“They couldn’t drag me away.”
Her eyes opened again. “I’d like to ride a horse when I’m better. Mom says there are a lot of horses in Oklahoma.”
“Yes, there are.”
She squeezed his hand once and then her grip loosened and she slept. Blake looked up as Jana moved to sit on the empty bed behind his chair, closer to him. Too close.
“Have you told the doctors that she has family here?”
“Yes.” Jana scooted onto the bed, sitting with her feet dangling, her hands clasped in her lap. “They’ll have to test you to see if you’re a match. Blake, it won’t be easy.”
“I know that.”
“You might not be a match.”
He nodded and looked at his daughter again. He had to be a match. “If I’m not, there are plenty of us. We’ll find someone.”
“What if there isn’t one? Or what if one of your family is a match but they don’t...”
He cut her off, raising a hand to stop the storm of words.
“Jana, someone will.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “You do what you need to do. Tell the doctors. Arrange the testing. And we’ll take care of the rest.”
He got up and headed for the door. Jana followed him. Once they were in the hall, he realized she was about to lose it. She had probably been as strong as one person can be on her own. Now she looked like any strength she’d been holding on to was about to give out.
What could he do about that?
“I can’t undo what I did.” She leaned back against the wall and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers. Soft blond hair framed her face.
“No, you can’t.” What an understatement that was. She’d robbed him. She’d robbed Lindsey. Come to think of it, she’d robbed his entire family. Lindsey’s family.
Jana’s shoulders started to shake. Her body sagged against the wall and her knees buckled. He grabbed her, holding her close as she sobbed into his shoulder. She still fit perfectly, and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to remember how it had been when they were young. He didn’t want her scent or her touch to be familiar.
It all came back to him. He pushed it away by remembering coming home to an empty house and a note.
He held her until her sobs became quieter, her body ceased shaking. He held her and tried hard not to think about the years he’d spent searching, wishing things could have been different for them, wishing she’d come back.
Before long, those years of wanting her back had been replaced by even more years of anger, of resentment, of not caring if he ever saw her again. All the while he never stopped wanting his daughter back.
“Mrs. Cooper?”
“She’ll be fine,” he assured the woman in the white lab coat walking toward them, her gaze lingering on Jana. “I’m Blake Cooper, Lindsey’s father.”
“Mr. Cooper, I’m Bonnie Palmer. I’m the nurse practitioner handling your daughter’s transplant.”
“I’m the dad who hopes he’s a match. Can an adult give a kidney to a child?”
“Yes, we’ve had great success with adult to child transplants.”
He realized he was still holding Jana, his hands stroking her hair, comforting her. His hands dropped to his sides and she stepped back, visibly trying to regain her composure. She managed a weak smile.
“Where do we start?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“If the two of you could join me in the conference room, we’ll discuss what needs to happen next for your daughter. And I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Cooper. The sooner we can get this done, the better things will be for Lindsey.”
Blake swallowed the painful lump that tightened in his throat. “Let’s get started, then.”
Jana looked up at him, her eyes still misty. “I’m sorry for falling apart.”
“It’s understandable.” He shrugged it off, but not as easily as he would have liked. He looked from Jana to the nurse. “I don’t want Lindsey left alone. I don’t want her to wake up and think I’m gone.”
The nurse indicated a room down the hall. “You go ahead, and I’ll see if we can find an aide to sit with your daughter.”
Together Blake and Jana walked down the hall. He motioned her ahead of him into the conference room that was really just a room with more bad furniture that he barely fit in and a lamp to soften the fluorescent overhead lights.
The door opened and Nurse Palmer entered the room with a compassionate smile but cautious looks as she glanced from Blake to Jana. For thirty minutes she discussed what had to happen, and what were the best- and worst-case scenarios for Lindsey. Blake listened, trying to come to terms with the young woman in that hospital bed and the little girl she’d been the last time he’d seen her. All of those lost years. He glanced at Jana and she looked away.
“What happens if no one in my family is a match?” he asked the nurse.
“We’ll continue dialysis and keep looking for a kidney. We’ll continue to monitor her blood, her heart and her blood pressure. We’re going to do everything in our power to get her well.”
“And if we find a kidney?”
“If she’s fortunate, she won’t reject the kidney, and both she and the kidney stay healthy. Later in life she’ll more than likely need another transplant. If she gets a kidney from a living donor we hope for twenty years.”
Twenty years. She’d be thirty-two. Blake shook his head as the reality of his daughter’s future hit. No matter what, she’d have a lifetime of medication and medical care. “So what do we do first?”
Nurse Palmer stood, clipboard in hand. “We can start testing you, Mr. Cooper. If necessary we’ll test the rest of your family. If they’re willing.”
“They’ll be willing. But let’s just go with the assumption that I’m the donor. When would we do this surgery? How soon?”
The nurse smiled. “Let’s take things one step at a time.”
“It seems to me that time isn’t something we have a lot of.”
“Mr. Cooper, believe me, I appreciate the urgency of this situation.”
“Okay, what’s the first step?”
“We start with paperwork, of course. And then we’ll do blood tests. We want to make sure you have blood types that match. The last thing we want is for her body to reject your kidney.”
“I’m her dad—why wouldn’t they match?”
“Mr. Cooper, being her dad isn’t in question. Your blood type, the antigens in your blood and her body accepting your kidney—those are the issues we’re looking at here. And we also want to make sure you’re in good health and that you have two very healthy kidneys.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Yes, let’s.” Nurse Palmer paused at the door. “Mr. Cooper, you have to understand this is a lengthy evaluation. It isn’t going to happen in an hour. And it isn’t going to happen today. We want a complete physical, blood tests, and we’ll also have you talk to a counselor.”
Great. They’d soon find out he resented the woman sitting across the room from him. He hoped that wouldn’t undo everything.
“I understand.” He reached for the hat he’d dropped on the end table. “But the way I see it, the sooner we get started, the better.”
Jana