Her Name Will Be Faith

by Christopher Nicole

  Jo sighed. She had all but said something irrevocable, and was still tempted. But that made no sense… at least until she had had the time to think. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s find the kids and we’ll all say goodbye together.”

  Tamsin and Owen Michael appeared from the family room and watched as the gear was dumped by the door.

  “You going to kiss your Daddy and wish him luck in the race?” Michael asked his daughter.

  She ran into the room and hugged him. “I do hope Esmeralda wins, Daddy. But I will miss you. I wish the race was some other time so’s you could come to Dolphin Point with us.”

  “Perhaps Granpa will be able to go down there at a different time next year,” her father suggested.

  No question of his not racing next year, Jo noted. She also noted that Owen Michael was looking rather pale, and was unusually quiet, hanging back in the doorway.

  “You’ll look after Mommy and Tamsin while I’m away, won’t you?” Michael held out his hand to the boy.

  Owen Michael managed a smile. “Sure, Dad.” He shook hands. “I hope you have good winds for the race.”

  “I’ll settle for Force Six there and back, nothing more than 30 knots. But however strong the wind is, your Daddy will cope,” Michael told him.

  “Are you going to come down to Eleuthera and join us when the race is over?” the boy asked.

  Michael glanced at Jo and then away again. “No. I won’t be able to do that. The fellows want to spend a week or so cruising around Bermuda before we come home. But you be sure to have lots of fun down there. Come back real brown, and bring me a tooth from the biggest shark you spear,” he quipped.

  “Wow! Don’t know about that,” Owen Michael responded. Michael turned to Jo. “Look after yourselves.” He waited.

  “And you come home with that cup.” She reached up and kissed his cheek. “Goodbye. Keep in touch with Sally, so that if we can’t raise you on the radio we can get an update from her.”

  “That’s my girl.” Michael hugged her and the children, and headed for the elevator. He turned to wave one last time, and was gone.

  Jo had a great deal to do herself. She decided to leave the packing until after lunch, but went out straightaway to take Nana to the kennels. Nana actually enjoyed her own yearly ‘vacation’, with people who had cared for her since she had been a pup, and other dogs in compounds all around her with whom she could engage in barking matches. But it was necessary to tell Mrs Hellman that she had an upset stomach, and discuss her general health, and have a cup of coffee, and it was past 1 pm before Jo regained the apartment, her heart slowly beginning to sing again as she realized that within six hours she would be in Richard’s arms. She was greeted by Dale.

  “Hi!” she said in surprise, presenting her cheek for a kiss. “What brings you here?”

  “I dropped by to see if I could give you a lift to Kennedy tomorrow,” he said. “And found Florence worried stiff.”

  “Florence? Worried about what?” Florence would be departing for her own summer vacation tomorrow, as soon as the family had left and she had locked the apartment up.

  “It’s Owen Michael. He’s got stomach cramps so bad he’s been yelling with pain.”

  “Oh, my God! Where is he?” She ran towards the family room.

  “In bed.”

  She changed direction and rushed in to kneel beside the boy. “Darling, what’s happened?”

  Owen Michael was curled up on his side, hot, flushed and shivering. An arm reached out for his mother, and fresh tears streamed down his face. “Mom. It’s so bad I can scarcely breathe,” he sobbed.

  Jo put a hand on his forehead and gasped. It was burning hot. “Okay, sweetheart, we’ll do something right away.” She spoke quietly and calmly, but she was seething with angry fear. That idiot Glenville… she turned to Dale. “Will you carry your nephew down to the garage? We’ll take him straight along to the clinic.” And she intended to see Dr Knapp, no matter where he might be — she had no intention of wasting her time with that doddering old fool any more. She had no doubt at all that far from having a nervous tummy, Owen Michael was genuinely ill.

  Florence quickly put a clean pair of pajamas and a bathrobe into a bag, and Dale drove the Mercedes while Jo sat beside Owen Michael in the back, holding him across her lap. The traffic was still heavy, and she felt very like using some of Mr Muldoon’s language as they crawled from one traffic light to the next, while Owen Michael whimpered with pain.

