Marcus pulled her back down beside him. He was giving himself away, but seeing Lisa through this crisis was the only thing that mattered right then. “It’s okay for now, honey. They managed to stabilize her. The nurse said she’d call immediately if there was any change. The soonest they’ll let you in to see her is tomorrow morning, anyway, until they’re sure the antibiotic is working.”
Lisa’s big brown eyes stared at him, begging for reassurance that it wasn’t worse than he was telling her. He looked away.
“They had to put her back on the respirator, Lis.”
“No!” she cried, tears brimming in her eyes.
Marcus hated having to be the one to bring that frightened look back to her eyes, and he hated being powerless to make everything better. “She wasn’t getting enough oxygen, honey. I’m sorry.”
Lisa jumped up and began pacing in front of the couch. “She was doing great this morning. I can’t stand this. I can’t stand that her life is in question from minute to minute. She’s fine one minute and then in terrible danger the next. There’s never a time when the worry quits.”
His hands hanging uselessly between his knees, Marcus watched her pace. “I know, Lis. But you of all people know that as quickly as infections crop up, they go away, too.”
She nodded, and Marcus saw the exact moment she switched from the baby’s mother to an award-studded pediatrician. “Did they say what it was?” she asked brusquely, stopping in front of him.
“They didn’t know yet. When I left, Randal was sending blood to be tested.”
She nodded again, assimilating God only knew what in that quick brain of hers, but whatever it was, it panicked the mother in her. Her face crumpled and Marcus grabbed her hand, pulled her down beside him and into his arms.
“She’s beaten all the odds so far, Lis. Don’t give up on her now.”
“I’m n-not. It’s just so…so hard.” He felt the sobs that racked her body as he held her, the tears that wet his shirt, and could only marvel that she’d held up as long as she had. She was one helluva strong woman to be able to go to that nursery every day, to sit with her baby, to see the catheters they’d inserted into her scalp, her tiny feet, knowing all of the things that could easily go wrong.
Her tears stopped suddenly, and she pulled slightly away from Marcus, staring at him.
“How did you…Why were you there?” The hope in her eyes clawed at him.
“I, uh, only stopped by because I assumed you were there. I called here before I left work and you didn’t answer.” It was weak. He knew it was weak. But he still couldn’t allow her to hope for something he couldn’t give her.
“I was in the shower,” she said, studying him like a specimen under a microscope.
“I was going to offer to take you to dinner, but it smells like you’ve already put Hannah’s casserole in the oven.” Smooth, Cartwright. Why did he suddenly feel like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar?
“It’s almost ready,” Lisa said, linking her arm through his and laying her head against his shoulder.
Marcus allowed himself to relax a fraction. She was going to let it go.
“Is it really all that bad that she’s back on the ventilator, Lis, other than that she’s lost some of the ground she gained? Ground she can regain?” he asked. He’d wondered about it all the way home from the hospital. And since Lisa knew he’d been there, anyway, he didn’t see the harm in asking her a couple of things.
She hugged his arm to her side. “I wish it was that simple,” she said, her voice small and worried. “But the longer Sara’s on the ventilator, the more chance there is of other things going wrong. Not only is there increased risk of brain damage, but her hearing and internal organs can be affected, too.”
He digested her words in silence. Did the worrying never stop?
“There comes a point when she’s just plain been on the machines too long.”
Brushing back her hair, he kissed her gently on the top of her head. “That’s not going to happen, Lis. You have to believe that, believe in her.”
“Did you see her, Marcus?”
He nodded, and then realized she couldn’t see him with her head pressed against him. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he answered, “I saw her.”
“She’s so tiny.”
“But she’s strong.”
“I don’t know the night staff well, other than the brief phone conversation or two I’ve had with them. I think I’ll call now, just to make sure they know what they’re doing.” She started to get up, but Marcus put a hand on her arm, restraining her.
