. The leg of a favourite soft toy poked out from under the covers beside him, one of the few personal items that gave this room a little bit of colour. The top buttons of his pyjama jacket were undone to reveal the dressing over the indwelling catheter. Close to that were rather complicated-looking connections that provided several ports. If necessary—and it probably would be—he could be infused with drugs and fluids and blood products all at the same time and there would still be access available to take blood samples.

  Currently, Josh had sticky electrodes on his chest and wires that connected them to a cardiac monitor by his bed. A blood-pressure cuff was wrapped around his upper arm and inflated automatically at intervals to make recordings. A clip that measured the oxygen saturation in his blood completely covered the middle finger of his other hand. The steady beeping was a sound Sarah was well used to. It had been a comforting background, more than once, in the lonely hours of so many nights when she had been sitting alone beside a bed that looked just like this one. Wondering if Josh would still be alive in the morning.

  Déjà vu of the worst kind. Pulling her back into something she would have done anything to be able to avoid. A sinking sensation that carried her on waves of heartbreak. Loneliness and frustration and unbearable sorrow.

  A soft tap on the door advertised the arrival of a visitor and Sarah looked up to see the green gown and white mask that everyone who entered this room would have to wear from now on, including herself. It made everyone look the same and added an element that might end up being the worst aspect of this new admission so far. It felt like she and Josh had been sucked into something faceless. Impersonal.

  Less caring.

  She knew that was totally untrue. If anything, the opposite was the case but the dampening of an important sense in removing most of the features and facial expressions from the staff was hard to get used to. It made a person’s eyes incredibly important as an avenue of communication so it was the first thing her gaze sought. This time, however, she recognised the new arrival even before he’d turned round as he manoeuvred something large and bulky into the room.

  ‘Rick!’

  His eyebrows rose. ‘Is this a bad time to visit?’

  ‘No…not at all. I just.’ Hadn’t expected the visit, that was all. Yes, he’d said he would get involved. Give being a father figure his best shot. But.

  The voices had woken Josh. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘Hey, buddy.’ Rick’s swift glance took in the bedside equipment. The monitors, the indwelling catheter and the bags of suspended fluid with their bright stickers to warn of the toxic drugs they contained. ‘How’re you doing?’

  ‘I’m not being sick yet.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘This?’ Rick picked up the large object resting against his leg. ‘It’s a cork board.’

  ‘You can’t bring things like that in,’ Sarah said. ‘There’s a risk of infection, especially from plant material, and that’s—’

  ‘Been decontaminated,’ Rick interrupted. ‘Sprayed to within an inch of its life. Like this other stuff.’

  She hadn’t noticed the box. Now she was as curious as Josh.

  ‘That looks like the best spot.’ Rick tilted the board and propped it against the wall beneath the window on the corridor side of the room. ‘Easy viewing level when you’re lying in bed, I reckon. What do you think, Josh?’

  ‘I can see it all right.’ Sarah could understand why Josh sounded dubious. A cork board? Was he supposed to draw pictures to pin on i
t like a five-year-old? Or wait for get-well cards from relatives he didn’t have?

  ‘Cool. Now…’ Rick was opening the box. ‘I’ve got something else in here.’

  Josh’s eyelids had started to droop but then he frowned and pushed them open again. ‘What’s that thing?”

  ‘A camera. I know it looks a bit weird. It’s an old-fashioned kind, not digital. Which is why I managed to acquire it. We used to use them in the old days. It’s Polaroid and it takes instant pictures.’ He aimed the camera at Josh and it clicked. Almost at once, a piece of white card began appearing from its base. ‘This is the picture,’ he told Josh. ‘You have to wait for a minute or two for it to develop. See?’

  He was beside the head of the bed now, holding the card for Josh to watch. Sarah watched them, feeling absurdly pleased that Rick had come to visit so early on and that Josh was looking interested. Too distracted to be thinking about anything else, in fact. She felt the same way. The fear and the loneliness and the sense of confinement was gone. Tucked away in some part of her brain that she had no need to access while Rick was there.

  ‘Hey…that’s me.’ Josh sounded delighted.

  ‘Sure is.’ Rick glanced at Sarah, including her in the conversation. ‘It’s a picture of your first day in here. Tomorrow we can take another one. I thought you might like a kind of photo album on the wall so you can see all the milestones on the road to getting better.’

  Josh turned to Sarah. ‘You can take a picture of me throwing up.’

  ‘Cool. Not.’

  ‘There might be some pictures from home you could stick onto the board,’ Rick suggested. ‘To remind Josh of the good stuff he can look forward to when he gets out of here. Maybe even a picture of something extraspecial that could be a reward.’

  ‘A dog,’ Josh said promptly. ‘That’s what I want. My own puppy.’

  ‘Oh, Josh…you know we’re not allowed to keep pets in the apartment.’ Sarah could feel the slide of an emotional roller-coaster. A moment ago she’d been blown away by the thought Rick had put into this gift. The promise of his involvement in saying we could take another picture tomorrow and every day after that. Now he was making her the bad guy here. Letting Josh reveal a dream that she had no hope of fulfilling even if everything else went perfectly.