by Francis Ray
Cade studied the X-rays on the screen. Fielding was right. “The risk is high, but if you don’t go in, he won’t make it through the night.”
“I know.” Fielding blew out a breath. “Marshall lives two blocks over. Stephen went to prep school with my oldest. They’re on the same baseball team.”
Cade recalled seeing several young men in baseball uniforms in the waiting room. Stephen had everything Cade had wanted and had been destined never to have.
That’s a lie. You have me. Sabrina’s words came clearly to him. “I’d like to see him.”
Dr. Fielding studied Cade for a few moments. “I realize you have a reputation for pulling off the impossible, but Stephen is beyond help.”
Cade simply stared at Fielding. Nothing pissed him off more than someone telling him what he couldn’t do. He’d learned early in his medical practice that people with limits wanted to limit you. He’d promised himself the day he set foot at the University of Texas at Austin that he’d never let anyone define him again the way the man who raised him had tried to do.
“I’ll take you to him,” Fielding finally said.
* * *
In Stephen’s room, Fielding silently gave Cade his stethoscope and penlight. Cade looked down at the pale figure on the bed, his respirations uneven, his blood pressure low. He might have had everything, but illness was the great equalizer. It didn’t care about your social status, race, nationality, gender.
Putting on the stethoscope, Cade thoroughly checked Stephen. The neuro signs were as depressed as he’d thought, but he paid particular attention to the heart and lungs. Finished, he handed the equipment back. “Thank you.”
“Well?”
“You’re right about his chances,” Cade said.
Dr. Fielding stuck the stethoscope in the pocket of his lab coat, along with the penlight. “I imagine they’re waiting on us.”
“I imagine.” Cade left the room with Fielding close beside. When Cade pushed open the door to the ICU, he saw more young people had joined those who were waiting. Sabrina, holding her grandfather’s hand, rose from her seat and started for him. Her grandmother, sitting with her daughter and son-in-law, did the same.
He saw the hope in Sabrina’s face, the faith in him that he could make her world right again.
“Dr. Mathis agrees with me that nothing can be done,” Dr. Fielding said.
Her father swayed unsteadily on his feet, then held his softly crying wife in his arms.
Sabrina’s gaze never left his. She stepped closer. “I want to hear you say it, Cade. Is that what you think?”
“I already said—”
“Dr. Fielding,” her grandfather interrupted. “My granddaughter asked Dr. Mathis a question. I’d like to hear his answer as well.”
Sabrina stepped forward to grip Cade’s arm. “If you tell me there’s nothing that can be done…” She briefly closed her eyes. “I … I’ll believe it.”
Her faith and trust in him shouldn’t make his chest tight, his arms ache to hold her, to keep her with him always.
“Surgery is his only chance and even then he might not make it off the table. If he does, he might be paralyzed or remain in a coma,” Cade said.
“I won’t operate,” Dr. Fielding reminded them.
“Can you do it, son?” her grandfather asked.
Cade jerked his head around, ready to shred the old man to pieces. Now he was a “son” when they needed him.
“No one can do the surgery,” Dr. Fielding said. “Marshall, I know you’re grieving, but don’t put your family or Stephen through this.”
Sabrina whirled angrily on the doctor, then seemed to gather herself before turning back to Cade. “Stephen is a fighter. He’d want to take the chance if there was one. Cade, do you think there’s a chance if you went in?”
His sister was also a fighter. “Fielding is right—to a degree—but a chance is sometimes all any of us ever get. Your parents have to make that decision.”
“Does that mean you’d do the surgery?” Sabrina asked.
His hesitation was brief. “Yes.”
Tears flowed from her eyes. She hugged him.
“Sabrina—” he began, but she cut him off.
“You’re giving Stephen a fighting chance.” She stared up at him with love and gratitude. “I know it wasn’t an easy decision. I understand the odds. Thank you.”
How could he not love her? She didn’t expect the impossible from him. She knew his faults and fears, and it didn’t matter. He allowed his hand to sweep up and down her slim back. “His parents have to agree.”
