by Loree Lough
Under ordinary circumstances, Angie never would have ended a sentence in a preposition, let alone drop her Gs and Ds; Francine had drilled proper diction and grammar into the children’s heads from word one.
But these were far from ordinary circumstances.
“Your mother didn’t have anything to do with this.” He grasped her hand, held it tight. “I can promise you that.”
He turned to Dara, linked the fingers of his free hand with hers.“I wonder if you’d mind driving her home,” he said. “No telling how long it’s going to take them to finish all the tests.” He glanced at Angie, focused on Dara once more. “I think being here is only scaring her.”
Leaning forward, Dara whispered, “Of course I’ll drive her home, Noah, if that’s what you want.” She, too, glanced at the girl, who sat sniffling in the waiting room chair. “But if I were her, I’d be a lot less scared if I could wait right here with my dad.”
He heaved a long, exhausted sigh. “Maybe. Maybe you’re right.” Slipping an arm around Angie’s slender shoulders, he pulled her as close as the chair arms would allow. “You want Miss Mackenzie to take you home? You could get into your pjs, watch some TV…”
Her dark eyes widened with fear and unease. “No! I want to stay until Bobby is all right again!”
He stroked her dark, satiny hair. “Okay, okay. It’s okay, baby. We’ll all wait right here together, okay?”
“Okay,” she blubbered.
To Dara, he said, “Okay?”
Smiling gently, she nodded. “Okay.”
Angie wiped the tears from her eyes, giggled a bit at their repetitious conversation. “Is it okay if I go to the bathroom?”
“Okay,” he said, winking.
Dara stood beside the girl. “Is it okay if I come with you?”
“Okay,” Angie said, grinning past her tears.
“Okay, you two,” Noah said, “get a move on.”
Dara met Noah’s eyes and smiled. He smiled right back, calmed by the certainty that his little girl was in loving, gentle hands. His instincts about her had been right on target. Dara is so good for the kids, he thought, watching them head down the hall. As they disappeared into the ladies’ room, he leaned forward, held his head in his hands.
She’d been so calm, so rational, in the great rush to get Bobby ready for the ER. Her reassuring voice had soothed Angie, had assuaged his own fears. Somehow, she’d had the presence of mind to grab their coats, to lock the door, to remind Angie to buckle up. And even as they’d sped over back roads and boulevards en route to the hospital, her rock-steady recitation of the Lord’s Prayer had quietly reassured him.
When he’d walked into the emergency room, he could hear her, warning the nurses and doctors in attendance that they’d have to answer to her if Bobby’s injury wasn’t taken care of—immediately.
Had they gone to work straightaway because of her implied threat? Or would they have gotten right down to business anyway? Only God knows, he thought, smiling.
If she noticed the blood on her near-white blouse, she hadn’t mentioned it. If she was aware Bobby had bled on her silk skirt, too, she gave no indication of it. Even Francine—once things calmed down—would have pitched a fit if something like that had happened to one of her best outfits.
There was no reason for Dara to be here, enduring these long, worrisome hours as he and Angie waited for news about Bobby’s condition. Surely she had better things to do at home—lesson plans to write, papers to grade, people to see and all that. She’d shopped for, cooked and served the best Thanksgiving dinner he’d ever eaten, bar none. And then cleaned up willingly…and there had been no price to pay for allowing her to fuss over him like a mother hen. Dara wasn’t like any woman he’d ever known.
Admit it, you big dumb cluck. She’s good for you, too.
Angie and Dara had stayed with him in the waiting room until midnight. It was only because Dara promised to bring her back first thing in the morning that Angie willingly went home without a fuss, even then. It was a good feeling, knowing Dara had taken his car, tucked his sleepy little girl into the front seat and driven the four and a half miles to his house. Was an even better feeling knowing Dara would be with Angie all night long. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if she got right into bed with Angie and crooned lullabies till she falls sleep, he told himself, smiling.
“Mr. Lucas?”
The raspy voice interrupted his musing. Standing, Noah faced Collin Tilley, the neurologist who’d been on duty when they’d brought Bobby into the ER.
“I wonder if you’d mind coming with me for a minute?”
