by Susan Gable
“Don’t you do this to me, Scott,” she murmured. “Not today. Not tomorrow, either, but definitely not today.”
She glanced at the numbers on the monitor. She’d learned how to read them early on when Scott had come back to the States. Had had a refresher course the last time he’d had pneumonia. His oxygen levels were low. But he didn’t have an oxygen mask.
No IV, either. As far as she could tell, he was being monitored, but not receiving any sort of treatment.
A young woman in a purple scrub top with bold pink flowers on it came into the room. “Oh. Hi. I didn’t realize anyone was here with him. I’m Annette.”
“I’m Ronni Mangano.” She gestured toward the bed. “This is my husband. Can I get an update on his condition?”
“Sure. Let me get the doctor for you, okay?”
“Thanks. Do you know if you’ve also got a call in to his regular doctor? Dr. Saunders?”
“I’ll check.”
Ronni forced out the next question, one she didn’t really want to ask, but had to. “Is there still a copy of his end-of-life directives in his records?”
The nurse’s eyes softened with sympathy. “Yes. We just need to know if, as his guardian, you still agree with it.”
“I wrote it. I certainly agree with it. But I don’t understand, if his O2 sats are so low, and you’ve read the document, why isn’t he on oxygen?”
“I’m going to get the doctor for you.”
###
Hayden heard Ronni’s voice even before he entered the double doors to the E.R. area. He couldn’t make out the words yet, but he got the tone.
She was pissed at someone. Big-time pissed.
He hustled down the hall, stopping several yards behind her. Fists propped on her hips, she squared off with a baby-faced doctor.
“If my husband was a rosebush or a houseplant, he’d get water, nourishment and, if needed, medication. And that’s what I’m telling you. That’s what his directive calls for. You start treating him right now, or I’ll have you in front of the board of this hospital so damn fast you’ll be treating yourself for a serious case of whiplash!”
“Mrs. Mangano, I’m just asking you to reconsider his quality of life. If—”
“Don’t quality-of-life me. I know somebody gave you a fancy degree and a white coat, but you don’t know everything. You’re not God, even if you have a God complex. How would you like me to lock you in a closet with no food and no water and let you die like that?”
“I assure you, your husband doesn’t feel anything.”
“Okay, I’ll knock you unconscious before I toss you into the closet. That makes it all better, right? ’Cause you won’t feel anything?”
“Uh... Well, technically, I suppose it would. I wouldn’t suffer at all.”
“Is my husband unconscious?”
“Not precisely. I’m sure you know that PVS is a distinct category of mental state.”
“So you’re one hundred percent certain that he feels absolutely nothing.”
“Yes.”
“No possibility for error? None? Zero?”
“Well, uh...”
“Exactly. This is a Catholic hospital, Dr. Xavier. I chose it for that reason. Because I thought I’d find more respect for the sanctity of my husband’s life. Such as it is. Now you start treating him with antibiotics, with whatever other medications you think will help, whatever. Be a doctor. That’s all I’m asking. If he stops breathing, you let him go. If his heart stops beating, let him go. But otherwise...get the hell in there and help him until Dr. Saunders arrives to take over his care.”
“As you wish, Mrs. Mangano. Let me write out the orders.”
“You do that,” she muttered as the doctor strode away, head slightly bowed.
“Wow. Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Hayden said. “I had no idea you could get so riled up.”
She whirled around. “Hayden. I didn’t know you were here already.”
“That’s ’cause you were too busy reaming out that doctor. Probably not the best way to win friends and influence people, but still damned impressive.”
She shrugged. “He wanted me to not treat Scott’s pneumonia. No antibiotics. No oxygen. Nothing.” Her eyes glistened. “I can’t...I can’t do that. I’m already responsible for his condition. I can’t...kill him. I have to do what I can for him.”
There was her guilt again.
