by Loree Lough
Wade was in the hall outside Pre-Op, pacing.
“If you’re trying to wear a path in the linoleum,” said Adam as he approached, “you’re goin’ about it the right way.”
His friend stopped walking, clapped a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Thanks for comin’, Adam.” He gave the shoulder a slight squeeze. “She’s been asking for you.”
“She has?”
A faint grin lifted one corner of Wade’s mouth. “Says she wants all her family around her.” He added, “Gotta warn you, though, she doesn’t look good.”
Adam read the fear in his friend’s eyes. “You and I both know that things can look downright bleak, then turn themselves around.”
Nodding, Wade sighed. “Better get in there. They’re about to administer the anesthesia.”
Heart pounding, Adam put on his practiced “doctor” smile and walked up to Mrs. Cameron’s bed. Wade stood on the other side. She looked pale and thin, older than her fifty-some years. “I can think of better ways to get a chance to sleep in,” Adam said, kissing her forehead.
She opened her eyes and smiled. “Adam.” Then she noticed the flowers. “For me?”
Grinning, Adam held up the bouquet. “These? Nah. They’re for the first pretty gal I spot.” He patted his shirt pocket. “Gotta keep my little black book fat and happy, y’know.”
“Oh, you,” she said, laughing softly. “You’ve always been such a tease. Soon as they dope me up for the operation, maybe you can hunt down one of those hideous green plastic pitchers to use as a makeshift vase.” She winked. “I’d hate for the flowers to wilt while you’re waiting for that pretty girl to saunter by.”
He lay the bouquet on the table beside the bed, then rested a palm on either side of her slight torso. “You’re gonna be fine, just fine. You know that, don’t you?”
Her smile faded. She held up her hand and, biting her lower lip, rested forefinger atop index finger.
Adam grabbed the crossed fingers. “You don’t need luck, ’cause you’ve got a ton of people praying for you.”
A shimmering tear sparkled in the corner of her eye, and she lay an ashen palm against his cheek. “You’ve always been the sweetest boy. I’m sure going to miss—”
“Ma,” Wade interrupted, “don’t talk like that. You’re gonna come through this like a champ. You’ll see. You’ve got the best team in Baltimore in there, scrubbing up.” A film of tears gleamed in her son’s eyes. “Tell her, Adam.”
Adam wanted to choose his words well, for they’d be lifting Mrs. Cameron’s spirits…and Wade’s, too. Lord, he prayed, surprised to be beseeching the Creator so soon again, it’s okay by me if You put words in my mouth.
With one hand, he grabbed the bouquet. “Only thing you have to worry about is which nurse is gonna try and take these flowers home.” With the other hand, he lovingly brushed a wispy strand of graying brown locks from her forehead. “Wade’s right. You’ve got the best in the business.” If they can’t save you, he thought dismally, nobody can.
Mrs. Cameron nodded, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Wade and Adam exchanged a puzzled glance before she explained, “Isn’t a woman entitled to a moment, at least, of attention-getting self-pity?”
Self-pity? Adam had always thought of Mrs. Cameron as the strongest, most selfless individual he’d ever met…until Kasey.
Straightening, Adam looked across the bed, into his friend’s reddened eyes. “What do you say, Wade? Wanna throw your mom a pity party?”
Wade brightened slightly. “Sure. Why not.”
Adam recalled how when they were boys, if he or Wade felt sorry for themselves, Mrs. Cameron would sit cross-legged on her kitchen floor, holding her head in her hands, wailing. “Waaa-waaa-waaa,” she’d whine, “the world’s not all rosy-red and perfect for my little men. Oh, what’re we gonna do? Waaa-waaa-waaa.” In minutes, whatever had caused their downheartedness was forgotten, and after scrounging through coat pockets and under sofa cushions for loose change, they’d celebrate with a trip to the local ice cream parlor for hot fudge sundaes.
Wade took his mother’s right hand, Adam took her left, and the threesome smiled at the fond memory. How many more would there be? Adam wondered.
The squeaking wheels of an IV pole interrupted his thought. “Sorry to break up the party,” the anesthesiologist said.
