Saving Hannah

by J P Barnaby

  “We’ve given Hannah a mild sedative so that we can put in a line. It wasn’t worth upsetting her further. She’s dehydrated from all the vomiting. That’s what’s causing her symptoms, but we’re going to go ahead and run some tests while she’s here, to make sure. We may keep her overnight for observation depending on how well she’s taking fluid.”

  “That’s great news,” Thomas sighed, rubbing Hannah’s arm, more for his comfort than for hers.

  “I don’t want to get your hopes up too high. We need to find the reason behind the vomiting. The chemo she had a few months ago can only account for so much.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ve looked through her chart. Have you talked to your oncologist about Gleevec? I know she’s probably already on the list for a bone marrow transplant, but they’ve had some great results with the drug,” he said, flipping through her chart.

  “She’s not listed for a transplant. We didn’t pass the money test. You said there’s a drug that treats leukemia? Without chemo?” Thomas turned, laying a hand on Hannah’s arm.

  The doctor looked uncomfortable now. “Well, yes, but it’s actually more expensive than a transplant. Some insurance companies won’t even cover it.” Then he backed toward the door, one hand scrambling for the curtain. “I’m going to see if we can pull another chair in here so you and your friend can both sit while we keep an eye on her.”

  “Thank you,” Thomas said with a sigh, his head down, trying to maintain his composure, to keep the tears from falling in front of Aleks.

  The curtain fell closed behind the doctor, and Aleks moved for the first time. He lifted the room’s only chair from its place near the wall and placed it directly behind Thomas’s knees. Thomas lost the battle with tears and slid into it, not letting go of Hannah’s tiny hand. A moment later an orderly slid another chair through the curtain, and Aleks sat on the other side of Hannah’s bed at a more comfortable distance.

  “You really don’t have to stay, Aleks. My mother will be here in a while,” Thomas offered, taking his eyes from Hannah for the first time to look at Aleks.

  “It’s okay. I took the day off to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  Aleks glanced around the tiny ER bay as if hidden spies would jump out of the hazardous-waste container. He ran a hand over his head like Thomas had seen him do a million times before, except this time, no curls peeked through his fingers. “I wanted to talk about our conversation yesterday and give you a gift. Call it a gesture of good faith to prove my intentions are honorable.”

  “It felt like yesterday was some kind of hallucination. I haven’t really thought about it,” Thomas lied.

  “Either way, this is for you.” Aleks pulled up a messenger bag from the floor next to him and took out a legal-size envelope. After handing it to Thomas, he fell back into his chair, as if the envelope weighed more than he did.

  Thomas opened the unsealed envelope and removed the check. The amount boggled his mind. He hadn’t ever seen that kind of money, much less received it from a relative stranger. Aleks had to be out of his mind. “What the hell?”

  “It’s the exact amount owed on your family’s home by the end of the month. Cash that check, give it to the mortgage company, and you’ll own the property free and clear. No more worries about where you’re going to live.”

  “Why would you do this?” Thomas choked on the words. He didn’t want to take the check. He wanted to throw it back in Aleks’s smug, handsome face. Only Aleks’s face wasn’t smug. It was pale. And if Thomas accepted the “gift,” as Aleks had called it, Hannah wouldn’t lose her swing set, or her room, the things that made her feel safe and happy. It didn’t take much self-talk to convince him to take the check and not give a shit about being bought like furniture.

  “First, because it’s not a large sum for me. I’ll write it off and not give much thought to it later. Second, because a little girl with leukemia doesn’t deserve to lose her home. Finally, because I want you to trust me. A marriage isn’t a marriage without trust.”

  “Planned a big wedding for me, have you?” Thomas asked with a snort.

  “You’re getting married, Daddy?” Hannah’s tired voice asked, and both men looked up at her, startled.

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I am, kinda. Who is she, Daddy? The girl you want to marry?”

