by Jana Barkley
“In Sam’s case,” he said, more serious, “we’re dealing with a body that has suffered a severe drop in its ability to fight infections. She has pneumonia right now, which probably started as a simple cold. The chemotherapy she has received for the past eight weeks has worked well at killing cancer cells, but it also has devastated the cells she needs to fight off disease.”
Hank felt his pulse pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears.
“We can use antibiotics if it’s a bacterial pneumonia, but without the help of her immune system, antibiotics will not be enough to fight this. What I’m trying to do now is to boost what is left of her natural immune system and see if Sam’s body will fight back on its own.”
Mary Kate started to weep.
Dr. Franco paused before he spoke. “We’re not out of the woods by a long shot, but here is my plan.”
Hank listened, his features frozen.
“I’ve implanted two chest tubes to drain the infection from her lungs.” He showed them how the tubes were inserted through her chest wall in her back.
“The more infectious material we can drain, the easier it will be for her body to fight this. We’re culturing the infection now so we know which type of infection she has and what antibiotics it is susceptible to. I’ve also stopped her chemo to see if her immune system will bounce back. If…” he paused, checking to make sure he had their attention, “if this doesn’t work, we may have to consider a bone marrow transplant. That’s where we take healthy bone marrow cells from a donor and transfuse them into her system.”
“Using healthy cells to fight the infection,” Hank said.
“Yes,” said Dr. Franco, “that’s it.” He stood up and they did, too.
“I won’t know if we have to take this step for a while yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I do. Would you give me your number?”
Hank reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card for the doctor, who did the same for him. It was easier than talking, and he didn’t feel he could do that well, yet.
“Can I see her now?” he asked.
Dr. Franco nodded. “Just you,” he said to Hank. He looked at Mary Kate in apology.
“I’ll wait here,” Mary Kate said with a look demanding he come back and fill her in. Hank followed Dr. Franco through the automatic doors that cracked open to admit the two of them.
Turning back to Hank, he explained, “She’s unconscious for a reason. We want her body to retain all of her strength to fight this sickness, so we’ve given her something to make her sleep.”
At Dr. Franco’s direction, a nurse led Hank to a dim, glass-walled room. The curtain was drawn, so he couldn’t see if Sam was in there. The nurse made him put on a paper smock, gloves, and a mask before she opened the door and let him in.
Stepping past the drape, he saw her slight form laid out with more tubes and monitors attached to her than he’d expected. He felt his gullet rise, and had to close his eyes for a moment. Opening them, he sought her face, the face of his beautiful girl, so pale and so void of the smile he’d come to count on like air.
He moved around to the side of the bed. The steady beat of the heart monitor was reassuring, but seeing the rapid, shallow rise and fall of her chest distressed him.
He pulled the chair next to the bed up close and sat. He hated being wrapped up in paper and latex to be near her, but it was better than nothing. He took her pale hand in his and held it close to his face, breathing in the scent of her. Her golden hair, which earlier had been plastered to her head with sweat, now spilled around her face and over her pillow. He reached up to stroke it.
The same nurse who had shown him in stepped in for a moment to inject medication into Sam’s IV. Wearing the same protective clothing he was, she smiled down at Hank with her eyes. He could tell she was used to dealing with family members of critical care patients.
“She’s resting well,” she said, reaching up to brush some hair from Sam’s forehead. “Did the doctor tell you they gave her some medicine to make her sleep?”
He nodded.
“We’re going to help her breathe better by putting her on a machine that breathes for her,” she explained. “She needs to stay unconscious for this, but it will make her job of fighting this infection easier.”
Although it was painful, he listened to the nurse explain how everything would be done. Then she left to give Hank an opportunity to be alone with Sam for a few more minutes.
At last, tears found their way into his eyes, and he buried his face in her hand. After a few ragged moments, he stood up and leaned in to put his mouth near her ear, his hand caressing her pale cheek.
“I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. Come back to me.”
Then the nurse was there, signaling it was time for him to leave.
Come back to me, Sam.
He left the ICU, crumpling up and disposing of the smock, gloves, and mask he’d been given. In the waiting room entrance, he saw Mary Kate rise in expectation of news. His throat constricted. He walked quickly past her and through another set of doors into a long corridor with windows.
Mary Kate found him with his hands and forehead pressed up against the glass, staring out at the black night sky and the illuminated rooms from the hospital wing across the courtyard. Traffic crawled in tiny lines of light in the distance—the everyday world that no longer mattered.
He knew she wanted to hear details about what was going on with Sam, but he just didn’t have it in him to do it right then.
All he could think of were Sam’s eyes earlier, when she had gazed up at him as he sat on the end of his truck and held her. They held no fear, only sadness. And for some crazy reason, he thought of a hawk he’d had when he was seventeen years old and living in the wilds of Wyoming on his parents’ cattle ranch. She’d been a big female. He’d trapped her late in the season, and like all late-trapped birds, she was hard to train and fiercely independent. When she’d softened and taken Hank in as a willing hunting partner, he’d forged a deeper and more fulfilling bond with her than any other red tail he’d flown. Then she’d gotten sick. Asper—a fungus in the lungs that always bore a grim prognosis. He’d held his dying hawk in his hands, devastated by the ferocity in her eyes and her tenacious demand to survive in spite of pain or sickness. She’d had that in the end, even after the life had left her body and he’d had to close her eyelids.