Mrs. Cameron sniffed, wiped a tear away with the back of her hand.
“Now, now, Mrs. Cameron,” the man said, “no need to cry. You’ll be—”
She nodded at the fat bags of clear liquid swaying to and fro on the pole’s hooks. “People with sharp needles and sleeping potions are not welcome at this party!”
The doctor must have figured out that he’d walked in on a private joke, for he held up his hands like a man under arrest. Then he said to Wade, “You’re welcome to stay, but it’s time…”
Side by side, the almost-brothers stood, watching, waiting, praying. At least, Adam suspected Wade was praying. Why wouldn’t he be? He had a lot to lose with a mom like that!
Adam thought of his own mother, who by now was frolicking on a cruise ship somewhere in the North Atlantic. He’d shelled out the extra dough to provide her with her own private state room. “One with two portholes,” he’d told the travel agent. She’d been a good mother, all things considered, and Adam loved her for all he was worth. Even as a little kid, he had tried never to compare his mom with Wade’s, because somehow, he’d known the comparison was a recipe for resentment. Not every woman could be like Mrs. Cameron, who virtually teemed with vitality and bubbled with energy. Despite having a full-time job and an eight-room house and yard to take care of, she made time to bake cookies and chaperon field trips, hostess all-night, old-movie parties and coach her kids’ county softball teams.
A question surfaced in Adam’s mind: Why, after all she’d given throughout her life, did she have to suffer, even for a moment? He said a prayer of thanks for his own mother’s good health.
Mrs. Cameron’s surgeon walked into the cubicle then, dressed in drab green scrubs. “Ready?” he asked, patting his patient’s hand.
She took a deep breath. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”
The orderly released the bed’s brake and started rolling Mrs. Cameron toward the surgical suites.
“I’ll find you soon as there’s anything to tell,” the surgeon told Wade. “Could be a while.”
Adam and Wade had been in the man’s shoes enough times to know what that meant. “A while” could be an hour…or it could be half a day.
“We’ll be in the doctors’ lounge,” was Wade’s stoic reply.
Heads down, the friends headed for the doctors’ lounge. On the way, they passed the hospital chapel. Adam stopped in the yellow-walled hall, where a hollow ping-ping-ping was followed by “Doctor Buford, you have a call on line six,” where elevator doors groaned open and hissed shut, and where the staff’s crepe-soled shoes squeaked across the polished tiles. “What say we step inside for a minute?”
Brows knitted in a serious frown, Wade said, “Couldn’t hurt.”
As the door closed, they were surrounded by an incredible hush, a world so silent and serene that Adam could hear his own heart’s rhythmic beats.
Adam sat in the back row, while Wade knelt at the altar.
Even from this distance, Adam could smell the faint scent wafting from baskets of colorful flowers that stood in pots and vases on the red carpet. On either side of the oaken altar, tiers of candles flickered in garnet cups, like the twinkling red lights of Christmas. And above it, Jesus, hung from a rough-hewn wooden cross.
Adam stared at the face, painstakingly carved to show the Savior’s suffering, then lowered his head, remembering what his third-grade Sunday school teachers had said: “Jesus died for all men so their sins would be forgiven.” The Savior may have died for others, eight-year-old Adam had thought, but what had he ever done to earn a sacrifice like that!
He was full-grown now, with a man’s duties and responsibili
ties…and a man’s shame. He felt less worthy of Christ’s gift now than when he’d been a runny-nosed kid. It was why he rarely prayed; why when he did pray, it was for others, not himself.
Since this plea was for Wade, for Mrs. Cameron, Adam believed God would listen: Lord, I don’t know anyone more worthy of a miracle than Mrs. Cameron. The woman had devoted her entire life to making others feel loved and wanted, making her own children feel like the most important things in her world.
Kasey was a lot like that, Adam thought. She’d dedicated herself to taking care of her mother and adopted daughter. If she was considering marriage to Buddy, that same selflessness had motivated the decision.
Okay, so he knew two people worthy of God’s mercy and love. But right now, one needed his prayers far more than the other.
Save Mrs. Cameron, Lord. Make her whole and healthy again.