“They knew what they were doing, Lis. They had Randal Cunningham there within minutes. Save your worries for the real stuff. They said they’d call if anything changes. And they will.”
Lisa was silent for a couple of minutes. “They must’ve thought it odd that you were there,” she finally murmured, and Marcus felt another prick of guilt He wondered how she explained his supposed absence in the nursery to her colleagues. Or how she would explain it at other functions in the years to come.
His chest constricted, leaving little room for him to breathe. He needed to go out, get away, not just out of the room or the house, but out of her life. Except that he couldn’t. Lisa was his life.
“I’ve been there before, Lis.” He cursed when he heard his words. He was only going to hurt her more in the long run.
“You have?” Her neck practically snapped in two when she looked up at him, and the hope he saw in her eyes confirmed his doubts. Because at some point, if not tonight then tomorrow or next week, he’d only succeed in killing it again. She wanted something from him he didn’t have to give.
“Like I told you before, Lis, I’m not heartless. I love you. And she’s a very important part of you. I’ve been keeping tabs on her progress.”
Confusion clouded her eyes. “Then why didn’t you ever say anything? Do you have any idea how many times I’ve needed you, needed to be able to talk to you about her, to know that you care?”
His heart was heavy as he pulled her closer. “You’ve always known how much I care for you, Lis. I didn’t say anything about the visits because I knew you’d start hoping again, and I couldn’t let you do that to yourself. Nothing’s changed. I’m not deluding myself into thinking I’m the child’s father. I go there merely for you, honey, not for myself.”
She leaned against him silently, and Marcus would have given the Cartwright fortune to know what she was thinking, what she was feeling. More than anything, he hated the way she’d learned to close herself off from him. The barrier that came up between them terrified him. His life wouldn’t be worth a nickel if he lost Lisa.
“Since you’ve been going, anyway, will you go with me to see her in the morning? I’m so scared for her, Marcus. Please come. For me?” Lisa broke the silence with her soft question.
The next day was Saturday. He didn’t have to work. And Lisa was at the end of her tether. Looking at the frightened expression still marring her face, he sensed that she didn’t just want him there, she needed him there. “All right,” he said.
But he was going for Lisa. Period.
IT WAS WORSE going the next morning than Lisa had thought it would be. She was trembling even before she got off the elevator. Though she’d known all along it could happen, she wasn’t ready to face Sara’s setback.
“She’ll be fine, Lis,” Marcus said, taking her free hand as they headed together toward the window in the nursery viewing room. “She’s got you to rely on.”
His words gave her the strength it took to look through the window. But even so, her stomach churned and she felt a wave of nausea as she saw the ugly tube once again taped to her baby’s mouth. She didn’t know how much more Sara could take.
The nurses hadn’t noticed her yet, hadn’t come to the door to let her in. Clutching the sterilized bottle of breast milk she’d brought, Lisa watched her daughter, looked at the unbelievably long lashes against Sara’s tiny cheek. Lisa’s l
ips quivered as she fought back tears.
“Her color’s good, Lis. She was kind of flushed yesterday.”
Unable to speak, Lisa just nodded, holding on to Marcus’s hand for all she was worth. Almost immediately her stomach started to settle down. It still amazed her, even after more than ten years of living with Marcus, how much his mere presence was able to calm her.
The nurse finally noticed them standing there and came to the door to meet them. “I’m sorry, Dr. Cartwright, but Dr. Cunningham said no visitors for twenty-four hours. Not until he’s certain we’ve got the infection under control.”
Lisa nodded. She’d half expected as much, but still she’d hoped. Yesterday she’d held Sara against her heart. Today she couldn’t even be in the same room with her. She felt Marcus’s arm slide around her shoulders. “Can we see her tonight?” he asked. “That would be twenty-four hours since she started the antibiotic.”
The nurse shook her head. “The doctor said twentyfour hours this morning.”
“Can we speak with him?” Marcus asked.