“We do, and we’re grateful.” Her father spoke to Dr. Fielding. “Bring us the consent forms.”
His body rigid, Dr. Fielding walked away. Cade turned to follow.
“Dr.-Dr. Mathis,” Sabrina’s mother said softly. “Thank you. Please save Stephen.”
Cade ignored her and the pleading expression in her face, her eyes. She had never been there for him or cared about him. If it wouldn’t upset Sabrina, he’d tell her he wasn’t doing it for her.
Cade felt a hand on his arm and saw Sabrina’s grandfather smiling up at him. “I had no way of knowing sending you to college and med school would affect us one day. You worked hard for your success.”
Cade stared at the older man and tried to take it all in. He’d paid for his education?
The smile on the man’s face faded. “There haven’t been many days that I haven’t thought of you. I’m proud of the man you’ve grown up to be. Forgive me for not protecting you better.”
Cade wanted to believe his grandfather really cared, but he couldn’t. He squelched the softness unfurling inside him. He just needed him. He had to remember that.
“The consent forms,” a nurse said, handing the forms to Mr. Thomas.
Cade noted Dr. Fielding standing a short distance away. He was pissed, but he was also a good neurosurgeon. “Dr. Fielding, I’ll need another pair of eyes and hands. I can’t think of another surgeon I’d rather have with me.”
Fielding stared at him. He was aware that Cade was feeding him a line, but the other people didn’t know that. “Of course. I’ll show you where to scrub in.”
Cade knew he’d accept. He was scrubbing in as an assistant, taking none of the risk if things went bad and part of the honor if they didn’t. Giving Sabrina a brief hug, he followed Dr. Fielding.
* * *
Sabrina stared after Cade until he disappeared through the double doors, then turned to her immediate family. “Mother, Father, Granddad, Grandmother, I need to talk to you, please. It’s about me and Cade.”
They followed her a short distance away. “I love Cade. It won’t change, it will only grow stronger.”
“Sabrina, baby,” her father said. “Are you sure? He seems like a hard man.”
“Because for most of his life that was all he knew,” she said.
“My fault,” her mother said, choking back tears. “I let both of my sons down.”
Her father held her closer. “Christine, don’t blame yourself for any of this.”
She shook her head and straightened away from him. “Who else? I told myself it was best for him, but I was also ashamed of being an unwed mother.”
“You did what you thought best,” Sabrina’s father said, taking her mother’s shoulders in his hands and staring down at her. “I told you that when you thought to leave me because we couldn’t have children, and I’ll keep on telling you. You gave him up out of love.”
“He hates me,” she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “And I can’t blame him.”
“Then we’ll all have to work hard to help him come to know us, and hopefully forgive us,” her grandfather said. “We have a chance that I thought we’d never would.”
“Carlton is right,” her grandmother said. “Cade is our first grandchild. We’ll give him time, but we won’t give up. Never again.”
Her mother squeezed Sabrina’s hands. “If I couldn’t care for him, I’m thankfu
l that now he has you.”
“Yes, he does. He’s hard at times, but he fights even harder for his patients. He’ll fight the devil himself for Stephen,” Sabrina said. She just prayed it was enough.
* * *
Sabrina had never been good at waiting. She paced the surgery waiting room, declined coffee and the offer of food from well-meaning relatives and friends. There were so many people waiting that many of Stephen’s classmates and friends were in the hallway. She kept throwing glances at the big clock on the wall.
It had been two hours since Cade had left with Dr. Fielding. He’d sent a technician out an hour ago to give them an update. There should—
“Code blue in OR. Code blue in OR.”
“God, no!” Sabrina cried, turning to her mother who was already on her feet. People piled into the room from the hallway.
“It doesn’t have to be Stephen,” her grandmother said, but her voice quivered.
“Of course not,” her grandfather said.
“I’ll just go check,” her father said, gently trying to disengage himself from his wife.
“No, you don’t have to go,” her mother cried. “Like Mother said, it-it doesn’t have to be Stephen.”