If he could, he’d trade his life for Mrs. Cameron’s. She had everything to live for…a daughter whose love for her mother was so great that it spilled out through her own husband and children…a son whose family would do the same, someday.
And what did Adam have? Nothing but a boatload of grief and guilt, and the incredible sorrow induced by having met the woman of his dreams, only to realize that his past sins made him undeserving of her.
Humbled, Adam looked away from the Cross, and silently wept.
Chapter Ten
Adam woke with a start, then said a gruff “Hullo?” into the phone.
“Adam, she’s asking for you.”
He sat up, plunked both feet on the floor and brushed the hair from his eyes. Even in this sleepy state, there was no mistaking the misery in his friend’s voice. Mrs. Cameron was dying, and Adam intended to be there for her, for Wade, for Anna. “I’m on my way,” he said. “Can I bring you anything?”
A shuddering sigh wafted through the earpiece. “No, thanks.”
Adam glanced at the clock. At three in the morning, beltway traffic snarls were unlikely. “See you in twenty minutes,” he said before hanging up.
Ever since Mrs. Cameron’s surgery, Adam had slept on top of the covers, wearing a sweatsuit and socks, so he’d be ready at the drop of a hat in case the dreaded phone call came in the middle of the night. Now, perched on the edge of the bed, he laced up his running shoes, thankful for whatever had given him the idea.
Was it You, God?
If so, He’d planted the idea for the Camerons, not for Adam.
Every minute counted now, every second was precious. Grabbing his keys, Adam plopped a battered Orioles baseball cap onto his uncombed hair and dashed out of the house without bothering to shave or brush his teeth. Halfway to Sinai, he wondered if he’d remembered to lock the front door. Not that it mattered. What did he have worth stealing, anyway?
He made the drive in record time and headed straight for Mrs. Cameron’s room. How odd, he thought as his shoes squeak-squawked down the hall. How still the hospital seemed. During the day, it was a beehive of activity, buzzing with patients leaning on the arms of therapists; the low murmur of visitors; doctors rushing from room to room, lab coats flapping behind them; nurses hotfooting it to see why the lights above doors were lit. The commotion ground to a near standstill once the lights were dimmed, reminding Adam of a play at intermission: a lot went on behind the quiet curtain of darkness, but only the unlucky ones saw those performances.
When Adam rounded the corner, he found Wade on one side of Mrs. Cameron’s bed, his sister on the other. “Hey,” he whispered, standing beside Anna.
“Hey, yourself,” Wade said.
“Where’s your better half?” Adam asked Anna.
“Home,” she said with a soft smile, “with the kids.”
Adam nodded, understanding. Many times, he’d sent patients’ family members home with the admonition to take care of themselves, because, what good would they be to anyone if they became patients, too?
Anna was two years older than Wade and Adam, yet they’d always treated her like a kid sister. “How you doin’?” he asked, wrapping an arm around her waist.
“Hangin’ in there.” She kissed his cheek. “But you look like you’ve just been run over by a truck. What’d you do, give up eating and sleeping?”
He was about to defend himself when Mrs. Cameron opened her eyes. “Adam,” she breathed. And smiling weakly, she held out her hand.
He closed his fingers around hers and tried not to react to the chill in her thin bones. Not knowing what to say, Adam just stood there, nodding.
“You look awful,” she told him.
He managed a quiet chuckle. “Why are all the women in my life saying that these days?”
“What women?” Anna asked.
“My secretary, the nurses, you guys, even Kasey’s mom,” he said.
“Kasey?” Anna wiggled her eyebrows. “Who’s Kasey?”
Adam’s heart thumped. She’s everything, he wanted to say. She’s it.
“Just some girl he’s seeing,” Wade offered.
“Girl?” Anna echoed, playfully elbowing him in the ribs. “Aren’t you a bit long in the tooth to be seeing a ‘girl’?”
“Your brother,” Adam said, glad to be part of the family banter that was keeping everyone’s mind off the inevitable, “thinks of all females under sixty as girls. Believe me,” he added, smirking, “Kasey is all woman.” Not that it mattered….
