Let Him Live

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “A rock star! Who would believe that?”

  “You’ll think of something. I have complete confidence in you.”

  Meg didn’t feel confident at all, but she knew she would try her best for his sake. “Listen, Mr. Moneybags, if I somehow manage to bamboozle some agent and get her to take me, you, on as a client, and I line up some houses for you to see, then you have to do your part, understand?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You have to stay well.”

  He cupped her chin in his palm. “I’m doing my best. With my luck, I’ll find the perfect house and just before I close the deal, my beeper will go off and your father will want to give me a transplant.”

  Meg gazed deeply into his eyes. “May you have such good luck,” she said. “May you have such good luck.”

  The meal Donovan’s mother prepared for them that evening was simple, but tasty. “It’s terrific, Mom,” he told her.

  Meg agreed, looking around the apartment at Mrs. Jacoby’s meager belongings and well-worn furniture. Through the walls, Meg could hear a baby crying and a television blaring in neighboring apartments.

  Brett bounced enthusiastically in his chair. “We can spend the night together,” he said. His face fell when Donovan told him that he had to return to the hospital. “But that’s not fair. Why can’t you stay?”

  “Because I’m still sick. I don’t want to go back, but I have to.”

  “You’ve been gone a long time. I want you to come home.”

  “I can’t, Brett.”

  Brett pushed away from the table. “You could if you wanted. Me and Mom can take care of you.”

  “I have to leave.”

  “I hate you!” Brett shouted, his eyes filling with tears. “I don’t want you to come home. Stay at your stupid hospital forever.”

  “Brett—” Mrs. Jacoby called as he ran down the hall and slammed into his bedroom. “I’ll go get him.”

  Donovan stood. “No. Let me talk to him. It’s me he’s mad at.”

  “He doesn’t mean it, you know.”

  “I know.” Donovan disappeared down the hall.

  Meg understood perfectly how Brett felt. Hadn’t she been angry—furious—about Cindy? In her pain, hadn’t she wanted to strike out at everybody? “He’ll get over it,” Meg said in the awkward silence that remained in the room. “He’ll feel sorry for being mean to Donovan and will want to see him as soon as possible, just to make sure his anger didn’t harm Donovan in some way.”

  Mrs. Jacoby looked at Meg. “You’re right. It’s happened before. He cries and worries that his brother will get sicker. How did you know?”

  Meg averted her eyes. “I’m a doctor’s daughter, remember? I could call him later, after I check Donovan back in to the hospital, and let him know that all’s well.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Sure. Brett feels left out, and that makes him feel worse because he knows Donovan’s really sick and he can’t make it go away.”

  “You’re a smart and tenderhearted girl, Meg. I appreciate all you’re doing. For both my sons.”

  Meg shrugged. She liked Mrs. Jacoby and Brett. And she liked Donovan too. Liked him more than she knew she should, given his circumstances. He’s going to beat the odds, she told herself. The Network for Organ Sharing would find him a liver, and he’d have the transplant, recover, and be all right. He had to be.

  Meg checked Donovan back in to the hospital that evening. “Don’t forget to help find my mother a house,” he said as he crawled into bed.

  He looked awfully exhausted to Meg. “I won’t,” she promised. She drove home and went to bed, but couldn’t fall asleep. She was still tossing when she heard the phone ring at two A.M. She realized it would be for her father, and felt a vague sense of foreboding she couldn’t explain. When she heard his footsteps in the hall, she got out of bed and met him at the top of the stairs.

  “I’m sorry if the phone woke you,” he said, startled by her appearance. “Go back to bed.”

  Something in the way he averted his eyes made her ask, “What’s wrong? Is there something wrong with someone I know? With Donovan?”

  Her father looked at her fully, hesitated, then said, “That was a call from a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. I’m driving over there now because they have an accident victim on the verge of brain death, and his blood type is the same as Donovan’s.”