Hayden held his arms open. She moved into them, nestling her head against his chest. “Of course you do. I’d feel exactly the same way.” Although if he were in Mangano’s boots, he’d probably prefer death to the limbo the man was in. What good was life when you couldn’t do anything at all? Couldn’t feel anything at all? It wasn’t life.
But Hayden sure as hell didn’t want Ronni carrying even more guilt than she already did. He knew all too well how that felt. How it gnawed at you.
“I don’t think he’d want to live like this.” She snuffled into his shirt. “I don’t want to live like this. But I can’t...” She finally gave in, sobbing softly in Hayden’s embrace.
“Shh.” He stroked her hair, holding her tight. She didn’t stay there long. A moment or two later, she shoved him away, swiping at her face with the back of her hand.
“Okay. Enough. I don’t have time for this right now. I have to call Vera and let her know what’s happening. And I have to shuffle around all my clients for tomorrow.” She jerked her head in the direction of the E.R. exam room. “Can you please sit with Scott? Wow. That’s a really weird thing to ask, isn’t it? But...I don’t trust that doctor. And I don’t want Scott alone. If anyone comes in to do anything, you ask questions, okay? Find out exactly what they’re doing, what medication they’re giving, all of that?”
“If that’s what you need me to do, you know I will.”
She grabbed his hand. Gave it a quick squeeze. “Thank you.” Then she headed for the doors, digging in her purse for her cell phone.
Once she’d passed through to the waiting room, Hayden entered the exam room.
Mangano looked even more like shit than he had in the nursing home. Something Hayden hadn’t thought possible at the time.
Skin flushed with fever made Scott’s five o’clock shadow more pronounced. Right. Ronni had given herself the day off from the nursing home and shaving duties in honor of Ian’s birthday. “Can’t even let the poor woman have a single day to herself, huh? We need to have a serious talk, man to man.”
The way Mangano struggled to breathe kicked Hayden in the gut, bringing back painful memories of Ian’s last hours.
Hayden leaned over the bed, adjusted the pillow, trying to open his airway more. “Your wife is a damn good woman. Way better than you deserve, that’s for sure.”
A nurse bustled into the room, an IV bag in hand. She skidded to a halt when she saw him. “Hayden...”
“Netti. You’re his nurse?” He and Annette had been on very intimate terms a few years back.
“I am.”
“Good.” He took comfort—for Ronni’s sake—in having Netti on the job. She was compassionate, and damn good at what she did. There was only one other nurse he’d prefer in a crisis, and that was his sister Elke.
Within minutes, Netti finished hooking up Scott’s IV, then added another bag, responding to Hayden’s questions, explaining exactly what medications the patient was receiving. She placed an oxygen mask over his face, turned the valve, then studied the monitor. One of the numbers immediately began to rise slightly.
“You think he’ll make it?”
She shrugged. “This is generally what kills a PVS patient. Some infection. But we’ll see. His chart shows he had a bout of pneumonia four months ago and pulled through. Anything’s possible.” She patted Hayden’s arm. “If you need anything, hit the call button. Or stick your head out the door and yell. We won’t come running, because he’s DNR, but we’ll come.”
“Thanks, Netti.”
When she left, Hayden leaned over the head of th
e bed again. “As I was saying, you don’t deserve Ronni. And she doesn’t deserve this hell you’re putting her through. If you were any kind of a man, if you ever loved her, you’ll let go of whatever it is that you’re hanging on to.
“All I’m saying, dude, one military guy to another. You don’t want to live like this, do you? So if you see a white light, you go for it. Of course, given the way you’ve treated your wife, the light might just be fire, but...a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Man up, soldier. Set her free.
“Set yourself free.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“MY MOM’S IN THERE with him?” Nick peered around Unk toward the hospital room’s doorway.
“Yes.”
“And they don’t think he’s going to make it this time?” He shifted his grip on the backpack over his shoulder.
“It doesn’t look good, no.”