Noah followed the doctor from the curtained cubicle, down a wide hallway, into a small office.
“Can I get you anything?” Tilley asked. “Coffee? Soda?” He pulled open a desk drawer, revealing a stash of packaged cookies and candy bars. “Peanut butter crackers?”
“No. No, thanks,” Noah said, grinning slightly as he waved the offer away. “How’s my boy?”
The doctor flopped unceremoniously onto a creaking secretarial-type chair and gestured toward the only other seat in the room…a chrome-legged, black-padded stool. “Please, have a seat.”
Noah sat, hung the heels of his hiking boots on the stool’s bottom rung, waited…and prayed.
Tilley ripped into a chocolate bar. “Haven’t had anything to eat since I got here,” he said, taking a bite. “Sure I can’t interest you in something?”
“No. Thanks.”
“Bobby suffered a serious concussion when he hit that slate floor.” Tilley leaned forward, perched both elbows on the desktop. “But tell me, has he ever hit his head before?”
Shrugging, Noah said, “Sure. Especially when he was learning to walk.”
The doctor held up a hand. “I mean real falls. Not necessarily something that would render him unconscious, but hard hits to the head.”
Noah gave it a moment’s thought. “No. Nothing like that. He fell out of a tree once, broke his arm.” He shrugged helplessly. “But, then, he’s always been an eager-to-please kid. Maybe he did hurt himself somewhere along the line and didn’t want to complain.” Noah’s frown deepened and he, too, leaned forward. “Why?”
The doctor slid the X ray from its large manila envelope, held it up to the fluorescent light. “See this?” he asked, using his silver pen as a pointer.
Noah nodded at the faint gray line.
“I’d need an MRI to know for certain, but I’d guess it occurred one, maybe two, years ago.” The ballpoint pen moved a hair to the right. “This is the new damage.” He followed the track of a slightly larger, longer fissure in Bobby’s skull. “This dark area around it is blood. And see the swelling here?” Tilley gave Noah a moment to take in the information, then returned the X ray to its holder. “Part of the problem,” he said, sitting back, “is that for some reason, the first injury never completely healed. When he fell this time, Bobby redamaged the same tissue.”
Heart pounding, Noah swallowed, squeezing one fist, then the other. Lord in heaven, he prayed, it sounds like he’s saying there’s permanent brain damage. “He’ll…he’ll be all right, won’t he?”
The doctor put down his candy bar and leaned forward. “Mr. Lucas, are you a religious man?”
“I fail to see what that has to do with—”
“May I suggest you pay a little visit to our chapel? It’s on the lower level, right across from the—”
Noah got to his feet so quickly, the wheeled stool rolled across the floor and slammed into a filing cabinet. “Listen, Tilley,” Noah thundered, “don’t pull that hem-and-haw stuff with me. If my boy’s in trouble, I need to hear it, now. Just give it to me in plain English,” he demanded, taking his seat again.
Tilley, teeth clenched and hands folded tight on his desk, looked straight into Noah’s eyes and launched into his diagnosis. “Fair enough,” he began. “It’s like this. Bobby’s brain is swollen. There’s some bleeding in there, too—not enough to endanger his life, but enough to put
pressure on his optical nerves.” He took a deep breath, rubbed his tired eyes. “You sure you want to hear this no holds barred?”
Noah clenched his teeth. “No holds barred.”
Tilley sighed. “When your son wakes up, he may not be able to see.”
“At all?”
“Right”
Every nerve was tingling, every muscle tensed. Noah thought he’d girded himself for bad news, that he’d been prepared to hear Tilley say that Bobby might lay unconscious for a day, maybe two. But blind? “How long?” he asked, not recognizing his own grating voice.
“Now, here’s where science fails, and even the most pompous doc doesn’t have an answer. I wish I could predict what’ll happen, Mr. Lucas, but I can’t. It depends on so many things—the swelling, mostly.”
“So he could be…he could be—” Noah swallowed, hard, unable to make himself say the word.
“There’s no reason to believe it’ll be permanent.”
“Well,” he said, getting slowly to his feet, “I asked you to give it to me straight. Can’t have it both ways, now can I?”
