Saving Susannah

by Beverly Bird

  “So if we don’t match, then what?” Adam asked.

  His voice had taken on a gravelly sound, and she looked at him sharply. She remembered that now, too: remembered that had always happened when he got very upset by something.

  “Then we begin an ethnic and racial canvass of strangers, of the donor lists,” Dr. Coyle explained.

  For God’s sake, she thought, Dr. Parra had been doing that. She had come all the way to Philadelphia to hear it again?

  “What about a cousin?” Adam demanded.

  Kim felt her heart squeeze so hard she lost her breath for a moment. Before she had met her brother’s son, Bo Wallace had just been a potential donor. Sometime in the past eighteen hours or so, he had become a kid. She remembered his face at the dinner table last night. His laughing blue eyes, the scar on his chin. He looked so much like Adam.

  “I don’t...” she heard herself say. “I can’t...” But how could she say no? How could she decline when it was her daughter’s life?

  “A cousin is an even more remote chance than an aunt or uncle,” the doctor told her. “One more set of unrelated genes has been introduced—that is to say, your wife’s.”

  Adam rubbed his jaw in distress, and Jake tunneled his fingers through his hair. There was a knock on the office door.

  “Come in,” Dr. Coyle said.

  A nurse opened the door and handed him a long printout, the end trailing. The doctor took the paperwork and scanned it. Twice. Finally, he sat back and pushed his glasses up on his head. Finally, he looked human. Kim saw that his eyes were tired and his face showed distress. He didn’t have to tell her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Neither of you is likely to match.” Adam slumped in his chair. Jake swore.

  “Granted, this is just preliminary testing. It will take a few more hours to break your blood down completely. But that doesn’t usually yield a drastically different result—it might add one antigen, if that.”

  “What are you saying?” Jake demanded.

  “At this juncture, you...” He nodded at him. “You appear to be the closest, with three HLA matches. It’s not sufficient. Most doctors will operate with five. I prefer six.” His gaze swerved to Adam and he frowned. “You don’t have any matches with her at all.”

  Adam’s jaw fell. Kim cried out and turned into the body closest to hers, the one right behind her. The arms that waited for her were Joe’s. His chest felt like strength and solidity, and she wasn’t surprised. Kim had the sudden thought that he was more than capable of being leaned on, and oh, God, she needed to lean now.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  His hand stroked over her braid in comfort, and it sent something shivering down her spine. That was when she became fully aware of what she had done, and she backed off hard and fast.

  She moved to Susannah’s chair, putting her hands on her shoulders reassuringly and wondered who was comforting whom.

  “Oh, no,” Katya murmured.

  “How can that be?” Adam demanded.

  “What about Susannah’s father?” Dr. Coyle asked.

  “He’s passed on,” Jake said, sending a glance Kim’s way. “It happened right after you left, Kimmie. I—”

  “I...we know.”

  “There must be something we can do!” Katya cried. “Some other alternative.”

  We, we, we, Kim thought wildly. She pressed her hands to her temples. Yes, please help me, something inside her begged.

  The doctor looked at her. “Your husband’s parents? His siblings?” he asked. “What about them?”

  She didn’t bother to correct him about the husband part. “His father’s dead, too,” she heard herself say in a flat, raw voice. “His mother is in a nursing home. No siblings.”

  “Do you have the name of the nursing home? I could contact them, have them draw blood there. Where exactly is she?”

  “Dallas, Texas, I think.”

  He scribbled on his blotter. “What nursing home?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jake shot out of his chair. “This I can fix. I can get you the information by the end of the day.” Then a grimace passed over his face. “If I could use your phone.”

  Dr. Coyle turned the one on his desk around and pushed it toward Jake. Give the man credit for trying to be human, she thought.

  “What’s her first name?” Jake asked, looking at Kim.

  “Ah...Gretal. No, wait...it was Greta, Grete, something like that.” She looked at Adam. “Do you remember?” she asked. The Guenthers had lived only four doors down.

