From The Dead

by John Herrick

  Jesse pursed his lips. “I was selfish … I regret a lot of my choices in life.”

  Drew bit the inside of his cheek as if he tried to process what his father said. “What kind of choices?”

  “Choices that hurt a lot of people. Decisions that wouldn’t make you proud of me. Things I wish I could take back.” Jesse turned toward Drew and, even though his son wouldn’t look at him, bent down to his eye level anyway. The little boy trembled as a tear ran down. Jesse reached over to wipe the tear from his son’s cheek—and Drew let him. When, at last, Drew met his father’s eyes, Jesse added, “You are so important to me, and there’s nothing—nothing—I wouldn’t do for you.”

  His son quivered. Jesse’s heart tore until he couldn’t stand it any longer. When Jesse leaned over to pat Drew on the shoulder, Drew—to Jesse’s surprise—pivoted around and hugged Jesse, his thin arms wrapped tight around his father. Drew clutched Jesse’s coat with his small hands.

  Drew needed his dad.

  As Jesse embraced his son, he felt the boy’s tremors against him between sobs. Both men cried. And for the first time, Jesse discovered what it was like to hold his son. Overwhelmed, Jesse buried his head in Drew’s hair as Drew buried his face in Jesse’s chest.

  Drew refused to let go: He had waited a long time for this.

  So Jesse continued to hold him, rock him gently. Soon he rested his cheek on top of his son’s head.

  “It’ll all be different now,” Jesse whispered. “I promise.”

  CHAPTER 55

  Jesse surfed the Internet through a wireless connection on a laptop he’d owned since L.A. On this Tuesday lunch hour, perched on a high stool in a local café, Jesse sniffed his coat. Sure enough, the aroma of bagels and espresso beans had permeated the fabric.

  Blake walked in to grab a sandwich to go. On his way out the door, he noticed Jesse and wandered over to him.

  “Any juicy celebrity rumors?” Blake tapped the laptop.

  Jesse peered up, then returned to his screen. “I’m on a job hunt.”

  “But you and your dad are still on good terms nowadays, right?”

  “Of course. But it’s time for me to locate something long term and stable so I can get out of Eden’s way—she’s overdue for that.”

  “Got any ideas?”

  “I learned a lot about composition concepts through photography, so maybe I can find a job in a company’s PR or marketing department. Even if it’s entry level, it’s a step forward.” As Blake sipped coffee from his to-go cup, Jesse glanced up again. “Actually, there’s another reason: Cait and I told Drew.”

  Blake’s eyebrows shot upward. “That you’re his dad?”

  “Yeah, so I want to provide better support for him.”

  “That’s terrific! How long have you been on the lookout for a new job?”

  “Couple of weeks. Next week, I have an interview with a snack-food manufacturer in Cleveland. They plan to expand their media ads, and they consider all my years on film sets a big plus.”

  Blake doubled the crease at the top his takeout bag, which crunched in his grip. “Have you told your dad about Drew?”

  “Not yet. It’s still only you and Eden who know.”

  “It might be worth reconsideration. I think Chuck would understand.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Drew should have a grandfather in his life.”

  Blake checked his watch. “Listen, I’ve gotta get back to the shop so my staffer can take his lunch break. We’ll catch up later, okay?”

  Blake left Jesse to his want ads. Before Jesse powered down the laptop and left the café, he located two more prospects.

  * * *

  On the way home from work that evening, Jesse relaxed in the driver’s seat. For the first time in years, his life seemed to come together, its fractures filled in and smoothed out like wet patches on a potter’s vase. Jesse felt content; his confidence mounted by the day.

  When his cell phone rang, he didn’t notice it at first, transfixed instead on a setting sun that glowed an electric burnt orange. But he caught the call on the final ring.

  “Jesse!”

  She sounded distraught.

  “Cait?”

  “Jesse, I—“

  Frantic. Scared.

  Jesse heard a faint siren and the dense rumble of tires in the call’s background. Wherever she was, Caitlyn was in motion. And her voice carried a slight echo. Had she called from a large vehicle?