  But at last Dale parked outside the Emergency Admittance at the Mercy Clinic and ran inside to call up a stretcher, which quickly appeared. Jo walked beside the boy as he was wheeled into an examination room. The black doctor who had answered his beeper hurried in and with a polite nod turned Owen Michael on his back and gently pressed the bared abdomen.

  The boy screamed, and Jo jumped in alarm. “I want to see Dr Knapp,” she said.

  “He’s not here right now,” the doctor said, and gave instructions. A nurse was sent hurrying away, and reappeared seconds later with another doctor, and the two men conferred in undertones as they examined the boy together, then the black doctor led Jo out of the door to where Dale was waiting.

  “What is it?” Jo asked anxiously.

  “We both think he’s probably got a perforated appendix. He will need immediate surgery.”

  “Perforated?”

  “Yes. The indications are that it may have abscessed and burst, spreading septicemia throughout the abdomen. If that is so, he is very seriously ill, and should be operated on immediately.”

  Jo and Dale both saw the concern in the kind black face, and were frightened.

  “Is he in danger?” Dale asked.

  “His situation is critical,” the doctor said carefully. “But if we get him on the table right now, we should be able to pull him through.” He looked at Jo, awaiting the necessary permission. “It has to be immediately, Mrs Donnelly.”

  Jo took a long breath, and nodded.

  The Mercy Clinic, Avenue of the Americas

  Big Mike Donnelly ran along the hospital corridor, gasping for breath. Babs followed more slowly, only because her legs were shorter. “Jo!” Mike gasped, catching sight of his daughter-in-law in the waiting room. “Where is he?”

  “In theatre,” Jo said miserably.

  “Is he…?”

  “They’re operating now.”

  Babs arrived, panting. “Where’s Tamsin?”

  “I called Florence,” Jo told her. “She’s stayed at the apartment with her.”

  “Michael…” Big Mike began.

  Jo’s shoulders heaved. “The hospital is still trying to reach him. We contacted the yacht, but he wasn’t there, gone off to lunch with some friends or something. I…” She turned as a white-uniformed nurse appeared in the doorway. “Mrs Donnelly? We have your husband on the line. You can take it in the office.”

  “Thank God for that,” Big Mike said, and he and Babs crowded into the small room behind Jo.

  “Michael?” she asked. “Michael, is that you?… Yes, I know the race starts at dawn tomorrow… yes, I know you have a lot to do, but Michael… oh, for God’s sake will you listen to me? Owen Michael is ill… yes, very ill. He has acute appendicitis… yes, I’m talking from the hospital. Michael… yes, they think he’s going to be all right…” She listened for a few moments, then exploded. “For God’s sake, he’s your son! He needs you… The hell with the goddamned race… I told you, they think he’s going to be all right. They think. But he needs you here. Your son needs you, Michael. We need you, here…” Another long pause as a deep flush crept up from her neck to suffuse her angry face. “You are a shit!” she screamed into the phone. “Do you hear me? A lousy shit. Go play with your plastic toy.”

  She slammed the phone down, and gazed at the nurse, who gazed back, silently.

  “Oh, Christ!” Big Mike muttered.

  “He wouldn’t come?” Babs asked, disbelievingly.

  “He asked me twice if the doctors th
ought Owen Michael was going to be all right. Then said there would be no need for him to come.” Jo’s voice was toneless. “He couldn’t let the guys down, he said. The guys…” She looked at her father-in-law.

  Who sighed. “Yeah… well…”

  Another of the phones on the desk buzzed. Jo spun round, but the nurse had already picked it up. “Yes,” she said. “Oh, right away.” She smiled at Jo. “Dr Matthey is waiting to see you, Mrs Donnelly.”

  “Oh,” Jo said, suddenly as breathless as her in-laws. “Is he… I mean…”

  “I think you’ll find Dr Matthey has some good news for you, Mrs Donnelly,” the sister said.

  Big Mike and Babs waited for her to return. “I just don’t know what’s gotten into Michael,” Babs said. “I mean, refusing to come back…”

  “Well,” Big Mike argued, “He was right. I mean, if Owen Michael really is out of danger, and with the race starting tomorrow… I mean, do you have any idea how much time and money those guys spend on that boat? Christ, they devote their entire spare time to it…”

  “Then Jo is right, and none of them should be married,” Babs said.