Tilley extended a hand. “No. I suppose not.”
Noah shook the doctor’s hand, then turned to leave. “Can I see him now?”
“Sure. Sure. We’ve got him on a glucose drip and oxygen, so don’t be alarmed by the tubes and—”
“I lost my wife to leukemia a couple years back, Doc. I’ve seen every gizmo you can attach to a person.”
“Sorry,” Tilley said again. “Don’t worry if he doesn’t come to right away.”
“How long will he be out?”
Shaking his head, Tilley said, “Hours? Days?” And shrugging helplessly, he held out his hands.
“Maybe that’s a blessing in disguise,” Noah said, opening the door.
Tilley picked up his candy bar. “Why’s that?”
“‘Cause I can use the time to figure out how I’m gonna explain to my six-year-old son why he can’t see.”
“One of the nurses let me use her cell phone,” Noah said in a barely audible voice. “I don’t want to leave him, not even for a minute. Because if he wakes up and can’t see, he’ll be scared out of his wits.”
“Oh, Noah, I wish there were something I could do for you.”
“For me?” A short, grating laugh escaped his lungs. “I’m not the one who might go blind,” he growled.
“No,” she said softly, sweetly, “but you still can’t see.”
“See what?”
“That you need to be gentle with yourself and with Bobby, because I have a feeling that if he does lose his sight, it’ll be as hard on you as it’ll be for him.”
He’d been with the boy in the intensive care unit for nearly three hours now, listening to the steady blip of heart monitors, the heave-wheeze of respirators, the murmur of voices at the nurses’ station, the occasional peal of a phone. The sound of her voice was like a healing salve on his heart. “I didn’t mean to bark at you,” he said.
“You have absolutely nothing to apologize for, Noah. If Bobby was mine, I don’t know if I’d be holding body and soul together as well as you are.”
In the semidarkened room, the window separating ICU from the hallway became a mirror of sorts. He caught a glimpse of himself, and sent a silent prayer of thanks heavenward that she couldn’t see his trembling hands, his tousled hair, his rumpled clothes. He couldn’t see the color of his eyes in the varying shades of gray that were his reflection, but Noah knew if he could, his eyes would be puffy and bloodshot. Keeping body and soul together? It made him chuckle. “Are you kidding? You’re the most in-control person I’ve ever met.”
“It’s easy to be rational and reasonable when you’re on the outside looking in.”
Noah wanted to tell her she wasn’t on the outside, at least not in his mind. That as far as he was concerned, Dara was part of the family, especially now. But Bobby moaned softly, distracting him. “I think he might be comin’ out of it,” he whispered excitedly into the phone. “The nurse said when he wakes up, they might be able to move him into a regular room.”
“Go, then,” she said. “See to Bobby. And don’t you worry about anything here. Angie’s sleeping like a baby, has been for hours.”
He ran a hand through his hair, took a deep breath. “You’re a godsend. I mean it. I don’t know what I’d do without you right now.”
“You’d do fine.” She hesitated, a mere fraction of a second, then quoted him exactly: “‘You’re the most in-control person I’ve ever met!’”
He could hear the smile in her voice, and it inspired one of his own. “Thanks, Dara.”
“You’re welcome, Noah. Now, get off this phone and give that sweet boy of yours a hug and a kiss from me.”
I could use a hug and a kiss myself right about now, he admitted silently. “I’ll call you if anything changes.”
“Call me even if it doesn’t,” she said. “And Noah?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be praying for you both.”
“Thanks,” he said again, and hung up.
Angie padded into the kitchen at 6:00 a.m., lower lip jutted out in a worry-pout. “Can we go back to the hospital now?” she asked, tiny fists rubbing sleep from her eyes. “I want to see Bobby.”
“Sure we can, sweetie. Soon as we get something warm and nourishing into your tummy.” She managed to coax Angie to eat half a bowl of instant oatmeal and take a few sips of orange juice before they went back upstairs to get dressed.
