Anne almost collapsed under the weight of her helplessness. What could she tell Katie? That her daddy might never get to take her to the zoo again? That he might never attend another soccer game or field day? Perhaps not even her wedding.
No, Anne couldn’t tell her daughter those things. She had to tell her something that would allow her hope. Something to make her smile again. She could think of only one thing. That one thing would entail discarding latent bitterness toward her ex-husband. But if making the sacrifice of aiding Jack with his recovery meant giving her daughter some peace, she would do it for Katie.
“How would you like it if Daddy came to live here with us until he felt better?”
Katie’s expression lit up, and so did Delia’s. “Like before?”
Not exactly, but Anne wouldn’t dare make that revelation. Not now. “Only until he gets well. He’ll have to have lots of rest.”
“Can he stay in the room next to mine? I could help take care of him.”
Anne considered the stairs, how hard it would be for Jack to scale them at first, if ever. “No, he’d have to stay downstairs.”
“In your room?”
Lord, she hadn’t even considered that. The other bedroom was upstairs with Katie’s. She supposed she could sleep in the guest room, but she would need to be nearby. She could sleep on the sofa in the living room and let Jack have the master bedroom. Or maybe she should arrange to have a hospital bed set up in the den. Already she was planning, and she realized the decision had been made for her.
“I’ll figure that out later. First, Daddy will have to say it’s okay.”
“He will,” Katie said with a child’s confidence, as though all would be right with the world if she willed it.
Katie hugged Anne, Delia smiled, and one thought gripped Anne’s heart. Jack was back in their lives—her life—if he agreed. If he lived.
CHAPTER 3
He awoke with a gasp as if surfacing from treacherous waters, held down by heavy limbs. Recollections came back to him in small frames, like some macabre B-movie with him in the starring role.
He remembered falling. Darkness. Pain. Flashes of Annie seeped into his consciousness. The dreams arrived as one patchwork journey into his past. Annie the way she looked back then. Katie as a baby. He was still running local marathons. Maybe even still in medical school. No—residency. He hadn’t known Annie in medical school.
The visions made little sense, yet he found comfort in their familiarity. He wanted to go right on sleeping, fearful of the unknown. Terrified of what he might find when he came fully awake. But sleep wouldn’t return, regardless of the fact that he kept his eyes tightly closed in an attempt to ignore the muffled voices, ignore other sounds he knew all too well. The nasal tones of an operator paging his colleagues. The hustle and bustle of the hospital halls. He recognized the sterile smells, the supercharged atmosphere. The place where he’d spent most of his waking hours in the past few years, but never like this.
He had no concept of time, no idea what day it was. Had he been asleep for minutes? Days? Weeks?
Jack searched his mind and vaguely remembered an eruption of activity after the initial confusion. Several times he’d wanted to ask what was happening to him, but he couldn’t manage to form the words with any coherency. Hank had been there; he knew that for certain. He’d recognized several of the nurses hovering over him. Most had taken orders from him at one time or another. Now they ordered him around. Asked him his name periodically. What day it was. What year. He’d answered the best he could, but his mind continued to drift off to another place. A place to escape harsh realities.
The creaking of a cart somewhere in the distance caused him to open his eyes. He slowly scanned the functional room. Purple drapes, mauve-and-navy chairs. A TV perched on the stand mounted near the ceiling. He knew the territory like he knew every instrument he used in surgery. Like the back of his hand.
His hand. He worked his left hand into a fist, flexing it open and closed. Yet when he tried to move his right hand, it lay flaccid against his side. His right foot tingled, but he felt nothing above it.
He gulped more air into his constricted chest, trying hard to push away the panic that threatened to consume him. He lowered his eyes to the needle in his arm, then followed the line as it trailed over the metal sidebars and up to where it attached to an IV pump. The equipment surrounding him was all too familiar. He just hadn’t been on this side of the bed before.
As a physician, he should know the names of the medications they kept pumping into him, but he couldn’t remember. Normally, he would be looking down on this scene—the narrow bed, the starched white sheets, the figure lying among leads and lines to sustain or relieve whatever malady had befallen him or her. But this time, he was the one lying helpless, surrounded by the miracle of modern technology. Half his body as dead as driftwood. Only half a man.
The door swung open and in walked Hank, a grim expression on his bearded face. Jack had seen that look before. He’d worn it several times himself, right before telling a patient’s family that nothing more could be done.
Hank strode to the side of the bed and faked a smile. “Hey, bud, you’re finally awake.” He leaned over and checked the pump. “Do you know your name?”
Shit, Hank was treating him like one of his patients. “Morgan. M-m-miracle worker.” It didn’t come out quite right; his brain seemed short-circuited.
Hank chuckled. “Hell, the stroke didn’t affect your industrial-size ego.”
Jack tensed over the word stroke. His worst fears had been confirmed; yet he’d known all along that he’d suffered some sort of cerebral accident. A fried brain. The end of his career.
“What…d-day is it?” His throat was as dry as dead leaves in the winter, and it had taken him great effort to form the words. As if it really mattered what day it was. What was the use in knowing? He had no surgical cases to worry about. No strength. No will.
Hank set the metal chart on the rolling table and perched on the edge of the bed. “It’s Saturday, Jack. You fell out around midnight on Sunday, after your transplant case. Do you remember any of it?”
“Some.” He remembered the pain, the helplessness. That no one had been there to comfort him.
After clearing his scratchy throat, he pointed at the white pitcher on the table. “Water.”
Hank poured a plastic cup full and handed it to him. After Jack took one sip, he asked the question nagging at him. “How bad?”
“An aneurysm. Nan Travers ordered you a nice buzz cut and fixed it. And if you don’t have any more problems, you’ll be good as new.”
Jack sensed his blood pressure rising. Right now he didn’t give a damn about anything. “Good as new, huh? What about the h-hand. The leg, Hank?”
Hank laid a palm on his shoulder. “Easy, bud. We’ll take it one day at a time. Occupational therapy and physical therapy will work with you, get that hand and leg back up to speed. But you’ll have to work with them, while you’re here on the rehab unit and after you go home.”
Home. Jack hadn’t considered the apartment home. He had no idea how the hell he was going to get through this. He’d been alone for two years and he’d managed. He’d manage again, even if it meant wasting away by himself. Then no one would see his suffering, or witness his despair.
“Anne’s here.”
Jack stopped the cup halfway to his lips, then slowly brought it back down to rest against his chest. He no longer wanted water. He wanted whiskey. “Why?”
“She asked to