  “Now really, sweetheart, because a guy has an all-consuming hobby doesn’t mean…”

  “You were a sailing nut when we got together,” Babs reminded him. “And you gave most of it up, because I got seasick.”

  “Yeah. Well, maybe I wasn’t quite as keen as Michael.”

  “You were just as keen,” Babs pointed out. “What you mean is, maybe you weren’t as big a shit as Michael.”

  “He’s your son too, dammit.”

  She nodded. “Maybe the truth is that I wouldn’t let you be like that. Here she is.”

  Jo almost looked happy, but for the lines of exhaustion and despair that streaked away from her eyes. “He’s going to be okay.”

  “Did they…?”

  She nodded. “The appendix was perforated, as they thought. His whole stomach was in a terrible mess, but Dr Matthey says they cleaned him up just in time. Now, it’s only a matter of recuperation.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Through the screen. He’s still out, of course. But he looked so peaceful… and his temperature and pulse are under control, Dr Matthey says. He also says I can see him again tomorrow morning. God, I feel like a drink.”

  “And you shall have one,” Big Mike promised. And grinned. “I feel like one myself.”

  They found a bar just round the corner from the hospital. “Jees, what a foul-up,” Big Mike muttered, and gazed at his wife.

  She knew exactly what he was thinking; it was now nearly five in the afternoon and they were due to leave for Eleuthera in not much over twelve hours time. “We’ll cancel our holiday, of course,” she said.

  “Of course you won’t,” Jo protested. “You can’t. What about Belle and Lawson? And Dale?”

  “Yes, but we can’t leave you…”

  “I’ll be all right. The doc says that if all goes well, Owen Michael may be able to leave the hospital by next Friday, and then, if he just rests up for a few days, he should be as right as rain. Look, you’re planning on spending at least three weeks down there, aren’t you?”

  “Well, that was the idea,” Big Mike said. “What with the letters and telegrams I’ve been getting from Neal Robson complaining that this doesn’t work and that doesn’t work and how can he get hold of a plumber and an electrician… Christ, doesn’t he realize he’s living on a Bahamian out island? That’s the whole point of the thing. If he wants plumbers and electricians on call he should’ve stayed in Connecticut.”

  “What Mike is trying to say is that we have to try to sort things out for the Robsons,” Babs explained. “From what I hear Meg has been in a permanent state of hysterics since the first night, when she found a ground spider on her bed. If only they’d had the sense to wait for us…. I guess you’re right, and we should go… but you can’t cope on your own with the hospital to visit every day and Florence due for her vacation as well. Listen, we’ll take Tamsin, and then you and Owen Michael can follow on down just as soon as he’s well enough to travel. You’ll have a week, anyway. How about that?”

  “I think that would be splendid,” Jo agreed; she didn’t even want Tamsin around right this minute. She just wanted to sit and think… about the end of her marriage.

  “Heck, it’ll work out just fine,” Big Mike said. “You stay up here another ten days or so, and Michael will be back from Bermuda. You can all come down together. Why didn’t we think of that before?”

  “We did,” Jo told him, and remembered that she had another phone call to make.

  JULY: The Third Week

  SATURDAY 15 JULY

  Park Avenue

  The buzzing phone finally reached down into Jo’s deep subconscious, startling her into a violent leap out of bed, to stand naked and disoriented, momentarily unable to identify the disturbance, not knowing what time of what day… Richard had been horrified to hear about Owen Michael, and readily accepted that she would not be able to make it that evening. She had sent Florence home, packed a bag for Tamsin, and then the little girl had been driven out to Bognor by Big Mike and Babs; she would spend the night with them before leaving. Alone, emotionally and physically exhausted, Jo had taken two Panadol and collapsed into bed, falling asleep immediately.