  “Grete,” he agreed.

  “Guenther, right?” Jake asked. “With a u-e?”

  Kim squeezed Susannah’s shoulders again. “Right.”

  “Ah,” she heard Joe say from behind her, as though someone had just turned the lights on for him.

  She looked over her shoulder at him. She knew he was remembering her questions that morning about his German heritage. She met his eyes defiantly and he nodded, passing no judgment. And that made her angry. Everyone passed judgment. She wanted to shout at him: Do it! Tell me I’m singleminded, that I’m only looking at all of you for what you can do for me.

  “I guess there’s nothing more you can do for us,” she said to the doctor. “Right?”

  “I’ll feed Susannah’s needs into the donor network.”

  “That’s already been done,” she said harshly.

  “And as of this morning, nothing has popped up,” he answered, touching one hand to the fax of Susannah’s records. “Dr. Parra was not as comprehensive in the data he entered as I’d like. I’ll enter her needs again, in more detail.”

  “But won’t that narrow the possible matches even more?” Katya asked.

  “Yes. But neither will we kick out a lot of false potentials and get anyone’s hopes up needlessly when we get a potential match that doesn’t quite fit.”

  It was the kindest thing he had said yet. Kim nodded.

  “I’ve heard of people putting pleas out to their communities,” Jake said. “Would that help?”

  Dr. Coyle nodded. “I wouldn’t leave any stone unturned at this point.” He looked back at Kim. “Where can you be reached, Mrs. Mancuso?”

  “I...uh...oh.” She gazed at them all helplessly, at Jake and Adam and Joe.

  “She’ll call you,” Joe said. “We should prearrange times.”

  Dr. Coyle finally seemed to take note of the way Adam and Joe were dressed—Joe in his black trousers, his broad-brimmed hat clutched in his strong hands; Adam in his white shirt and suspenders. Kim realized she had already started taking the dress for granted. She had scarcely noticed it today.

  “Amish?” Dr. Coyle said without inflection. “No telephones, then.”

  “That’s right,” Joe answered, his voice equally bland.

  “That makes this difficult.”

  Dr. Coyle looked at Kim again and seemed to take in her thoroughly modern jeans, her sweater, the leather jacket.

  “You’re staying with them until this is resolved?”

  As far as she was concerned, it just had been resolved. “I...for now,” she said lamely.

  “Well.” He pushed back from his desk and stood. “I would suggest that you find a convenient phone and call in every forty-eight hours or so.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s one o’clock. Let’s say at four-thirty p.m., beginning tomorrow.”

  She had no clue where she would be tomorrow. “Fine,” she said, because she wasn’t up to arguing. She turned for the door, looking back at Susannah expectantly when her daughter didn’t rise from her chair. “Are you coming?”

  “I’ll wait for everyone else,” Susannah said. Jake was back on the phone again.

  Irrationally, Kim felt betrayed. She hurried out, moving as quickly through the corridors as she could without causing a commotion. When she reached the parking lot, she ran blindly for the Mazda.

  They didn’t match. Adam and Jake didn’t match. Her parents were dead, and Grete Guenther wa
s in a nursing home.

  “Oh, God,” she wept. “Oh, God, help us.”

  She neither expected an answer nor got one.

  Chapter 8

  She ended up on Joe’s lap again for the ride home. This time there was nothing titillating or intimate about it. At least, not sexually intimate, she corrected herself. His arm was braced against the small of her back, a steady, warm, even pressure. The contact reminded her of the moment in the doctor’s office when she had fallen into Joe’s arms. And at least one small part of her craved the contact. At least one small part of her desperately needed that human connection in a world that had been slowly and systematically disintegrating at her feet for weeks now.

  Jake tried to improve everyone’s mood by teasing Adam. “Do we remember what the milkman looked like?” he asked.

  No one laughed.

  Kim glanced at Susannah and threw herself into the joke. Suze probably wouldn’t understand what they were talking about, but she would recognize the light mood.