  “What’s the matter?” Jesse asked.

  “It’s Drew …”

  Jesse tapped his finger on the steering wheel. More anxious by the split second, he waited. No further response from Caitlyn. Just sirens and tires in motion.

  “What’s going on? What happened to Drew? Why do I hear a siren in the background?” He waved his hand in circles, willed her to respond faster.

  “We’re in an ambulance,” she said. “Drew’s in trouble. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He won’t wake up!”

  “Which hospital? I’ll meet you there.”

  “St. Mark’s, near Interstate 77. Do you know where it is?”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Jesse slapped the phone shut and hung a sharp right.

  PART THREE

  SAVING DREW

  CHAPTER 56

  Jesse rushed through the automatic sliding doors of the ER and scanned the congested waiting area. He found her seated alone yet surrounded by a mass of other people who waited. Some shouted, others dozed; a couple of them held cloths against gashes on an arm or leg.

  When he made his way to Caitlyn, immediately Jesse noticed her cheeks, chapped from sustained weeping. Her eyes red, arms crossed over her chest as though to secure herself, she seemed calm now. With all the chairs around her occupied, Jesse knelt down and grasped her hands. They were cool to the touch. He embraced her for a beat, and then they parted.

  “How is he?”

  She sniffled, ran a finger beneath her moist eye. “Much better. He regained consciousness and they stabilized him. They’re getting ready to move him upstairs.”

  Still worried, Jesse nodded. His own symptoms started to flash through his mind, which added to his fear that Drew might face serious trouble. “What happened to him?”

  “I got home from work early and started to cook dinner. Drew shot hoops outside by himself. He pushed himself hard at it, determined to perfect some sort of running shot.”

  “He told me it wears him out when he runs like that.”

  “It does—I knew I should have stopped him at first sight, but I didn’t. I kept making dinner. After a while, I didn’t hear the basketball bouncing but figured he’d gotten bored with it.” Caitlyn pressed her fingers against her eyes. “Five minutes later, I heard frantic beating on my front door. It was Ryan’s dad, from across the street—Drew was lying on the driveway. He wouldn’t move or respond. I ran outside, and sure enough, he’d collapsed on the pavement. I couldn’t wake him up.”

  Jesse drew her hands into his, pressed them to his mouth as he listened.

  “I was so scared—I thought he was dead.” She opened her eyes. “I checked his wrist and found he still had a pulse. Ryan’s dad had already called 911, so the paramedics were on their way.”

  Though relieved to hear Drew’s symptoms were different from his own, Jesse remained concerned about his son.

  “I knew I should have had his exhaustion checked out. I didn’t trust it from the beginning, but I couldn’t find any other symptoms.”

  Jesse kissed her hand. “He’s fine now. We’ll talk to the doctor and find out what’s wrong.”

  * * *

  Four hours later, Jesse and Caitlyn watched as Drew, now in stable condition, slept in a hospital room. Aware that Drew loved bright surroundings, Caitlyn turned on every possible light in case he awoke. The room was semi-private, but the other bed was unoccupied. Jesse could hear the faint ticks of his own wristwatch.

  Much calmer now, Caitlyn stroked Drew’s hair and felt his forehea
d on occasion to catch any preliminary signs of a fever. A heart monitor beeped in steady rhythm as Drew slept.

  A white-lab-coated Dr. Higgins tiptoed through the door and flipped through sheets in a manila folder. Though he appeared in his early fifties, the man possessed the composed bedside manner of a grandfather. “How’s our guy?” he asked.

  “Still sleeping,” Caitlyn replied.

  After a quick perusal of the heart monitor’s numbers and the other equipment, the doctor glanced over Drew to confirm changes hadn’t occurred in the last hour. After this, he sat down with Jesse and Caitlyn at a small table in the corner of the room.

  “Drew appears stable at this point. He’s fortunate his head hit his arm rather than the ground when he fell,” Dr. Higgins said. “I’ll order additional tests for tomorrow so we can get a more conclusive picture. That will help us determine if there are other factors at play beyond exhaustion. Has Drew been hospitalized in the past?”