  Eleven

  “ARE YOU SAYING they’ve found a donor for Donovan?” Meg’s heart began to race in anticipation.

  “Don’t jump to that conclusion. All I know is that the victim meets several criteria that could make him a match. I’m going over there to be available for organ retrieval, just in case.”

  “I want to come with you.” The words jumped from Meg’s throat.

  “Meg, that’s not necessary. The family hasn’t even been approached about donating yet, and there would be nothing for you to do but hang around the waiting room.”

  She caught his arm. “Please, Dad, let me come along. I-I’ve never asked for anything like this before. Don’t say no. It’s really important to me.”

  Her father studied her intently, as if weighing his medical professionalism and his role as her father. “I need to leave now.”

  “Five minutes,” she pleaded. “I can be dressed to go in five minutes.” Her heart hammered as she waited for his reply.

  “All right,” he said, jangling the keys in his pocket. “I’ll leave your mother a note. Meet me in the garage.”

  Meg spun, ran to her room, tugged on clothes, grabbed her purse, and raced down the stairs. They rode in silence along the Beltway through sparse traffic, toward the Maryland exit. She watched her father pick up his car phone and call Memorial. “I want you to prep Donovan Jacoby for surgery,” she heard him tell an assistant on his transplant team. “Start him on the donor protocol, and I’ll let you know as soon as possible if I’m able to retrieve.”

  “Will Donovan know he may get the transplant tonight?” she asked when her father hung up the receiver.

  “He’ll know. We’ll do blood work, an EKG, and X rays. Then we’ll start him on antibiotics and antirejection drugs right away.”

  “What if he doesn’t get the organ?”

  “We have to prepare as if he will. We have to lower his risk for postoperative infection and give him a head start on organ acceptance. As for the other—well, the specter of disappointment, of not getting the new organ, is something all potential transplant recipients have to learn to live with.”

  Meg watched the lampposts flash past the car window as her father sped along the expressway. She felt events were hurtling by just as fast. She pictured Donovan’s face as he heard that he might get his new liver. She knew how he longed for the waiting to be over. “I hope this is it for him.”

  “I hope so too.”

  At the Bethesda hospital, Meg followed her father up stairwells and through a maze of long corridors. He paused in front of a set of double doors marked “Personnel Only Beyond This Point.” He glanced about. “There’ll be a waiting room nearby. Go there and wait for me while I check with the trauma team. The patient’s on life support, but I want to make sure he’s being well oxygenated.”

  Meg found her way to a cubbyhole of a room, where six people were gathered together in a small huddle. Their grief hit her like a wall the moment she walked inside the room. She wanted to back out slowly, but realized they had taken no notice of her, so she slunk to a chair. Her palms felt clammy and her mouth dry. She fumbled in her purse for a mint.

  “We can’t lose him,” Meg heard a woman sob.

  “They’re doing all they can, Peggy. We just have to wait,” the man beside her said.

  Meg sucked in her breath. This had to be the potential donor’s family. Meg lowered her gaze, trying to make herself as small and as inconspicuous as possible, wishing she’d chosen any room but this one to wait for her father.

  “He’s still alive,” another woman said. “The poli
ce said he was alive when the ambulance left the accident.”

  Meg experienced a wave of horror. The person they were talking about wasn’t alive. She’d heard her father mention brain death on his car phone. She felt guilty withholding the information, but knew there was nothing she could do or say.

  “Remember when Blake was little?” the woman asked. “Remember how he’d drive his trike to the end of the driveway for hours on end? Then, when he got his driver’s license, he was happy. So full of life.”

  “Don’t do this to yourself, Mama,” a young woman said.

  “Do I remember? How could I not remember? He was my baby.” She broke into quiet sobs, and the man beside her put his arms around her.

  Meg felt desperately sorry for them. Death meant going away forever. It meant leaving families and friends behind. It meant leaving a hole in time and space that only that one special person could fill up. She understood that part—understood it very well. She began to grow queasy.