The remnants of his dinner shifted uncomfortably in Nick’s stomach. “Can you get my mom out of there? I want to see him, but I don’t want her around when I do.”
“Getting her to leave that room... I think you might have more luck if you just tell her you want some privacy with him.”
Nick sighed. “Okay.”
Unk moved to let Nick pass, then followed him into the room. Nick spared a glance at his stepfather. An oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth. Beard stubble dotted his jaw.
“Nick.” His mom set a cardboard coffee cup on the bedside table, rising from a recliner in the corner. “I didn’t think you’d come.” She opened her arms.
With attention still on the shrunken man in the bed, Nick hugged his mother. “I’m here. I—I need to see him. But...” He eased back from her embrace. “I need to do it alone. Can you...?” He jerked his head toward the door.
“Let me take you down to the cafeteria, Ronni, get you something to eat,” Unk offered.
“No, thanks,” she replied.
“All right, at least let me take you to the vending machines and buy you a candy bar.”
“Please, Mom.”
She stared at Nick for a long time, her brown eyes filled with hurt like he hadn’t seen in a while.
He hoped she couldn’t read the same thing in his.
“It’s important to you?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “Okay. There’s a waiting room just down the hall. I’ll be there when you’re done.”
“Thanks.”
She tightened her grip on his arms again, yanking him back against her. “I’m glad you came,” she said, her voice raspy.
“No problem.” Actually, it was a big problem. But he had unfinished business with his stepfather. Things he needed to get off his chest before the guy...died.
And a long conversation with his grandfather had convinced him to come and say what he needed to say before it was too late.
Who were they all kidding? It had been too late to talk to Scott since the accident. But if Nick could talk to his father, who’d been dead for thirteen years, he could talk to his stepfather, who wasn’t.
Quite.
Yet.
“Come on, Ronni.” Unk gently disentangled them and guided her toward the door.
“Just down the hall if you need me, Nick,” Mom called over her shoulder on the way out.
“Got it, Mom.”
And then he was alone with the man in the bed.
Nick dropped his backpack on the floor and moved closer. A machine beeped softly in time with Scott’s heart. A rattle gurgled each time he drew in a breath. The skin on his face was pulled tighter than the last time Nick had seen him, in the nursing home. But his eyes were closed, not open and staring vacantly, as usual.
“You look and sound like shit,” Nick said. “Maybe they’re right this time, huh?”
Don’t curse, he imagined Scott telling him.
“I will if I want to.” Nick grabbed the metal rail on the side of the bed, struggling to find the words he needed. But what came out wasn’t what he’d planned. “You’re not my father.”
How many times had he tossed that at Scott? Hell, he’d even tossed it at Unk a time or two. When either man tried to tell him what to do, or something he didn’t want to hear. “But—” Nick cleared his throat “—you were my dad. For a while. You coached my damn Little League team. Took me fishing. Let me sit on your lap and steer the big tractor out at Dan’s place.”
Tears he hadn’t expected trickled down his face. Nick swiped at them with the back of his hand. “It was good, dammit. We were a family. I loved you,” he choked. “Mom loved you. Why’d you have to fuck that up?”
Nick leaned over, buried his face in the scrawny, hospital-gown-clad shoulder. A shoulder that had once held him so he could see a parade. “Why?” He wrestled with his tears, a losing battle.
A few minutes later, a large hand settled on Nick’s own shoulder. He whipped upright, wiping his face, whirling to find Unk. “What part of privacy don’t you get?”
“It was me or your mom. She sent me to check on you.”
“I—I—I came to tell him what an asshole he is. And here I am, crying like a little girl. Over...over...”
“Over a man who filled the father-size hole in your life.”
Nick nodded. “The man who cheated on my mother and broke her heart.”
“Nothing’s as black-and-white as we’d like it to be, Nick. There’s a fine line between love and hate sometimes.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah. It does.”
Nick turned back toward the bed. “You’re an asshole,” he whispered, voice shaking. “Dad.” Since he didn’t know what else to say, he left it at that. Calling him Dad again, after all these years, said what he couldn’t find the words for.