  “Wait a minute,” she murmured. “I do. Wasn’t he big and blond?”

  Adam finally made a choking sound. “This isn’t funny. I don’t know why I don’t match.”

  “Dr. Coyle said there was only a twenty percent chance,” Katya reminded him.

  “For some antigens,” Adam argued. “But none?”

  They fell silent for the remainder of the long, two-hour drive.

  “I’m tired, Mom,” Susannah said when they parked in front of Joe’s farmhouse.

  Kim felt something inside her scramble in protest. She realized then that she had been planning to go inside, throw everything back into their suitcases and leave for California immediately. There really was no reason to stay here now. There was nothing this Coyle could do that Dr. Parra wasn’t already doing. But Susannah’s eyes were deeply shadowed. She looked exhausted.

  “Go upstairs, baby,” Kim said on a sigh. “Catch some shut-eye.”

  Susannah didn’t need to be urged twice. They all followed her as she woodenly walked up to the porch, Katya clutching Jake’s hand, Adam’s eyes looking troubled and faraway. He was still stuck on the antigens, Kim thought, and felt a twist of sympathy for him.

  “Coffee anyone?” Joe asked when they were inside, then he stopped cold, his eyes narrowing, his head cocked. “Oh, no.”

  Kim listened, as well. A cacophony of female voices came from the kitchen. It sounded like a flock of frenzied sparrows in there.

  “They’re back,” Jake said. “I thought they weren’t going to speak to you for a while.”

  “I didn’t think they would.”

  Joe began walking again. Kim followed him warily—and, she admitted, curiously—into the kitchen. Five women in Amish dress were bustling around. They ranged in age from their early twenties to forty-something as near as Kim could tell. The din was incredible as they all continued to talk at once.

  “Look at the leftovers of this roast. It’s overcooked.”

  “Sarah would be appalled. Do you remember how well she did roast?”

  “Give me those diapers, Frida, and I’ll see to the wash.”

  “Little Hannah’s formula is low. Now, why didn’t Joe take care of that?”

  “Enough!” Joe roared.

  The women froze. Only their heads snapped around so they could all look at him. Every face changed color, from varying degrees of parchment white to beet red.

  Kim was hemmed in on every side as she took in the spectacle. Adam and Jake and Katya surrounded her. They had all knotted up right behind Joe, as though for protection, she thought. And they might need it. She just wasn’t sure from whom.

  “I told you yesterday,” Joe said, his voice only slightly calmer. “This isn’t necessary. You’ve got families of your own. There’s no need for all this. God in His sweet heaven, think! Think what you’re doing here! No household needs five women to run it smoothly! Please. Go home. This isn’t going to bring her back. It’s not going to keep her memory alive. At least, not in a good way. You’re disrupting our lives. You’re tearing us apart with the past. Think of the children. Please, let’s move on.”

  They all stared at him. Finally, the one named Frida cleared her throat and sniffed heartily. “Of all the ungrateful—” she began to protest.

  “It’s been months!” Joe bellowed, at the end of his rope.

  Kim stared at his shoulders, inches from her nose. She could almost see the tension there. He does get angry, she thought. He’s not entirely unflappable. And his temper is a force to be reckoned with. She felt something odd scoot down her spine, something not quite alarmed, but not entirely comfortable, either. Men’s tempers had always terrified her. But at the moment, Joe’s just seemed... appropriate.

  For some reason that she couldn’t comprehend and could scarcely believe, she found herself reaching up to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. It was as hard as his chest had been in the doctor’s office. But this time she felt the restrained desperation there. She heard herself speak, though she couldn’t believe she was doing that, either.

  “Don’t you see?” she asked the women quietly. “All this fuss and bother only reminds him of his loss.”

  He jerked around to look at her. His eyes were hot this time. They made her shiver, too.

  “I can fight my own battles,” he snapped.