“It’s okay, Marcus,” Lisa said before the nurse had a chance to reply, though she appreciated his willingness to go to bat for her. “We don’t want to put Sara at risk.” She turned to the nurse. “Can we still give her this?” she asked, holding out the bottle.
The nurse smiled and nodded as she took the bottle. “We’ve been waiting for it. She hasn’t had her eighto’clock feeding yet.” It was almost eight-fifteen.
They watched the nurse take the bottle of breast milk away. “I’m sorry you can’t be in there sharing it with her, honey,” Marcus said, moving with her back to the window.
Lisa hooked her arm through his. “I’m just glad I have you here with me.” If she couldn’t be with her daughter while the baby took her first mother’s milk, there was no place else she’d rather be than with her husband.
The nurse came back into the nursery with a vial filled with Lisa’s breast milk and hooked it up to the tube that would send the milk into the baby’s stomach. Lisa stared at the vial as the milk slowly disappeared.
“She took it all!” Marcus exclaimed a short while later.
Lisa smiled for the first time that morning. She was thankful for every small victory she had. And she’d just had two. Sara had had her first real feeding. And Marcus had exclaimed over his daughter’s progress just like the proud papa he was supposed to be.. It wasn’t much. But it was enough to keep Lisa going. At least for another day.
SHE WASN’T SURE just when she knew she wouldn’t give up her husband without a fight. The knowledge just seemed to grow in her over the next few days as Marcus continued to share her visits with Sara. They were allowed into the nursery “on the second day after the baby had been put back on the ventilator, and Lisa sang to her daughter through her morning feeding that second day. Sara was taking four ounces of breast milk every four hours. And digesting every bit of it. Lisa could tell that Marcus was pleased at this small bit of progress by the satisfied expression on his face, but that was the only indication he gave. He never involved himself with anything that went on in the nursery, never got close enough to the baby to touch her.
But he was always there.
Marcus was the most heroic man she’d ever met. He was the spice in her life, the warmth of the sun on her face. He was also the father of her child. Somehow she had to get him to believe that. For all of them.
They stood together in the deserted nursery viewing room one evening, having stopped by the hospital for another quick peek at Sara after they’d gone out for dinner.
Lisa saw the way his gaze flew immediately to their baby as they entered the room. Saw the way the lines around his mouth relaxed when he saw that she was resting peacefully.
“You care about her,” she blurted, frustrated beyond endurance with his inability to allow himself the wealth of love Sara would bring to him.
His face froze, a look Lisa hadn’t seen in months, but she ignored it. She wasn’t wrong about him. She couldn’t be wrong about him. “I saw you looking at her just now, Marcus. You were worried that she wouldn’t be all right.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders defensively. “I worry for your sake, Lisa, for hers, not for my own. Don’t read any more into it than that.”
“I see you look at her, Marcus. You watch everything they do to her so intently. I see you tense when they’re hurting her, as if you’re taking on her pain yourself. I know you, Marcus. You care about her.”
“I care for you, Lisa. Period. Don’t do this.” His jaw clenched.
“Look at her, Marcus! How can you look at her and not love her?”
“She’s not mine to love.” His words were clipped, his eyes shuttered.
“She’s not those nurses’ in there, either, but I can guarantee you that every last one of them have fallen in love with her.” Lisa couldn’t let it go. Too much was depending on making him see this her way.
Marcus was silent for so long that Lisa dared hope she’d finally won. Until he pinned her with a stare she didn’t even recognize. It was hard. Unrelenting.
“You promised, Lisa. There was to be no more of this. Yes, I care about the child, just as those nurses do as outsiders. That’s what I am—an outsider.”
Her heart splintered into a million fragments. She hadn’t won at all. She wasn’t ever going to win.
She sensed rather than saw the softening in him. “But we can be happy, Lis. I know we can.”
“Just you and me?” she asked, bitterness the only thing she had to give him in that moment. Was he so blind that he couldn’t see the writing on the wall?