“Wade,” his mother said, “take Anna down to the cafeteria, buy her something to eat.”
“It’s okay, Mom. I’m not hungry.”
“She just ate half an hour ago,” Wade added.
Mrs. Cameron silenced her children with a maternal stare. “I’d like to have a moment alone with Adam, okay?”
Wade headed for the door. “Okay,” he said, holding his hand out to Anna.
The instant Wade and Anna were out the door, Mrs. Cameron reached for Adam’s hand.
“Sit down,” she began. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
He slid the chair closer to her bed, then sandwiched her hand between his own. “I’d say ‘shoot,’ but after the evil eye you just gave those two, something tells me that wouldn’t be smart.”
She smiled, looking a little more like the beautifully vibrant woman he’d come to think of as a second mother.
“You’re safe,” she said. “The doctor made me leave my .357 Magnum home.”
Adam couldn’t imagine what she’d want to discuss with him…alone. But knowing Mrs. Cameron, he wouldn’t have to wonder for long. He began a mental countdown: Ten seconds, nine, eight—
“Wade told me you met Kasey.”
Pulse pounding, he nodded.
“Tell me about her.”
“I was at the cabin, last weekend in October. One of my typical hideaway weekends, y’know?”
She gave a weak nod, urging him to continue.
“This terrible storm brewed up, and blew her right in my door. Literally.”
“Is she as pretty as Wade says she is?”
Adam smiled. “Prettier.” He held a palm parallel to the floor, sliced it through the air until it rested against his chest. “She’s this tall, with a riot of copper-colored curls and eyes as big as saucers…eyes as green as that emerald your mother left you. Every time she laughs, I’m reminded of those wind chimes outside your kitchen window.”
“The ones that scared you, made you walk into the door frame the night I caught you sneaking back into the house?”
Laughing softly, he said, “Yeah. That’d be the ones.” He gave her hand an affectionate squeeze. “I sported that black eye for nearly a week.”
“Serves you right,” she teased. Then she said, “But what’s she like, Adam? What kind of person is she?”
He told her how Kasey had been caring for her mother, how she’d adopted a handicapped inner-city orphan.
“Sounds like she’ll be good for you.”
What an understatement! “She’s good to the bone. But…” Grinding his molars together, he lo
oked away.
“But what?”
“There’s no future for Kasey and me.”
“What makes you say that? From what Wade says, she’s nuts about you.”
The very thought made his heart skip a beat. If he could believe that…
No. He couldn’t afford to believe, because the letdown would kill him. “Did Wade tell you who she is?”
“Yes.”
“Then, you know exactly why there’s no hope for a future with her.”
“Must be the pain,” she said, pointing to her temple, “’cause I don’t get it.”
For all Adam knew, these could be Mrs. Cameron’s last moments on earth. He didn’t want to waste them whining about his lovesick, foolish dreams. “So,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “when are they gonna let you out of this place? I bet Mouser is meowing up a storm, missing her mama.”
“I imagine she is.” She sighed, a forlorn, trembly sound. “I miss her, too. Unfortunately, she’s going to have to adjust, like the rest of you are.” She paused, looked deep into his eyes. “You know as well as I do that I’m not going home.”
Adam frowned. He’d read her chart. At best, she had a one-percent chance of beating this thing. Still, he clung to hope. “Hey, is that any way to talk?”
“Sure is,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’ve always been a tell-it-like-it-is kind of guy. Why the change?”
He took a breath, swallowed the hot, hard lump aching in his throat. She needed him to be strong, to cope with the unavoidable reality like a true medical professional. But God help him, he didn’t want to accept those facts!
She gave his hand a gentle shake. “It’s really not so bad, going this way. Fast is better. Take it from me.”
He wished she hadn’t sent Wade and Anna away. If they were here now, he could poke fun at one of them, crack a joke, do something to change the subject.
“You’re wondering why I asked the kids to leave, aren’t you?”
She’d always had a knack for reading his mind, his expressions and his tone of voice. The truth was, she knew him far better than his own mother ever had. The silent admission threatened the tight control he’d been holding on his emotions. Get a grip, Thorne. There’ll be plenty of time for—