Sabrina had never seen her easygoing father look so torn and afraid. Sabrina made her legs move toward her mother. “Why don’t we sit down?” They were surrounded by friends and family, but none of that mattered.
Sabrina held the hands of her mother and grandmother, but she couldn’t help thinking of Cade, who grew up with no one. Thinking of him helped keep her mind off the operating room. She refused to think it was Stephen in trouble, and began praying.
Cade was the best. She swallowed the growing lump in her throat. Sometimes even the best lost.
“Please, let me through. I need to speak with Mr. Thomas’s parents,” requested a female voice.
People parted, but Sabrina and her family were already rushing to the same technician who had come before. She didn’t waste time.
“Dr. Mathis got his heart beating again,” she said.
Her mother’s nails dug into Sabrina’s hand. Sabrina fought tears and said a quick prayer of thanks.
“Dr. Mathis told me to tell his sister that she was right about Stephen being a fighter,” the technician said, smiling briefly at Sabrina. Then she was gone.
“So, it seems, is my first grandson. Thank God for him,” her grandfather said.
Sabrina wasn’t sure what people standing nearby thought of her grandfather’s comment, and she didn’t care. Keep fighting, Stephen. Please keep fighting.
* * *
Cade stared down at Stephen’s still body in the recovery room. Cade had done all he could. Stephen still wasn’t out of the woods. If he hadn’t fought so hard to live, they would have lost him on the table. That, and Cade was sure, a higher power had a hand in this. Cade knew his limitations and Stephen’s operation had stretched them to the limits.
“You’re as good as they say or the luckiest man alive,” Dr. Fielding said from the other side of the narrow bed.
Cade glanced up. “Luck had nothing to do with it.”
“I imagine his parents want to see him. I’ll go get them.”
“Wait,” Cade said, staring at the monitors. Sometimes you got a warning the patient was going bad; other times it happened in a blink of the eye. “His vitals are shaky. I don’t like it.”
“After what he’s been though, it’s not unusual,” Dr. Fielding said, but he moved to the other side of the bed.
Cade’s gaze flickered to Stephen even as his breathing altered the tiniest bit, then stopped completely. The eerie wail of the alarm sounded. Cade cursed beneath his breath and started chest percussions as Fielding grabbed the ambo bag.
* * *
Sabrina held it together by sheer force of will. It had been twenty-two long minutes since Stephen’s last cardiac arrest. No one had come this time. She tried not to let her mind think of what that meant. Stephen was a fighter. Cade was the best. Her brother would come through this. She refused to think any differently.
“Please, God. Please. Don’t take him,” her mother prayed softly.
Sabrina noticed how quiet it was and glanced around. Others were praying as well. She swallowed the lump in her throat, then reached past her father to close her hand over her mother’s. She wanted to say it would be all right, but the words wouldn’t come.
Her mother, sitting between her own mother and Sabrina’s father, lifted her gaze to Sabrina. Tears silently ran down her cheeks. “I can’t lose again.”
Choking back sobs, Sabrina knelt in front of her mother and hugged her around the waist, much as she had done as a child. “They’re both fighters,” she said, praying it was enough.
“Don’t give up on them,” her grandfather said, hunkering down to reach past Sabrina to her father. He grasped his hand and his wife’s. “Don’t lose faith.”
Her mother blinked away tears. “Daddy, I’m scared.”
“I know, baby,” he said, fighting his own tears. “We all are, but we’re going to get through this as a family.”
Her mother nodded. Her breath shuddered out over her lips. Her hands clenched Sabrina’s. “I’m sorry. For everything.”
Sabrina said the only thing she could. “I love you. I’m glad you’re my mother.”
“Me too,” her mother said, the corners of her lips curving upward slightly.
“Mr. and Mrs. Thomas.”
She glanced up to see the technician who had given them news before. Her lower lip quivering, she blinked back tears. Sabrina turned into her grandfather’s arms and sobbed.
Twenty-one
Hours later Sabrina readjusted her weight in the uncomfortable straight chair. Through the blinds she could see a pale hint of daylight. The night had been long and harrowing. She watched as Cade stretched his long arms over his head. He had to be tired yet he was still here.
