A Man of Honor

by Loree Lough

  “Did you make that appointment with your doctor, like you promised?”

  “It’s on today’s To Do list. Literally.”

  “Ah-ha . . . and what’s your GP’s name again?”

  Grace laughed quietly. “Oh, no you don’t, friend. I might be sleep-deprived, but not so much that I don’t know where that’s leading.”

  “Okay. All right. But just so’s you know: if you don’t have an appointment when I get there tonight? I’ll call the guy and make one for you.”

  “I don’t know how you expect to do that, when I have no intention of telling you his name.”

  “Wow, you can be a brat,” he teased. “But you’re forgetting how resourceful I can be. . . .”

  Grace didn’t have the time or patience to puzzle out his riddle. “Better go,” she said, punching the elevator’s down button. “Promised Ethan that I’d be home by nine. And it’s almost that, now.”

  “Tell him I said hey. And you drive safely, hear? All those busy highways on the couple hours’ sleep you’ve had since this craziness started?” He whistled. “You’re an accident waiting to happen.”

  “Listen. Gavin. As long as I have you on the phone, can I ask your professional advice about something?”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  “About Ethan. . . . How much truth can a boy his age handle? Especially considering all he’s been through these past few years.”

  “You’re handling things the way any loving mother would . . . dispensing only the pertinent facts, and only when he asks for them.”

  “But . . . what if he has questions, but he’s afraid to ask them? Or doesn’t know how to ask them?”

  “You’re watching his facial expressions carefully, I’m sure.”

  Like a hawk, she thought.

  “And keeping an eye on his body language.”

  “Yes, and I’ve noticed that he’s been biting his fingernails. You should see his cuticles. They’re a swollen, bloody mess.”

  “All of a sudden?”

  “Only these past few days.”

  “I’d have to talk with him to know for sure, but I’d wager he’s using it as a comfort mechanism. Like a baby, sucking his thumb to help him get to sleep. I wouldn’t worry about it. Except for the germs he’s ingesting, it’s relatively harmless. He could be doing scarier things.”

  “Such as?”

  Gavin told her how some kids, when under emotional stress, resorted to cutting themselves with razors and ordinary knives found in their mothers’ kitchen drawers. “I’ve seen a few decorate themselves with safety pins, jabbed into the skin . . . and worn in place of typical piercings.”

  Grace gasped. “Compared to that, nail biting seems all kinds of tame!”

  She thanked him for the advice, and for caring enough to tell her to drive safely, then hung up. When the elevator doors opened, she was still wincing at the nail biting versus cutting images in her head.

  A man in a three-piece suit raced across the lobby. “Mrs. Parker . . . Mrs. Dusty Parker?”

  He had the look of a reporter. For his sake, she hoped he was selling insurance. Or magazine subscriptions. Tupperware. Because he did not want to hear what she thought of smarmy newsmen who saw lead articles and breaking news stories in every tragedy.

  “Adam Miller,” he said. “My dad lives next door to Last Chance.”

  She took his extended hand as he added, “He feels awful about what happened the other night.”

  “Why? From what I hear, if he hadn’t called 9-1-1, Dusty probably would have died that night.”

  “Well, still. His conscience has been eating at him. He knows he’s been pretty unfair about those kids.”

  “And now?”

  “And now he wants you to know if there’s anything he can do over there . . . until your husband is on his feet again . . . you only need to call.” He handed her a business card. ADAM MILLER, it read, CHARM CITY REALTY. “And when Dusty’s ready to put the Last Chance up for sale, I can hook him up with some interested buyers.”

  Thankfully, he’d said when, not if. She accepted the card. “Thanks, and be sure to thank your dad for me.”

  “Dad would have come, himself, but my mom has Alzheimer’s and can’t be left alone.”

  “Oh, my. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. We’re more or less used to it by now. So tell me, how is Dusty?”

  “Critical,” she said, “but stable. So his doctors tell me, though I fail to see how a patient can be both.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” He took her hand again. “He’s in our prayers.” Then, “Well, I hate to run, but I’m late for a meeting. Glad I caught you before you left.”