  “No,” Caitlyn said.

  “And you said he’s shown signs of fatigue more than once—beyond the normal rate of growing tired?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any other symptoms you can recall?”

  “No,” Caitlyn said. “That’s why I hesitated to look into it.”

  The doctor offered a compassionate smile. “That’s understandable. But after today, we’ll want to have anything unusual checked out, even if it’s minor.” One last look over Drew’s record before the doctor flipped it shut. “Assuming Drew remains stable, he should be able to go home tomorrow afternoon.” With a pat to Jesse’s back, one dad to another, Dr. Higgins rose from the table and made his way to the door. There he glanced at the young couple again. “You can stay with him here tonight if you’d like,” he said, then left the room.

  Jesse and Caitlyn watched Drew sleep a while longer before Caitlyn curled up on the unoccupied bed. Jesse drifted to sleep on the sage vinyl loveseat beside Drew’s bed.

  * * *

  The next afternoon, prior to Drew’s discharge, Dr. Higgins instructed them to keep Drew in bed rest for twenty-four hours, with no heavy activity for a week. Staff would examine Drew’s test results in greater detail and schedule follow-up appointments if necessary. Should further symptoms or out-of-the-ordinary events occur, Jesse and Caitlyn promised to bring Drew straight to the hospital.

  Disappointed by the bed-rest scenario but too worn out to complain, Drew slept.

  When evening arrived, before he headed back to Eden’s house for the night, Jesse stopped by Drew’s bedroom. Curtains closed and lamps turned off, the furniture looked like small, dark hills. Jesse sat on the edge of the bed and stroked Drew’s hair before he realized Drew was awake.

  Jesse offered a smile, still frightened on his son’s behalf. “Feeling better, buddy?” he whispered.

  “I’m okay.”

  Drew sounded thirsty, so Jesse reached nearby for Drew’s glass of water, which the boy sipped before he reclined back into the pillow. Drew uttered more words before Jesse coaxed him back to sleep.

  Jesse found Caitlyn on the living-room sofa and sat beside her. She drummed her fingers on her lap as she stared at Jesse.

  “This whole situation makes me nervous,” she said. “The mom in me says this isn’t good.”

  “Would it help if I move in? That way, whatever comes down the pike, you won’t need to face it alone.”

  She considered his proposal and replied, “I think it would help Drew if you live here. It would provide more stability for him; he’d have a male role model—his dad—in the house.”

  Jesse pulled her toward himself, kissed her on the cheek, and together they rocked.

  “I’ll move in this weekend,” he said. He would need to strategize an explanation for when Chuck heard he’d moved out of Eden’s house. Maybe he could tell Chuck he’d moved into a friend’s apartment. Too tired to think about it at the moment, Jesse continued to cuddle with Caitlyn.

  The pieces would come together. Right now, his son needed him, and Jesse assigned priority to that. All other issues and concerns, Chuck-related or otherwise, seemed miniscule by comparison.

  CHAPTER 57

  After he’d examined the test results in detail, Dr. Higgins informed Jesse and Caitlyn that a more serious medical issue had come into play, which necessitated further steps. He referred Drew to a specialist, Dr. Bernstein, who kept an office at the same hospital.

  Drew underwent numerous tests over the next month and grew weaker in the interim.

  Afterward Dr. Bernstein requested a meeting with the parents, but without Drew.

  “We’ve done what we can to try to determine Drew’s condition,” Dr. Bernstein said, “and, unfortunately, I’m concerned by the results.”

  “Were you able to diagnose what’s wrong?” asked Jesse.

  A solemn man, Dr. Bernstein peered through small glasses, his forehead crinkled. “It’s a blood disorder, but it’s unidentified.”

  “More tests are needed?”

  “I mean it’s unidentified, Mr. Barlow. We’ve ruled out all known blood disorders. At first I leaned toward a diagnosis of multiple myeloma in an early stage, but when we studied the tests further, I became less convinced because we found a low Bence Jones protein factor. We’re convinced it’s a less common illness, one for which we don’t have an official name. We’ve seen a limited number of cases, primarily concentrated in industrialized countries—the United States, Britain, Ireland.”