He turned his warm gaze first to her, then to Stephen resting quietly. She shivered despite the two blankets Cade insisted she have. All too vividly she recalled the anguish before the technician said that Stephen was all right. She hurriedly explained that she was crying because Cade had refused to give up.
“He’s holding his own.” Cade straightened from examining Stephen. “Go home and get some rest.”
Standing, she went to Cade and curved her arm around his waist and leaned into him. “Not until he wakes up.”
“At least go find someplace to stretch out,” he said.
“I’m fine,” she said, then forged ahead. “Can Mother come back in?”
There was the briefest pause. “Briefly—if she’s calm.”
Her mother hadn’t wanted to leave Stephen’s bedside when they’d been allowed to see him after his second cardiac arrest. She’d been almost hysterical.
“I’ll go get her.” Rising on tiptoe, she kissed Cade on the cheek.
* * *
Cade watched Sabrina leave, then turned his attention to Stephen. He was a good-looking kid and, from what Sabrina had said, he’d had a rough beginning. But he’d been adopted by people who cared. He’d had the life Cade should have had.
He heard sniffles behind him, but didn’t look. Slowly, Christine Thomas approached Stephen on the other side of the bed, her body trembling, her eyes red and puffy. Regardless of how right or wrong it was, no matter how many times, he couldn’t let it go that she cried for a man she adopted, but never for him, her own son.
Gently, she brushed her shaky hand over Stephen’s forehead. “I love you, Stephen. We all do.”
“Send in his father,” Cade said, unable to keep the anger from his voice.
Her gaze jerked up to his. He expected to see annoyance at the very least. There was such a mixture of emotions, he couldn’t decipher them all.
“Thank you.” With one last look at her son, she was gone.
Almost immediately, her husband entered. Cade didn’t expect the strong hand on his arm, the extended hand. He didn’
t know how to react to either. Stephen’s father didn’t wait, just reached for Cade’s hand and firmly shook it once. Releasing Cade’s hand, he went to the other side of the bed and leaned over.
“It’s going to be all right, Stephen. Your family and friends are here and praying for you. You’ve got the best doctor in the country.” Upright, he looked at Cade, then left.
Cade turned to see Sabrina. Her gaze lingered on her brother and then she was wrapped around him. Tears dampened his scrub shirt. “Shh. He’s a fighter.”
Sabrina lifted her head, brushed away the last tears with a tissue. “I know. Just like you, but I wasn’t crying for him.” She went to the bed and placed her hand on her brother’s forehead. “There’s a wonderful man I want you to meet when you wake up.” She gently kissed him. “When you do, we’ll be here. Granddad and Grandmother send their love.”
“That might not be for a while. Go home and rest,” Cade told her.
She shook her head. “Watch over him for us, Cade.”
She knew him well. “Please call my service and have them contact Iris. Let her know I won’t be in today.”
“All right.” On tiptoe, she kissed him on the cheek. “I love you.”
Cade watched her leave. Sabrina was a fantastic, intelligent, and loving woman. He couldn’t deny he was glad she’d come into his life, no matter the circumstances.
Cade turned to stare down at Stephen and in doing so finally understood why he fought so hard to help people, stayed close by after they had major surgery. He wanted them to have a chance for the life he’d never had, to be happy and loved.
Maybe, just maybe he had a chance after all.
* * *
Texas Hospital in Dallas was buzzing with the news that Dr. Mathis had operated on Sabrina Thomas’s brother after he’d been injured by a line-drive baseball. The operation wasn’t speculated on as much as the reason Dr. Mathis was in Houston. The staff had noted they were getting chummy, but on Monday Dr. Mathis had been a bear to work with and Sabrina’d had red, swollen eyes.
Kara was barely in the hospital lobby before she heard the “juicy” gossip. Frightened and worried, she quickly went into her office and called Sabrina’s cell phone number. The call went to voice mail. She picked up her desk phone and called Texas Hospital in Houston. In less than a minute, the phone in the ICU waiting room rang.