  And then he was gone, leaving Grace to gawk at the business card in her hand. She tucked it into the outside pocket of her purse and stepped into the enormous revolving door, wondering about the ominous and chilling feeling that went with her.

  41

  No less than twice a day, Dusty wished he could remind the staff that not every comatose patient was incapable of processing conversation. Not even the “look what I memorized last night” speeches of interns and residents who gathered around his bed to absorb some learn-by-osmosis medical lesson—by reading his chart, by poking and prodding and shining lights in his eyes.

  What they’d been saying, day after day, hadn’t changed much. Oh, they expressed their deep concern in different voices, with differing accents, but the message was the same: does anybody know if he’s an organ donor?

  He’d lost track of time, lying here, listening to the inane banter of nurses as they flirted with surgeons. More annoying than that was the way their syrupy repartee turned gossipy and mocking the minute those self-important quacks were out of earshot.

  Once, Dusty had held nothing but the utmost respect for the men and women of the medical field. But if they couldn’t see that he was fine under all these bandages, behind the snarl of tubes and wires, then they weren’t worth the outrageous salaries that put Porsches in their garages and imported Italian marble on their bathroom floors.

  Today, he got an entirely different message from the group gathered around his bed. They spoke in specifics, about the damage to his pancreas, about the blood that, despite their best efforts, continued to leak into his abdominal cavity. About low blood pressure and a thread pulse, and infection that had set in when the bullet that nicked his colon sent waste throughout his system.

  Dusty had studied just enough medicine to know things weren’t improving.

  And it scared him.

  He’d be an idiot if he wasn’t scared.

  Right?

  He heard Grace’s sweet voice, ringing out with its customary greeting as she passed doctors and nurses, aides and lab techs on the way to his room. They knew her by name, and she knew them. And if asked, Dusty wouldn’t have been able to say who liked whom more. He knew one thing: not one of the Hopkins employees could hold a candle to his wife.

  She breezed into the room and sang a cheerful, “Good morning, Dusty m’dear!”

  He wondered how much of what was going on inside his head was visible on his face. None of it, he hoped, because he’d hate for her to read the stark, cold fear beating in what was left of his pitiful, gunshot heart. If it was God’s will to take him, well, there wasn’t a blessed thing he could do about it. But maybe a heartfelt prayer would at least convince the Big Guy to give him thirty minutes, an hour, even, so he could tell Grace the things she so deserved to hear.

  Tonight, when she went down to the chapel (she wasn’t fooling him with that “I’m going to the cafeteria for a bite to eat” nonsense), he’d lay it all out for the Almighty. He hadn’t exactly lived a saintly life, but then, neither had David. Or Paul. If God could find it in His merciful heart to answer a few of their prayers, why not his?

  Grace adjusted his covers and his pillow, just like she did a dozen times an hour. He knew she wasn’t doing it because the stuff had shifted; how could it when the only thing moving on him was
his chest, as it rose and fell with every puff of the ventilator? No, his loving wife needed to do for him, and since she couldn’t fix him a meal or rub his shoulders, she rearranged magazines on his tray table and tidied his nightstand, talking a blue streak the entire time.

  “Oh, look,” she said, patting his shoulder. “Flynn is here to see you.”

  He heard her walk toward the door. Heard every third word of their whispered discussion: No change and surgery and a week from now. But for the life of him, Dusty had no idea how to put it together and make a lick of sense out of it.

  You’re lucky I can’t talk, he grumped. Or I’d remind you both how rude it is to talk about a guy behind his back.

  “As long as you’re here . . . ,” he heard Grace say. To Flynn? Or to him? Dusty would have shrugged—if he could—because what difference did it make? Gone is gone. “. . . I have a few errands to run. You’ll be here when I get back, right?”

  “Sure. Of course. Good chance for goofball here and me to spend some one-on-one time.”

  Very funny, Dusty thought.

  And now—O joy!—it’s Flynn’s turn to spew a steady stream of jibber-jabber.

  The weather. The traffic on the drive down from New York. The construction all the way around Baltimore’s Beltway. “And guess what? Connor’s wife is pregnant. Again.”