  A little macho ego there, she thought. “Well, I don’t mean to rock your boat here, but you’re not winning the war.”

  “Who’s she?” one of the sisters asked peevishly.

  “What’s she doing here?” another demanded.

  “Where did she come from?”

  “She’s our sister,” Adam and Jake said in unison.

  “Another outsider!”

  “In your home, Joe?”

  In an instant, commotion descended again, everyone talking at once.

  It took the better part of half an hour for tears to be dried, fresh accusations and pleas to be heard and for everyone to clear out. Katya finally poured the coffee the sisters had made.

  Joe sank heavily into a chair, rubbing his face with his hands. He took his hat off and tossed it onto the nearest kitchen counter. “I can’t take it anymore,” he muttered. “Nathaniel can’t take it anymore, but he won’t go to Berks. Dinah’s becoming just like them. My home is a zoo, and nothing’s right.”

  They all stared at him silently. No one knew quite what to say.

  But Joe did. And he felt the words come up his throat, a rumbling there long before they became actual sound. He was going to ask because he needed desperately to right his children’s lives. Because it was the most obvious answer to all this heartache and commotion, and for some reason none of the Wallaces were seeing it. Maybe they didn’t want to see it. Or maybe it wasn’t as sensible as he thought. Maybe he was the only one desperate enough to contemplate it.

  “Don’t run home,” he said, looking at Kimberley. “Don’t run again.”

  He thought her beautiful, expressive face went a little pale, as though she was shocked that he knew what she had been thinking. But, Joe knew, it had been as plain on her face as the sun in the sky.

  “I need help here,” he continued, “and you can give it. Adam and Jake need you, and you need them, too, whether you’ll admit it or not. Don’t run. Don’t disappear again. It won’t solve anything. And I need you. Don’t you see? This course of action satisfies everyone.”

  “What course of action?” Adam asked, obviously baffled.

  “If she stays here, the sisters will back off. If she stays here, she can get Susannah help at the best children’s hospital in the country. Dinah and Gracie can get some sleep again, and I think Nathaniel will go.”

  “Here?” Jake said tentatively. “Right here? In this house? But I thought that was what she was doing.”

  “No,” Joe said flatly. “She’s thinking of heading home at the first opportunity.”

  Kim flushed.

  “Home?” Katya echoed. “Where is that exactly?” Then
her eyes brightened. “Is it near Texas?”

  Everyone’s eyes came around to Kim. She realized that with everything going on, no one had ever asked her where she had been living these past many years. She didn’t enlighten them now. Joe’s words had finally penetrated her daze.

  “You want me to stay here?” she bleated, panicked. “Live with you? Like some kind of a...well, what? A nanny? A housekeeper?”

  “I was going to hire someone,” Joe said doggedly. “I want it to be you. I’ll give you and your daughter room and board. I’ll pay you something. Please,” he said again. “I need you.”

  “Why me?” she asked.

  “Because it solves some of your problems, too.”

  He didn’t get quite the reaction he expected, though he realized a heartbeat later that he should have anticipated it. Kim turned on her heel with a crazed look, then she fled from the house.

  She went out the back door because that was closest. She raced across the grass, deadened now by the breath of oncoming winter. She tried to leap a creek she found at the edge of the property, missed her footing and splashed down into icy water. But she picked herself up and still she ran.

  She didn’t slow down until she reached a tree line. The forest beyond it was just a little too quelling to contemplate bursting into. She sat down hard on a boulder there, instead, and hugged herself against steady shivers. Her jeans were wet to her thighs. Her boots were splotched with water stains. An incredible wind was blowing up from the west, biting at her, especially where her clothing was sodden.

  She heard his voice again: I need you. Her own inner voice responded in angry panic: Not me, you don’t even know me—don’t you dare need me. You don’t know anything about me.

  The man was crazy, she thought. For all he knew, she was an ax murderer. Yet he was asking her to come into his home, to take care of his children. It was naive. It was incredible.