###
“Thanks, doc.” Hayden shook the physician’s hand as the doctor strode from Scott’s room on the fourth floor to continue his early morning rounds.
Hayden returned to Ronni, who still lingered at Scott’s bedside. The past three days had played havoc on her. And the message the doctor had given didn’t seem to have registered. “Ronni?”
She turned bleary, bloodshot eyes toward him. “Huh?”
“Crap, you’re so out of it. Did you hear what the doctor just said?”
“I need more coffee.”
“No. No more coffee. No more chocolate.” He’d done his best to get something nutritional into her during their extended stay at the hospital. Amelia had hand-delivered dishes Finn had cooked specifically for Ronni. Hayden had ended up scarfing them down. The only thing he’d been able to entice her to eat had been Snickers bars. And coffee. “I’m done enabling you. You want coffee or candy bars, get them yourself. I’m done fetching them.”
“That’s mean.”
“Cruel to be kind, babe. Ronni.” He forced a hard edge to his voice that made her start. “You didn’t hear a word the doctor said, did you?” She’d answered Dr. Saunders, said all the right things, but sleep deprivation combined with the intense emotions of the situation had set in. The lights were on, but nobody was home. She clearly didn’t understand what had happened.
He took her hand, guided it to Scott’s face. “How’s he feel, sweetheart?”
“C-cooler.”
“Right. And listen. Is he rasping and gasping anymore?”
She shook her head. “No. No. I can’t hear him breathing.”
“Exactly. Because he’s doing better. Dr. Saunders thinks Scott has turned the corner. He thinks he’s going to make it.”
“Make it?” Her eyes widened. Her lower lip trembled, making him want to soothe it with his fingers. With his own lips. “He’s...not dying anymore?”
“Probably not, no.”
“Oh.”
That was so not the response he’d expected. She pulled her hand free and raised it to her mouth. Then she turned and dashed toward the bathroom in the corner of the room with a speed he hadn’t thought her capable of on her best day, let alone today.
Retching sounds e
choed from the small room.
“Well, buddy, I’d like to officially welcome you back to the land of the semiliving.” Hayden patted Mangano’s shoulder, torn over the outcome. Despite his conversation with Scott days ago, he didn’t wish death on anyone. But Ronni’s torment—and Scott’s, as well—would only continue. “Now, I’ll go take care of your wife while she hurls her last round of coffee and Snickers.”
The toilet flushed as he entered. Ronni knelt before the porcelain god, a position familiar to anyone who’d ever drank too much. Or had a migraine.
Or the emotional shock of a lifetime.
He rummaged through the toiletries his sister Elke had dropped off. She’d visited several times a night, as breaks from her own nursing duties on the sixth floor permitted. She’d been a huge help, sitting with Ronni and Scott, allowing Hayden to grab a quick shower or catnap. The rest of the family, along with Ronni’s friend Tamara, had also provided support. Tam had brought her fresh clothes every morning. The others had delivered food, Ronni’s precious coffee, and had helped take care of Nick.
Hayden applied paste to a toothbrush, handed it to Ronni.
“Thanks.”
While she brushed, he uncapped the mouthwash from the counter, offered that to her. She rinsed and spit into the toilet. He extended his hand, helped her off the floor. “Let’s go. I’m taking you home and putting you to bed.”
“But—”
“No buts. I’ll swing you over my shoulder and carry you out of here if I have to. He’s out of the woods. It’s time to take care of you.”
Hayden waited, leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest, gritting his teeth while she stroked Scott’s face and planted a tender kiss on his cheek. Some part of her still cared about the jerk. Not just as a responsibility. Actually cared.
And while her capacity to care, to forgive, was part of what made Hayden love her, it also made him want to punch something.
He did a mental double take. Love? A colorful litany of curses threatened to erupt, but he swallowed them.