  But didn’t she just deliver twins, like, six months ago?

  “Back in a few,” Flynn said, giving Dusty’s hand a squeeze. “Gonna get some coffee.”

  Good. Get me a cup while you’re at it. Black, with a double shot of espresso.

  And when his cousin was gone, Dusty prayed:

  Father, I haven’t asked for much. I don’t use Your name in vain. Never lie—unless it’s to spare someone’s feelings—and I don’t cheat on my taxes. Just this one thing, Lord, okay? It’s asking a lot, but it’s more for Grace’s sake than mine . . . just an hour without this machine pumping air down my throat.

  Next thing he knew, a nurse’s agitated voice echoed down the hall. “His eyes are open!” she all but yelled. “He looked right at me!”

  Then, a crowd of white coats stood gawking at him. “You’re right,” one whispered. “He’s making eye contact.”

  “Can you hear us, Mr. Parker?” asked another.

  Dusty nodded. Not much, but enough so they could see he’d heard them, that he’d understood and reacted appropriately.

  A third one said, “Get Peterson down here, stat. He’s starting to gag on the ventilator tube. Maybe he can breathe on his own. . . .”

  An hour later when Grace and Flynn came back, a few of the gizmos that had kept him among the living were shoved to the side of the room.

  “I didn’t believe them when they said they’d removed the tubes,” Grace said, kissing his forehead. “This is the best thing, ever. The answer to my prayers. To all of our prayers!”

  She was crying, hard, and a hot tear plopped onto his upper lip. He caught it with the tip of his tongue. “Salty,” he rasped, startled by the sound of his own voice.

  “Flynn, can you believe this?”

  “Nothing short of a miracle,” his cousin said.

  And he was crying, too.

  “Couple of sissies,” Dusty grated, grinning.

  “Are you thirsty, hon?”

  Dusty nodded and licked his lips.

  “Let me find out if it’s okay to give you something.”

  And she darted out of the room in a blink.

  “Good to have you back, bro,” Flynn said, dragging a knuckle across his damp cheeks.

  Don’t get too used to it, he thought, ’cause I’d hate to get your hopes up only to. . . .

  “You need anything? Pain meds? Pretty nurse to give you a foot massage?” Flynn laughed. “No. Wait. You’re a married man now. Not that I know from personal experience, mind you, having been excluded from the wedding guest list and all.”

  “Randi,” he managed to scrape out, “dying. Needed to. . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah. Grace filled me in. What happened? Did getting all shot up kill your sense of humor? I was kidding, you big goof.”

  “I do need something.”

  “What. Anything. Name it. It’s yours.”

  “Tape recorder.”

  Flynn chuckled. “Tape recorder? For what?”

  “Handheld. Battery-operated. Small. Y’know?”

  “Wait. So you’re serious?”

  Dusty nodded again. “Dead serious.”

  “Exercise a little tact, will ya?” And then he laughed again. “Soon as Grace gets back, I’ll see if I can scrounge one up.”

  “Nurse’s station,” Dusty croaked. “But Grace can’t know.”

  Flynn’s eyebrows rose, and then he shrugged. “Okay. She’s your wife. But I gotta tell you, pal, keeping secrets from your wife can be expensive. Last secret I kept cost me dinner out . . . followed by a chick flick. Trust me. You don’t want to do a lot of secret-keeping.”

  Smiling, Dusty said, “After this, no more.” He raised his hand, formed the Boy Scout salute. “Honest.”

  “This truly is a miracle,” Grace said. She’d scooted the hideous pink-plastic recliner close to his bed, leaned her cheek on the back of his hand. “I don’t mind admitting it, now that you’ve taken a turn for the better, but you had me scared there. Really scared.”

  “Sorry,” he said, meaning it. “Tell me about the kids. How’s Ethan?”

  “Oh, you’d be so proud of him, Dusty. He’s taking this like a champ. I can’t wait to bring him here, so he can see for himself that you’re back.”

  Good idea to bring him; might not be so smart to tell him I’m back, though.