  Thomas took a deep breath and let it out slowly, glaring at Aleks as he counted to five. “It’s not a girl, honey. Aleks here wants me to marry him.”

  “Will I get to wear a pretty dress?”

  “Sure, baby girl. Whatever you want.”

  “Oh…. Okay, then.” Hannah’s face softened, and she smiled for a moment before sleep claimed her again.

  “See, she wants this to work,” Aleks said, triumphant in his new ally.

  “She’s stoned, Aleks. All she wants is to wear a pretty dress. She doesn’t have many of those.”

  “I’ll buy her as many as she wants.”

  “Stop. Just stop.” Thomas put a hand up, trying to halt any more words from Aleks. “What about the practicalities of a marriage, Aleks? Would we live with you? How would that work?”

  “Yes, we would live together. I have a home in the city, certainly large enough for the three of us. It has a pool and plenty of room for any kind of playground Hannah wants. She’d have a beautiful bedroom that she could decorate any way she liked. You and I would both have offices to work from, and we have a spare bedroom for guests.”

  “And where would I sleep?”

  Aleks watched him for a long moment, not speaking but simply observing. If his life had depended on it, Thomas could not decide what he wanted that answer to be. The rational part of him screamed that he could not do this. He could not marry a guy to become some kind of trophy wife. A deeper, more primal part of him had wondered for years what it would be like in Aleks’s bed.

  “I had hoped we could share a bedroom. The more convincing our relationship, the less anyone may suspect when you start tracing my father’s accounts. But the spare bedroom would be yours if you wanted it.”

  “No one does something for nothing. I learned that in prison.”

  “It isn’t for nothing. You’d be helping me keep my father’s company. It’s all I have.”

  Thomas watched his daughter sleeping, tracing the dark circles under her eyes with his finger. She’d been through so much, and Aleks could give her the world. All he had to do was say yes. Just that single word and his family’s financial troubles would be over. One word and he could save his daughter’s life.

  Just one word.

  “Fine.”

  η͵

  “I THOUGHT you were taking the day off?” Wes asked when Aleks strolled back into the office just before the workday ended.

  “Can you stay for a few minutes?” Aleks jerked his head in the direction of his office, silently asking Wes to follow. His hands were shaking, and it took him two tries to unlock his office door.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m not sure,” Aleks admitted. The truth of what he’d done had smacked him between the eyes as he’d passed Six Flags and headed back into the city. The coaster ticked up and up and up on the enormous winding track and then fell as the riders screamed. He couldn’t hear the screams, but he could feel them. He wanted to scream too.

  “What happened?” He took a seat across the desk from Aleks, palms on the wooden surface.

  “He said yes.”

  “Yes to what?”

  “I told him that if he helped me find out what happened to my father, I’d marry him and take care of his little girl.” His heart pounded as Wes leaned back in the chair, mouth agape.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Wes asked in a whisper.

  “I seem to be getting that question a lot lately.” Aleks couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face. He was getting married—to the man he’d loved for what seemed like all his life. They had a ton of work to do, but
right then, he just wanted to let the truth of it sink in.

  “How did you get him to trust you? You haven’t seen him in ten years.”

  “I gave him a check to cover the foreclosure of his mother’s house.” He glanced up, and Wes’s expression softened.

  “You’re really serious about this?”

  “Yeah, I am. Do me a favor? Tomorrow, look into everything you can about a drug called Gleevec. The emergency room doctor said it would help Hannah even more than a transplant. But I get the idea that it’s expensive—some insurance companies won’t even cover it,” Alex said.

  “Now it’s Hannah, is it? Instead of ‘the little girl’? And wait, the emergency room?” Wes asked, the last few words coming out fast and high.

  “She was sick. Thomas said she’d been vomiting uncontrollably, and her pulse wasn’t right. Wes, that little girl… my God… I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. She’s so tiny, and she’s been through so much.” His heart clenched as he remembered her lying there in that hospital bed, so pale.