He turned to Mary Kate, trying to come up with something to say; he knew she needed more from him, and he pulled himself together while he told her about the breathing machine and how Sam looked. He stood with his arm around her shoulders, trying to be strong for her as they both stood looking out at the night. Mary Kate took a deep, shuddering breath now that she’d stopped crying, and he was about to suggest they find a place to get some coffee and wait, but he stopped short when he noticed her holding a rolled-up piece of paper.
“What the hell is that?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
Mary Kate hesitated to show him but relented and handed it over.
He recognized the F186-A and opened it up with shaking hands. It was filled out with Chance’s information, and at the bottom was Sam’s feminine signature.
“I asked her to fill this out for Chance’s sake—in case of an emergency,” Mary Kate said with a muffled sob.
It was too much. He crushed the form in his hands and ran from the corridor. Pushing through swinging doors with the energy of a madman, he left Mary Kate to her own grief in the empty hallway.
Dispersal: The wild raptor’s instinctual desire to migrate to new territory
Chapter Forty-Two
Fireflies danced and sparkled in a soft, hazy twilight. “There’s more down by the creek,” a voice whispered, but she didn’t want to leave the ones hovering and playing right in front of her face. But we don’t have fireflies here. Only back home. Home.
Dusk gave way to light, bathing her vision in a blur that settled into gradual clarity. The fireflies danced into the form of a dangling crysta
l pendant hanging in front of her face from off of the ample bosom of a nurse. Sunlight from the window, shining like only the first rays of morning light can do, refracted in the brilliant, myriad facets of the pendant and created a fairy-like light show that sparkled in her eyes and danced on the walls.
“Well, look who’s awake,” said a rich alto voice. It was the nurse leaning over her to change her bed linens. Sam had always marveled at the things nurses could do with the patient still in bed.
Ah, she was the patient. Her groggy mind began to wrap itself around her surroundings.
“Isn’t it pretty?” the nurse said. She had seen Sam staring at the crystal and picked it up between her short fingers. “My grandbaby gave this to me for my birthday.”
The woman’s face was round and full of flesh, and also full of warmth. With that face, she could have been anybody’s grandmother.
“How are you feeling, princess?” asked the nurse, standing back to evaluate her better.
Princess? Sam grimaced. She tried to talk but nothing came out.
“It’s all right,” said the nurse with a knowing nod. “Your voice will come back soon. They removed the tube that was helping you breathe a while ago, before you woke up.”
Sam tried to take stock of herself, to lift a hand up and see if she could feel anything around her neck and throat, which was sore. Her hand was weak and didn’t make it any higher than a couple of inches.
“Now don’t rush things,” smiled the nurse. “You rest and trust Althea. It’ll all come back. You hear me?”
Sam tried to nod but ended up blinking instead.
“Dr. Franco is going to be in soon to see you,” she said as she was about to leave, and then turned with a perceptive look. “Don’t you panic, princess. The worst is over.” She left.
The worst was over. What was “the worst”?
Memory rushed back in a wave, forcing her to close her eyes. She remembered the beach…and Gally. The urgency to get hold of him before he could take off returned, but she worked herself to calmness again. She had gotten him in time. And Hank—where had Hank been? It felt like a dream, but she remembered him holding her, panic in his eyes although he was smiling at her. And with this image came the assurance he knew. He knew.
It was over. The weight of the lie that had made her life miserable, even more so than the cancer which had hung over her for months, was gone. A sort of peace came with this knowledge, but also a yearning. Where was he? Where was Chance?
Sam tried to flex the muscles in her arms and legs and found she had a little more response. A sharp pain shot up through her back when she tried to shift her body, and a small coughing jag ensued. But it was nothing like gasping for air from before. A clearing of her raw throat made the blessed air move in and out.
A white form glided into the room and came to stand beside her bed. Sam moved her head to see her visitor.
“Good morning, Sam.”
She smiled at Dr. Franco.
“You are looking so much better,” he said, and smiled back.
After listening to her chest with his stethoscope he nodded, pleased.
“Your lungs sound good.”
He pulled up a stool on wheels and sat next to her where she could see him. “We had to stop your chemo to get your immune system working again, but I’m pleased with your blood tests. The treatment was working, and the cells haven’t spread. We can start the therapy right up again.”
Sam felt relieved. But more questions came to replace it. How to ask with no voice?
He anticipated this. “Your voice will be back, soon,” he said with assurance. “You’ve had pneumonia, Sam. Because your immune system was low, it couldn’t fight a bug you caught, and it turned into pneumonia.” He shook his head. “You were close to needing a bone marrow transplant, but your immune system fought back.” He smiled large at her, more personable than she’d ever known him to be, letting her know he’d taken a great deal of interest in her and was relieved by her recovery.
Sam tried to ask the question that had been nagging at her. “How long?” She mouthed the words.