  Two men and a woman entered the waiting room. Meg could tell at a glance that they were medical personnel. “Dr. Burnside!” the woman cried. “How’s Blake? How’s my son?”

  The doctor took her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Peggy, I want you and your family to come into the conference room with me. I want my colleagues to talk to all of you.” He nodded toward the other man and the woman.

  “Are they surgeons? Does my Blake need some special kind of operation? Whatever he needs, doctor, do it.”

  “Come, let’s go where there’s more privacy.” Dr. Burnside’s gaze flicked over Meg.

  Her cheeks burned, and she stared stonily into space. Once they all left the room, Meg released her breath, startled that she’d been holding it all this time. The room seemed too quiet, and she wished her father would come. Maybe she should have stayed home after all. She had no idea how long the operation to remove the boy’s—she couldn’t bring herself to say his name—organs would take. Not long, she figured. She knew how critical a factor time was in transplantation. Just a little bit longer, Donovan, she told herself. His wait was practically over.

  Meg lost track of time, but when her father appeared at the doorway, she was surprised. Somehow, it didn’t seem long enough for him to have completed his tasks. There was no liveliness about him either, no undercurrent of raw energy, as she often saw when he was facing a transplant surgery. “Are you finished?” she asked haltingly.

  He came over and sat heavily in the chair beside her. For the first time, she noticed lines of fatigue around his eyes and mouth. “There isn’t going to be any surgery,” he said.

  “There isn’t? Why not?”

  “The family refused to grant permission.”

  His words hit her like stones. “B-but they have to. Don’t they know Donovan’s dying?”

  Her father took her hand. “Honey, they don’t know Donovan. All they know is their eighteen-year-old son is dead.”

  “Didn’t you try to change their minds? Didn’t you tell them how important it was?”

  “Organ donation is voluntary, Meg. People can’t be forced.”

  She felt panic well up inside her. “So, what will they do with him? Just shove him into the ground? Just let his organs go to waste when they could be put into someone else and help him live longer?”

  “You can’t think about it that way. You have to understand and respect their feelings.”

  “Well, I don’t!” Meg tore her hand from her father’s and stood. Her legs felt rubbery, but she began to pace. “It’s not fair. Why wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t they say yes?”

  “People have a hundred reasons.” He shook his head. “They’re afraid of disfiguring their loved one—which we don’t. They feel it’s freakish to transfer body parts from one person to another. Too many Frankenstein movies,” he added. “Whatever their reasons, we can’t intervene. We can’t ever force anyone to agree to donation. It’s a tough thing to even broach with grieving relatives. I told you that once before.”

  She remembered, recalling her own feelings about transplantation. Hadn’t she herself once been turned off to the whole idea? Yet, now that she knew Donovan, her feelings had completely changed. “So, why do you even bother to ask at all? Why get somebody’s hopes up for nothing?”

  “First of all, we ask because it’s the law. We have to ask. Second, because there are many people who realize that this is the ultimate gift to others and an opportunity to do something good and kind. This is a way for their loved one to continue living.”

  “But not these people,” Meg said. “These people don’t care about others at all.”

  Her father came quickly alongside her. He took her arms and turned her to face him. “Don’t ever say that, Meg. These people just had their son die, and they are inconsolable.”

  Meg began to tremble, understanding exactly what inconsolable felt like. It was a deep, black hole. A bottomless well of tears and anguish. A place without sunlight or even air. Her lip began to quiver. “I don’t want Donovan to die, Daddy.”

  Her father drew her into his arms. “I’m doing all I can, Meg. There’ll be another donor for him. You have to believe that.”

  She nodded, forcing down the tears that were trying to burst free. “I thought this was it for him. I thought his waiting was over.”

  He looked down into her face with troubled eyes. “Meg, medicine is a strange business. It’s life and death. Sometimes it’s making choices that no one but God should have to make. I know what you’re feeling because I’ve felt that way myself. I want to tell you something, and I want you to listen closely.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The only way to treat patients and not go crazy is to distance yourself from them. You can’t allow yourself to become so personally involved that you lose your professional perspective. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Yes. You think I’m overreacting.”