  “Are you sure you want to take this on? We can hire a private detective to look into your father’s death,” Wes hedged.

  “I am alone in the world, Wes. Alone. No family, very few friends, it’s like an ache inside me. I have more money than anyone can spend in a lifetime, and what happens to it when I die? Nothing. I’ll probably give it to some charity. But I can use it to help Hannah and Thomas. Will he eventually love me? I don’t know, but at least I may get my friend back.” Aleks stood and went to his favorite place by the window.

  “Is he even gay?”

  “He kissed me all those years ago. He said he’s attracted to me. I’d have to think he’s at least bisexual. I can live with that,” Aleks said, but it might have been a lie. The money was nothing compared to what he would have if he could just get Thomas to love him.

  “I just hope you can live with everything that goes along with it,” Wes said.

  “I know.”

  “Do you? What if he never loves you, Aleks?” Wes put a hand on Aleks’s arm, but he just turned away. He couldn’t think about that. He wouldn’t think about that. His parents had had a loveless marriage; even as a child, he could see that.

  “Now that I got what I wanted, I don’t even know where to start.” Aleks finally turned to look at Wes, who smiled a tired grin at him.

  “How about a first date? That’s where everyone else starts.”

  θ͵

  “HOW AM I supposed to explain this to her, Mom? That I’m marrying someone I don’t love to save her. I can’t teach her to marry for money. What kind of father would that make me?”

  With shaking hands, Thomas tied his new tie for the third time. The suit had arrived earlier in the day with a note asking him for a date. Since he’d already agreed to marry Aleks, Thomas figured he might as well go all-in. It had been a week since Hannah came home from the hospital, and she seemed stronger. He really had no excuse to say no.

  “Say no.”

  “What?”

  “We paid off the house. It’s ours now. Just tell him no. You don’t have to do this. We’ll get by like we always have.” His mother pulled an impeccably pressed jacket out of the garment bag. “Tell Mr. More-Money-than-God not everything is for sale.”

  “I don’t think it’s about that,” Thomas argued as he gave up on the tie and reached for the jacket. “I think he really wants to find out what happened to his father. He could lose the company. He thinks I’m the only one he can trust right now.”

  “But he hasn’t seen you in ten years.”

  Thomas paused, one arm in a sleeve. “No, but in college, we were close. Really close.” He reached for the other sleeve. “Then I screwed it up.”

  “What did you do?” His mother’s question came not in an accusatory way, but more curious.

  “I kissed him.”

  “Is that how you ended up with Sherry?”

  Thomas turned around, tie still dangling from either side of his neck. “What do you mean?”

  “You got together with her fast, got serious fast, got pregnant fast. It just makes me wonder if maybe you were trying a little too hard.” She turned toward him with her arms folded. Thomas felt her judgment.

  “Maybe.” Thomas sighed and reached for the tie, for attempt number four.

  Charlotte sighed and took the ends of the tie. She pulled it into a perfect Windsor. He didn’t even know she knew how to tie a man’s tie. Why would she know that?

  “So go on the date, but keep your expectations at home. You don’t have to do this, Thomas, but maybe you should see if you want to. One mistake shouldn’t ruin your entire life.” She finished up the knot and put her hands on his shoulders. Then she smiled at him. It was the first he’d seen from her in a while. Maybe it wasn’t judgment he felt from her after all.

  “Relationships shouldn’t start with a check, but I’ll keep my options open. Thanks, Mom.”

  Thomas looked up at the sound of someone knocking at the door downstairs. With a final sigh, he tightened the tie and stood up.

  “Whatever happens, we’ll make it through. We’ve always made it through.” She hugged him, and the tension left his shoulders. Definitely not judgment.

  “You’ve always pulled us through, you mean,” he whispered to her.

  “That’s what a parent does. You do the same for Hannah.”

  The knock on the door sounded again as they pulled away from each other.