Once they arrived at the hospital, Dara settled Angie in the waiting room. The nurses promised to keep an eye on the girl while she looked in on Noah. “Somebody has to talk some sense into him,” one of them said. “He won’t be any good to the kid if he wears himself out. He’s been sitting there like that for four straight hours,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I declare, I don’t think he’s left that boy’s side long enough to get a cup of coffee or use the men’s room!”
Dara peered through the window at Noah, slouched low in the chair, one arm flung over the side, the other bent at the elbow, palm shading his eyes. The way he half sat, half lay, long legs out in front of him, he appeared to be asleep.
But Dara knew better. He’d phoned her every half hour since she’d taken Angie home at midnight, and his voice had grown increasingly tense with each call. Remembering the exhausted, edgy sound of it had kept her pacing and praying—for Bobby and his daddy—all through the night.
Shoving open the door, Dara tiptoed inside. “Noah?” she whispered. “You awake?”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “What’re you doing here?”
She’d tucked Bobby’s favorite stuffed dog under one arm, held a cup of coffee in one hand and a sandwich in the other. “Seeing to it you take care of yourself, that’s what,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re certainly not doing a very good job of it.”
He tilted his head left and right to work the kinks out of his neck. “Thanks, but no, thanks. I’m not hungry.”
“I don’t care.”
He cut her a frazzled frown before sitting up. Then, planting both feet on the floor, he accepted the coffee, took a long, slow sip.
“Angie is in the waiting room, coloring with one of the nurses. She wants to see Bobby, so she can give him this.” Dara held out the stuffed animal.
Noah rubbed his temples. “That’s m’girl, always thinkin’.” He glanced at Bobby and grimaced. “Did she sleep well?”
“I checked on her every fifteen minutes or so. She was out like a light every time I peeked in.”
“Good, good.” He nodded. “Did she give you any trouble about eating breakfast? Sometimes, she—”
“Unlike certain people who shall remain nameless,” Dara began in her best teacher’s voice, “Angie realizes that unless she keeps up her own strength, she won’t be of any use to anyone.” She held the sandwich out to him. “It’s turkey. I brought it from home.”
Both eyebrows rose on his forehead. “Home?”
&n
bsp; She felt her cheeks redden. “I mean, I, ah, I brought it from your house.”
Noah shot her a weary half grin, took hold of the sandwich and unwrapped it. “You were right the first time,” he said, biting into it.
Dara walked around to the other side of Bobby’s bed. “Has he come to yet?”
“No. Couple of times I thought he might, but no.”
She leaned over, kissed his forehead. “Hey, sweet boy,” she crooned, “how long are you planning to sleep?”
Almost immediately, his blond lashes fluttered.
Dara tucked the panda under his arm. “Angie thought Ming might be missing you.”
Wincing as he moved his head from side to side, he automatically hugged the dog tight. “Miss Dara?” he croaked out. “I have a headache.”
“I’m not surprised,” she whispered. Dear God, let him see. Let him be able to see, Sweet Jesus! she chanted mentally. “That was some fall you took.” She gave him a little hug. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so glad you’re awake!”
Vigorously rubbing his eyes, he whimpered, “Where…where’s my father?”
“Here, son,” Noah said, one hand gripping Bobby’s, the other combing through the boy’s hair. “I’m right here.”
Knuckling his eyes now, Bobby breathed in short, raspy gasps. “Daddy? I can’t…I—”
Noah slid an arm under the boy’s neck. “I’m here, son.”
Tears filled Bobby’s alarm-widened eyes and he pressed the heels of his palms to his temples. “Daddy, why does it hurt so bad?”
“You hit your head when you fell, remember?”
Bobby turned toward Dara. She knew in an instant that he could see her, for his bright-blue eyes bored straight into hers.
“How long is it going to hurt this way?” he wanted to know.
Beholdenness surrounded her like the warm, soulstirring waters of a baptismal fount. Heart thudding with reverence, she felt her own eyes well up. Overcome with gratitude to God for having heard their prayers…for having spared Bobby’s eyesight, Dara wanted to praise Him on bended knee. But there would be time for that—a lifetime’s worth—later. “Why don’t we ring for the nurse,” she suggested, biting back a sob, “see if maybe she can bring you something for the pain.”