  “No, your concern is all too human. But you can’t become too personally involved in any one case or in any one patient’s life. It’s the first rule of the doctor-patient relationship.”

  She took a deep breath, forcing down a retort. She wasn’t a doctor. Nor did she ever want to be. Medicine was her father’s world, and she was sorry she’d gotten mixed up in it at all. “Don’t you ever get involved, Dad? Doesn’t someone ever become special to you?”

  He shrugged and glanced away. “It’s a fine line to walk. I have to watch myself. My patients are just that—patients. No matter how hard I try, I can’t save them all.”

  She tried to apply brakes to her runaway emotions. She took a deep breath and attempted to distance herself from the drama she had just witnessed. “I’m all right now,” she said. “I-I’m sorry I got so angry.”

  “It’s understandable.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Now, I’ve got the tough job of telling Donovan.”

  “Will you tell him now?”

  “I’ll take you home first, then go check on him. My transplant team knows there won’t be any surgery. Donovan will be fairly groggy for the next couple of days, but sooner or later, he’ll figure out he didn’t have the transplant. You’re right about one thing—he’s going to be a very disappointed young man.”

  Her heart squeezed as renewed concern for Donovan swept through her. She was going to have to face his disappointment also. Meg took a deep breath and followed her father out into the hall. If professional distance was one of her father’s rules, she knew she was in trouble. She’d already broken it and could figure no way to turn the situation around.

  Twelve

  “YOU’RE DRAGGING AROUND today, Meg. Did you have a hot date last night?” Alana asked.

  Meg shook her head in response and sipped a soda, hoping the cola would revive her sagging energies. The lunch crowd in the hospital cafeteria seemed especially loud to her. “I wish it had been a hot date. No, I’m afraid last night was a real downer for me.” Quickly, she recounted her and her father’s false alarm run to Bet
hesda for Donovan. “I didn’t get to bed until four A.M. and then I couldn’t go to sleep. I feel like a zombie today. Sorry if I’m not carrying my share of the work on the floor.”

  “Forget it. I’m just sorry the donor didn’t work out for Donovan. Have you been by to see him this morning?”

  “Not yet. Frankly, I’m not looking forward to talking to him. I know how depressed he’s going to be, and I feel so helpless. I don’t know what to say to him. I mean, how do you go about consoling someone because he didn’t get a transplant? Someone who’s still living on borrowed time?”

  Alana’s expression was sympathetic. “You know I understand because of my brother’s situation. I wish I could help people understand that.”

  “I wish I could help the whole world understand it,” Meg countered. “The truth is, unless it happens to someone you care about, it isn’t important to you.”

  Alana started stacking the empty plates from Meg’s lunch tray onto her own. “You’ve got some free time. Why don’t you go see Donovan now?”

  “He’s still in ICU and won’t be brought back to his room until tomorrow. Maybe by tomorrow, I’ll feel better myself. I don’t want to make him even more depressed.”

  “He doesn’t have to know about your going to the other hospital with your father. And all you have to do is hold his hand and listen to him. Don’t feel you have to be responsible for making him cheerful. Sometimes, it’s okay to let a person work through his anger by himself.”

  Meg thought Alana sounded very wise. “The voice of experience?” she asked.

  Alana nodded. “Sometimes all I could do for my brother was listen. He needed to get it out, and I was the one person in our family who let him say anything he felt like saying.” She smiled impishly. “And sometimes that boy had some pretty shocking things to say. I didn’t know he knew such words.”

  Meg felt a flood of gratitude toward her friend. Maybe it would be best not to tell Donovan how upset she’d gotten over the family’s refusal to donate their dead son’s organs. “I’ll remember what you said.” She touched Alana’s arm. “And thanks for the advice.”