  “Showtime,” he said, glancing at the mirror over his dresser. Thomas saw a lot of Hannah there—her eyes, her cheeks, her ears. That helped. It grounded him and reminded him of the stakes.

  Thomas opened the door downstairs and took a moment to appreciate the picture before him. Aleks had grown into a beautiful guy, and the perfectly tailored suit did nothing to hide that. Dapper in a designer Thomas wouldn’t have known anyway, Aleks held a single red rose and offered him a shy, unsure smile. An unsure gazillionaire. Now there’s something you don’t see every day.

  “Hi,” Aleks said in something akin to a whisper while he held out the rose to Thomas.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “You said that already,” Thomas said with a nervous chuckle.

  “Yeah, I’ve already made it awkward.”

  “Daddy, you look pretty,” Hannah said from the stairs, hiding quietly behind Charlotte near the banister. Her nightshirt, one of his old boyhood shirts, hung to her knees. Eyes still tired from her nap, she watched Aleks even as she smothered Lizzy into her chest.

  “Thank you, sweetheart. Do you remember Aleks? He was there when you were in the hospital.” Thomas swooped his pajama-clad daughter into his arms. She clung to him, hiding her face from the stranger in the doorway.

  “I remember. He said you were getting married.”

  Thomas looked at Hannah, startled. “I didn’t think you’d remember that talk. You were so sleepy.”

  “Are you getting married today? You said I’d get to wear a pretty dress.” Hannah pouted, her eyes not leaving Aleks, who smiled at Thomas.

  “Your dad and I aren’t getting married today. We’re just going out so we can talk for a while. Maybe one day soon we can go out, all three of us, anyplace you’d like to go. Could we do that?”

  Hannah lit up like Christmas morning and nodded. Something in Thomas’s chest felt a little lighter.

  “Okay, it’s time for us to go. Be a good girl for Meemaw, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Are you having a sleepover?”

  Thomas growled at the laughter in Aleks’s eyes and tried not to choke on his own answer. “No, honey, but I’ll probably be home after you’re asleep.” He handed her off to his mother before she could come up with any more questions. Hannah kissed his cheek and then reached for Charlotte.

  Anything. He would do anything for her.

  Aleks led the way through the front door while Thomas locked up behind them. When he slid the keys back into his pocket, Thomas turned to the
Jag in the driveway. It seemed so damned out of place in the rural countryside of their quiet home.

  “I thought we could have dinner and talk. Do you mind if I take us back into the city?”

  “I don’t know which fork to use,” Thomas joked, climbing into the passenger seat. At six feet, he nearly took up half the car by himself, but they both fit comfortably. He glanced behind him and saw no back seat. Gazillionaires probably didn’t drive SUVs. They’d have to do something about cars for Hannah. The thought smacked him right between the eyes.

  “It’s okay. I don’t think it will matter at this place.”

  Aleks turned the car gracefully in a radius his mother’s old Taurus could never achieve, and then pulled out onto the road. Being so low to the ground, the car didn’t really like the unfinished pavement at the end of the drive, but once they were back on a major highway, it sang like a dream.

  “This is a… nice car,” Thomas commented, glancing out the window. In the perfect suit, in the perfect car, he felt like a different person as they drove down the familiar road. Landmarks he’d passed his entire life took on a new sheen.

  “Thank you. It was my father’s, actually. I drive a Prius, but I wanted to make a good impression.”

  “A Prius would have made a good impression too,” Thomas said softly.

  “How’s Hannah?”

  “Better. They’re still waiting for some tests to come back, but it looks like severe dehydration. Of course, we won’t know for sure until the biopsies are clear. It’s always a crapshoot, and usually she loses.”

  “When was she diagnosed?”

  “Four years ago.”

  “So, while you were still….”

  “In prison, yes. You might as well get used to saying it. I have.” He watched the Atlanta skyline grow out of the ground, its lights still soft in the distance.