“The three of us.” He rocked back on his heels, his hands still jammed in his pockets. “I’ll never begrudge you the time you spend with her, the days and evenings that will belong to her alone, as long as I have your love. I’ll always be good to her, Lis, treat her with gentleness and respect.”
She felt herself giving in, even though she knew it would never work.
“It might be unconventional, but so was flying when the Wright brothers decided to give it a try. So was talking over wires before Alexander Graham Bell thought it was possible. And now look—everybody’s doing it”
There was wisdom in his logic, but he’d missed one key factor. Emotion. Particularly the emotions of a little girl who’d never know her father’s love. Gentleness and respect just weren’t enough.
“At least give it a try, Lis. Give us a chance. Let me show you it’ll be all right. If you aren’t happy or you think for one second that Sara’s not happy, I’ll leave. But please, give us a chance.”
Too choked up to speak, Lisa nodded, but she knew she’d never be able to follow through on his request. She couldn’t gamble with Sara’s well-being. If she did as Marcus asked, if she brought Sara to live with him and the child suffered from his indifference, his leaving would be too late. The damage would already be done.
But neither could she handle sending him out of her life tonight She stood beside him for another fifteen minutes while their daughter slept, oblivious to the turmoil going on in her parents’ lives. She stood there thinking about the expression she’d caught on his face when they’d first come into the viewing room that evening, and she stubbornly hung on to a thread of hope she knew in her heart had already been severed.
IN SPITE OF the breast milk she was consuming four times a day, Sara lost three ounces that week.
Lisa’s heart sank when Randal Cunningham told her about it Friday morning, Sara’s seven-week birthday. They were in the nursery, the baby sleeping in her bed between them. Lisa had just tied a Happy Birthday helium balloon to the baby’s blood-pressure monitor. Marcus was at work.
Randal tapped Sara’s chart against his hand. “She’s still under four pounds, Lisa. I’d hoped to have her in an incubator by now, but she’s got to hit the fourpound mark first.”
Lisa nodded, biting the inside of her lip as she tried not to cry. “The breast milk isn�
�t helping?” she asked. All her determination to help her baby, all those hours of pumping, just weren’t enough.
“Oh, it’s helping,” Randal said. “It’s the infection that caused the weight loss. I suspect she’d have lost a lot more if not for your milk. Now’s not the time to be getting discouraged on me, Doctor. If she remains stable over the next twenty-four hours, I intend to try taking her off the ventilator again sometime before the weekend’s out.”
Worry clutched Lisa anew. If Sara didn’t make it the second time off the machine, chances were she never would. “Are you sure?” she asked. As much as she wanted the baby off the hateful machine, she wasn’t ready to risk a failure.
The brisk Dr. Cunningham’s eyes filled with compassion. “Sometimes we know too much for our own good, don’t we, Lisa.” He looked at the sleeping baby.
Lisa stood next to him, watching her silent little girl, and nodded.
SHE KEPT HERSELF busy for the rest of the morning, taking the few office calls she’d had. scheduled for well-child exams and inoculations, dictating charts, even rearranging a shelf of reference books in her office. Anything to keep her mind occupied and not on Sara. What if they took her off the machine and she didn’t make it? There’d be no going back a second time. At least not without certain damage to the baby’s vital organs.
By noon she couldn’t stand herself any longer. Her stomach was turning inside out, and every breath was more of a labor than it should have been as she pushed the air past the constriction in her chest. Her panic eventually grew to the point of dizziness, forcing her to do what she always did when her head was running away with her. She called Marcus.
“Hi, hon,” he said as soon as he heard her voice. “Is everything okay?”
“She’s lost a little weight, but Randal says it’s due to the infection and nothing to worry about.”
“But you’re worried, anyway.”
“He wants to take her off the ventilator again this weekend.”
“Lisa! That’s great, honey.” He sounded far happier than “merely for her” should entail.
Another Man's Child Page 21