  She started tidying his night table, and Dusty thanked God he’d had the good sense to tell Flynn to hold on to the tape recorder. “You look kinda peaked,” he said.

  “Sitting vigil at your husband’s bedside after he was mowed down by a volley of machine gun fire will do that to a girl.”

  “Pistol,” he corrected. Dusty hated to admit it, but every breath was a chore and it hurt to talk. “Machine gun . . . you’d be talking to a headstone.”

  She cringed, reminding him of what Flynn had said. Dusty made a mental note to exercise more tact, a lot more, especially when Grace was around.

  “I don’t know what I would have done if . . . if . . . you know.”

  He nodded. Yes. He knew better than she realized. “You’ll be fine.”

  “No. You loved telling me that I was tough and capable, but I’m not. It’s you who’s the strong one. Any strength I have, I draw from you.”

  “Silly goose.”

  “I’m serious! The boys, and Ethan . . . how would I take care of them without you? You’re the one with the fancy degrees and political clout and—”

  “Mitch is devoted to those kids. To the program.”

  “But no one could ever replace you.”

  “Nut. . . .”

  “I saw Dr. Peterson today.”

  “Good. Like I said. Peaked.”

  She giggled, and it did his heart good to hear it. “I’m pregnant, Dusty.”

  Oh, God . . . what glorious news! But what was he thinking? If he didn’t pull through this, that would mean he was leaving her with two kids to take care of. Alone.

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Dusty closed his eyes, mostly to keep her from seeing how scared the news had made him. His heart ached, and not in an “oh wow, I’m disappointed” way. He prayed the pain wasn’t a signal of cardiac arrest. And then he relaxed. Because if it was, the monitor would have started singing like a canary. Flynn had been right: keeping secrets from your wife could be costly.

  Dusty patted the mattress. “C’mere, gorgeous.”

  She dropped the side rail and snuggled up beside him. Oh, how wonderful it felt, being this close to her again! Hate to appear greedy, Lord, but . . . if You can see fit to let this go on, indefinitely. . . .

  “So how you feelin’?”

&nb
sp; “A little tired, but that’s normal. Other than that, never better. Especially now.” She kissed his cheek, as if to punctuate the sentence.

  “Any morning sickness?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “Big time. But it’ll pass. Besides, I can get through anything, now that I know you’re okay.”

  From your lips to God’s ear. . . .

  She yawned. There wasn’t much he could do for her in his present state, but he could help her rest. Just for a few minutes, at least. “What-say we catch a few Z’s?”

  In place of an answer, Grace pressed another kiss to his cheek, then closed her eyes and exhaled a long, restful sigh. A minute later, maybe less, he felt her soft breaths, puffing into the crook of his neck. Greedy or not, he didn’t want this to end. Ever.

  His own eyelids grew drowsy, so he let them drift closed, and joined her in easy, peaceful slumber.

  Harsh, high-pitched beeping startled her awake.

  Levering herself up on one elbow, she saw Dusty, wide-eyed and gap-mouthed, gasping for breath. “Nurse!” she hollered, pressing every button on the bed, on the hand remote. Where was the fool woman? Wasn’t there supposed to be someone, right outside the ceiling-to-floor window at all times, watching, listening, monitoring every little change in ICU patients’ rooms?

  Much as she hated to leave him, Grace ran into the hall and yelled it again. “Something’s wrong! You’ve got to hurry!”

  It took all of a minute for his room to fill with blue-garbed staff, snapping off orders and carrying them out, quickly and efficiently. She recognized most of them: Murphy and Boyd, Chase and Mariani. They knew what they were doing. She’d seen them go into action before, with others in the ICU.

  Then why was she so terrified?

  When they rolled the ventilator against his bed, she turned her back to them, because she just couldn’t watch them put that awful tube down his throat again.

  “Book an OR,” Chase shouted. “And get Peterson!”

  Mariani guided her into the hall. “Sorry, Mrs. Parker, but we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “But why? He was fine just a few minutes ago. Breathing on his own, talking, sleeping peacefully.” She felt like a scared little girl, blubbering nonsensically, as if she believed that would change anything. “What happened?” she demanded.