“How long? Do you mean how long have you been here?” he asked for her.
She nodded, relieved.
“Two weeks.”
Sam gasped at the realization.
“You needed the rest to fight back against the infection. We removed the chest tubes yesterday, and then the breathing machine a few hours ago. We kept you asleep because you would have panicked and fought against the endotrachial tube. “
Two weeks. And she still wanted to know where Hank was and what had happened to Chance.
“Your son is downstairs. When we moved you out of ICU, he told me he’d be back up to see you soon,” said the doctor, standing to leave. “I’ll return to check on you again later.”
Jason was here. He’d be relieved to see her conscious. She should be happy, but she was more concerned over what was happening with her hawk.
Had Hank kept him? She envisioned him perched out in Hank’s outdoor weathering pen, next to the mews. Chance was used to coming in at night and hanging out with his human companion. How would he react to being out of doors all the time? Well, he was a wild hawk. He’d relish it. And wild up, too. It’s what you did before—
A great ache welled up inside her chest. It’s what you did before you released them back to the wild. If Hank had decided that was best for her hawk, it would have been within his rights as her sponsor to do it. Spring had come, and was by far the best time to release a juvenile bird. The life-threatening storms and freezes were over, and the hawk was fit from a season of hunting and flying. Prey species were young and easier to catch during the spring, increasing his odds of survival. She wanted what was best for him, but it would have been more meaningful to be the one who cut him free. To never see him fly again or say farewell was heartbreaking.
A tear slid down her cheek, and she wanted to scream when she found she couldn’t quite get her hand up to wipe it away.
And what about Hank? Did he resent her now?
There was no sign of him or her life as a falconer anywhere in the hospital room. Flowers on the stand next to her bed were from someone, but the arrangement felt generic, not like something that would come from him. She wept over the possibility her worst fears had been realized.
There were tissues on the bed tray table, and she used every bit of energy she had to move her hand. She saw a pale white limb that couldn’t have belonged to her move up and over her body.
“Here, princess,” said the nurse, who had introduced herself as Althea as she placed the box within reach.
Grimacing at the nickname again, she grasped a tissue and pulled, then struggled to get it up to her face. Her limbs were getting stronger.
“Did the doctor tell you your son is coming up?” Althea asked in her motherly way. Sam eyed her with mixed feelings but forced a smile.
“Oh, and your friend will probably be here this evening, as usual.”
Her friend? Of course, Mary Kate.
“That sweet little Irish lady came and brought these for you this morning,” Althea continued, pointing to the flowers Sam had noticed earlier.
Dear Mary Kate. Sam wished she’d stayed so she could get some information out of her. Well, if she’d been there already this morning, she wouldn’t come all the way back.
As Althea continued to work around her, Sam’s eyes wandered up to the grey ceiling tiles. There was nothing she could do until she could move and get herself out of there. They may want to keep her, but she was damned if she was going to stay bedridden. Flexing muscles in her calves and arms, Sam purposed she’d work those muscles into action, even if she had to do it lying in bed.
Sam raised an eyebrow as she watched the nurse bustling around to make her comfortable while she prattled away. They had no idea whom they were dealing with or the drive she had when she set her mind to accomplish something. The sooner she got out of bed, the better.
Her atten
tion wandered over to the brilliant blue sky she could see through the window. The wild red tails would be pairing up now, getting ready to nest and lay their eggs. The great expanse of open sky pulled at her heart. She knew those great wide-open spaces intimately now, knew them like only a free spirit could. If you’re out there, buddy, be strong and smart. Stay alive. The drive for survival inherent in her hawk was something they would always have in common. Always.
Enseam: Feeding a hawk rangle (small stones)
to remove excess fat after periods of idleness to make it ready to fly again
Chapter Forty-Three
“You keep runnin’ around the corridors like that, and you’ll put both of us into the hospital.” Althea was trying to keep pace with Sam’s brisk walk around the fourth-floor nurses’ station. The nurse had praised such enthusiasm to get her muscles fit again, but after the third round had begun to complain loud enough for other nurses to stop what they were doing to see what the fuss was about.
“All right, all right,” she called out when they reached the nurses station again and Sam was off on her fifth circuit. “I’ll just wait and keep an eye on you from here, princess”
Sam scowled at the name again. Would she give it a break? On a better note, her strength was returning. The rest of the nursing staff shook their heads at Althea’s protests and Sam’s grim determination to get herself fit enough to leave the hospital.
It had been four days since she’d awakened from a drug-induced sleep. And in all those days, she hadn’t heard or seen anything from Hank. The first day or two, she had been able to rationalize his silence, but by the third day she realized his silence was speaking louder than any words could. The old Sam, who would have tackled any challenge or confronted any obstacle without hesitation, would have called him. She’d told herself many times to get it over with. Why the hell put herself through this? The truth was she was terrified. She didn’t want to learn Chance was gone, or hear the cold, accusing hostility from Hank over her betrayal. She shuddered at the thought of his cool, cruel rebuff for having lied about who she was. The moment she heard that, she would know there was no forgiveness and no chance of ever being close to him again.