  As the news soaked in, Jesse and Caitlyn sat stunned. Jesse conjured a mental picture of Drew in declining health and wondered if his son underwent internal pain. When the image became gruesome, he didn’t even want to think about it any longer. Jesse wished he could take his son’s pain upon himself.

  The doctor continued, “As I said, the illness is unidentified. We recognize its symptoms, but we’re still learning about it, still compiling data. From the few cases that exist, we know the condition progresses rapidly, and it’s considered severe. But due to that limited number of cases, we don’t know how to determine its severity on a per-patient basis.”

  Caitlyn bit her knuckle. “How could the severity vary across patients? Isn’t the illness the same illness for everyone?”

  “The condition ranges from treatable to fatal—but we don’t yet know if the determining factor is the severity level or just a matter of catching the illness early enough for effective treatment. In the cases experts have studied, the mortality rate is greater than 50 percent.”

  Caitlyn turned her face away from the doctor. Jesse held her close.

  “What happens next? What do we do?” Jesse asked.

  “Where possible, patients received bone marrow transplants, and in those cases, doctors documented a 100-percent success rate. All of those patients survived and appear to live standard lives after recovery,” Dr. Bernstein explained. “Because we are unable to predict fatality risk at the patient level, and considering Drew’s young age, I recommend an aggressive approach. And as mentioned, the success rate with a bone marrow transplant runs at 100 percent.”

  “And what happens without a transplant?” Jesse asked.

  “Fatality is more likely than not,” the doctor replied.

  “How much more likely?” Caitlyn chimed in.

  “All factors considered, we need to regard the possibility that this is indeed fatal, and in such cases … the patient had an average of eighteen months.”

  Caitlyn’s eyes watered. “To live?”

  “To live. I’m sorry.”

  Restless, Caitlyn gazed around the room as if in search of respite. At last, she said, “Okay, let’s do it. How soon can we move forward with a transplant?”

  “Before we take that step, I want to try less invasive measures first, to see if we can hinder the progress of the disease. Based on past cases, we have at least that much time, and it could prove successful. But in a couple of months, if we haven’t made progress, the bone-marrow scenario would become our best option. And if the situation
unfolds that way, we can proceed with the transplant as soon as we locate a marrow match—if we can locate a match. To be safe, we’ll begin the search process immediately.”

  “Where would we look?” Jesse asked.

  “First we’d need to draw a sample from Drew. We can compare it to a bone-marrow-donor database. But the chances of a match decrease outside the family, plus time is of the essence. The best chances are a sibling or parent.”

  Jesse began to open his mouth to volunteer—but then simply nodded in agreement. He recalled his conversation with Dale in L.A.

  Baer’s Disease.

  Don’t make a blood donation—that could be fatal with the condition.

  Jada’s phone call—they’re convinced something’s wrong with Jesse.

  Regardless of whether he were a perfect match, given his own symptoms and suspicions of the condition he himself faced, no one would allow Jesse to donate. Not if it meant a risk to his own life. Not even for his son’s sake.

  Jesse’s heart wrenched for Drew.

  And a wrench of heart, it appeared, was all he could do for his son. That, and hope the less invasive options proved successful—or that someone else would prove a marrow match for Drew.

  CHAPTER 58

  Later that week, Jesse stopped by Eden’s house for dinner, just the two of them. He had offered to cook dinner but couldn’t think straight. Eden retrieved a ready-made meatloaf from the freezer, and while the microwave thawed it, they sat at the kitchen table. He relayed the details of the latest visit to Dr. Bernstein.

  “Is Drew aware of what’s ahead for him?” she asked.

  “Cait and I told him yesterday.”

  “How’d he handle it?”

  “As usual, he didn’t say much. I don’t think it’s fully sunken in for him yet.” Jesse put his face in his hands to relieve the pressure. “I can’t stand the thought of that kid going through more tests; the kid’s spirit is broken.” Jesse explained the prospects of a bone marrow transplant and mentioned the best chances of a match resided with Drew’s parents.