  And now… she registered the phone summons at the same time as remembering Owen Michael’s operation. Panic-stricken, she grabbed the bedside handset… and gasped with relief at the sound of Belle’s voice. “Where are you?… Still in Nassau? Oh, you’re going up today. Yes, the folks should be down some time this afternoon. They have Tamsin with them. How did… oh, of course, yes, Babs. Yes. It was bad… a burst appendix… No, he hadn’t come round when I left, but the doctors seemed to think he was going to be okay… I’m going in this morning, and I’ll call you when I get back… oh, hell, of course I can’t. Listen, I’ll call the post office in Whaletown; they have a phone, and they can get a message to you via Joss… No idea. He complained of stomach pains and I took him along to the clinic, but Knapp wasn’t there… some idiot named Glenville. I think he’s the senior partner… I agree, nothing but preconceived ideas, and too damned lazy to make a proper examination… You’re damn right, I am going to have plenty to say to them in the next few days… no, that depends on how long they need to keep an eye on him before letting him out of hospital… Oh, we’ll get there, don’t worry about that… and give mine to Lawson, too. Thanks for calling. ’Bye.”

  The bedside clock said 10.30; she had slept for more than twelve hours — and she had to be at the hospital in half an hour. A quick shower and a glass of juice revived her, and in cotton dress and toe thongs she dashed out to the elevator.

  Owen Michael was awake. He managed a feeble smile which made Jo want to cry; he looked so ill, lying propped against his pillows, black circles round his eyes, while the intravenous dripped monotonously. She kissed and stroked his forehead, and whispered softly to him.

  “Why did Dr Glenville say it was exam nerves, Mom?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Because he’s lazy and incompetent. Some boys and girls do get exam nerves, so he thinks that’s the cause of all tummy aches.”

  “Where’s Tamsin?”

  “She’s gone down to Dolphin Point with Granpa and Granma. Don’t worry, we’ll be joining them in a few days.”

  “When will Dad get here?” he asked, hopefully.

  Jo hesitated; this was the question she had been dreading. The temptation to lash out at Michael as she had done at Dr Glenville was enormous. But it would be very wrong of her to upset Owen Michael at this moment. “I don’t think he will be able to make it, darling,” she said. “The… the start of the race was brought forward, and he was already at sea when I tried to reach him. I’m still trying to raise him by radio, but I don’t know if I’ll make it… and anyway, now that you’re on the mend, you wouldn’t really want him to abandon the race, would you?” She hated Michael even mor
e for forcing her to lie to their son. But the boy knew how ill he had been and would have been heartbroken to learn that his father had still not rated him important enough to ‘let the guys down’.”

  “I guess not,” Owen Michael agreed, not entirely convinced. “Will we really be able to get to Dolphin Point after all, Mom?”

  “Of course we will. Just as soon as the doctors say so.”

  “I’m glad you stayed behind with me, Mom.” Owen Michael smiled, and dozed off.

  MONDAY 17 JULY

  Park Avenue

  Two days later Dr Matthey pronounced that Owen Michael was definitely on the mend, and quicker than he had anticipated. “I think you can take him home Friday, Mrs Donnelly,” he said.

  “That would be great. How about travelling after that?”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “I want to fly to Miami, and then fly across to Eleuthera.”

  “You have a reason for doing this?”

  “Sure. The rest of my family is down there vacationing.”

  “Is that a fact. Well… I would say a couple of weeks lying in the Bahamian sun, or rather, the Bahamian shade, Mrs Donnelly, is just about the best way of recuperating I could think of. Sure, go ahead and take him down. But…” he held up his finger. “Lying in the shade is the operative word, right? No diving or snorkeling. And no fishing either. Nothing which can put any kind of strain on that belly of his.”

  Jo nodded. “He’ll lie in the shade, Dr Matthey, believe me. And thank you.”

  She was so relieved that once she was back in the apartment she gave in to the long suppressed need to have a good cry. Then she wanted to do things. For two days she had seen no one, spent all her time at the hospital. Now she telephoned her travel agent and got seats on the following Monday’s plane to Miami and thence on to Eleuthera by the local airline. Next she called the post office in Whaletown, a long and tedious business as she had to go through international and then wait hours while, as she knew from past experience, the one operator in the little Eleutheran village either chatted up her boyfriend or painted her toenails.