by Arlene James
“Beats bawling,” Eva groused.
“She does that when she’s happy, angry or embarrassed,” Brooks said to Asher, “and when she’s tired she speaks gibberish, but we’re going to fix that on Wednesday.”
She punched him in the ribs, a short, neat jab that surprised an “oof” out of him, which finally made Asher laugh.
“Remind me to keep her away from Ellie,” he teased.
“Oh, right,” Brooks groaned, rubbing his side, “so says the man married to the soccer coach who wears tutus and floppy ears.”
Asher grinned as he slid back his chair. “Welcome to my world, Doctor. Glorious, isn’t it?”
“I’ll let you know,” Brooks muttered.
“Papers will be ready tomorrow afternoon,” Asher promised, checking his wristwatch.
Eva spent the next few hours answering and making phone calls while unpacking Ricky’s things so he’d feel comfortable in the room he’d chosen as his own. By the time Brooks picked him up from school and returned to Chatam House with him, she had everything shipshape, and appointments with a beautician and a wig maker for the next morning.
Ricky was full of stories about his day. The kids were mostly nice, especially when they found out he was staying at Chatam House. He liked his teacher, and could he play soccer in the spring? He had to study Texas history at some point. And he had a different teacher for math. Ricky liked math. Eva and Brooks took him in to visit with Hypatia and found themselves summarily dismissed.
“It’s all right,” Brooks assured her, escorting her out of the sisters’ suite. “Hypatia has much experience dealing with boys.”
“But he doesn’t have much experience dealing with Hypatia,” Eva muttered.
Brooks chuckled. “It’ll be fine.”
“That’s become your favorite refrain. It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay. It’ll be all right. I’m going to set it to music and teach you to tap dance.”
“How do you know I don’t tap dance already?”
“Do you?”
He smiled. “Of course not. Do you write music?”
“As well as you tap dance.”
“Sounds like a perfect pairing.”
“Now who’s the jokester,” she grumbled, but he just laughed.
“Time for your meds.”
“And a nag, too,” she muttered, but she couldn’t talk herself out of loving the man no matter how hopeless it was.
Tomorrow she was going to have her hair cut off so the next day she could have her head shaved and her skull cracked open, and then who knew what would happen? She could be completely well in a matter of days, or permanently impaired. Or dead. Or dying, just as she was now. But at least her son’s future was secured, and she had a fighting chance for more.
* * *
Not by sound or sign would Brooks show the depth of regret he felt when the stylist began to cut Eva’s beautiful hair. He could have kissed the woman, however, when she insisted on ignoring Eva’s goofy instruction not to bother styling her “massive mop” as it would likely be shaved anyway. Instead, she sculpted Eva’s pale blond locks into a chic chin-length bob that showed off the elegant length of Eva’s neck and framed her lovely face. She suggested that they keep the foot-long locks of Eva’s hair to have a wig made for her in case the surgeon did have to shave Eva’s head. Brooks found that suggestion imminently logical and came away from the appointment with Eva’s shorn hair in a plastic bag, which he carried with them to the wig maker’s. There, all the while joking, Eva purchased a wig very like her own hair in its current style and color, though anyone who knew her would see the difference. She also chose a pageboy style to be made of her own hair, should that prove necessary, and then she and Brooks went to Asher’s office to sign the papers he’d drawn up for her—living will, custody papers and power of attorney—so he could take care of Ricky and her if she couldn’t. After that, she let Brooks drive her into Dallas to the hospital.
They had arranged for Chester to pick up Ricky after school. Since it came with a driver, to Ricky the town car was a limo. He was thrilled, and if the affectation helped subdue his anxiety over his mother’s hospital stay and surgery, the adults were all of a mind to indulge the fantasy. The aunties would oversee his homework, dinner and bedtime, and between those events they had arranged some company about his own age.
A battery of tests had been ordered for Eva, and Brooks accompanied her to them all, charming or barging his way in to get a look at the results as they came in, though he was no neurosurgeon. He didn’t know what to look for beyond a certain point, and he didn’t question the surgeon’s purpose or ability. So he kept his opinions to himself and concentrated on Eva. He’d become quite adept at playing straight man to her comic, interpreting her zingers for the medical staff and laughing with just the right mixture of lightheartedness and concern to let them know that her fear of dying or impairment was real and could still be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.
When she finally fell into a sound sleep, he felt utterly exhausted himself, but leaving her there alone the night before the surgery and going home was something he simply could not do. For the first time he truly understood what it was like to be on the other side of the white coat. He hadn’t left Brigitte’s side in the hospital because he’d known it was the end, but no treatment had been involved other than the palliative. This was entirely different. This hope felt as painful in its own way as had the certainty of Brigitte’s death, and no way could he leave Eva alone with it. He asked for a toothbrush and blanket and sacked out in the recliner in her room, deciding within the hour that whoever thought those things were a fitting option for patients’ rooms had a malevolent streak.
He woke well before she did, if he ever really slept, and was able to call Morgan to ask for a change of clothes and his electric razor. The surgeon came by, and they had a nice, long chat, which pleased Brooks immensely, and then the anesthesiologist came in, and Brooks had to wake her. She stretched lazily beneath his hand on her shoulder and smiled up at him.
“Hello, you.”
He realized suddenly that he longed to wake up to that greeting every morning and knew that once this was over, he would ask her to marry him. But once this was over, she would have every option open to her, and perhaps the gratitude she was feeling now wouldn’t become the love for which he hoped and prayed. He had told himself that if she lived and was whole, that would be enough, but he’d lied to himself once before when Brigitte and Morgan had announced their engagement. He’d told himself then that if the two people he loved most in the world were happy, he would be happy, but his heart had broken, and he’d feared that what they’d all had would forever be ruined because he would forever love his best friend’s wife. He would try to be happy without her, just as he would have tried to be happy for Brigitte and Morgan, but God would have to find a way to work this out because, as before, Brooks did not have this in him.
Suddenly he feared what that plan might entail. For her.
I will gladly accept any suffering and disappointment for myself, Lord, he silently prayed, but please, please, spare her.
* * *
That smile was something a woman could wake up to every morning of her life, Eva thought, if she had a life.
Lord, I said I wouldn’t ask for anything more, Eva prayed. I lied. I want this man for myself as well as my son, and I don’t just want him, I want You to make me the very best thing that ever happened to him, everything he could ever have wished for and more, everything You could want for him.
“Eva,” Brooks said, “the anesthesiologist is here to speak to you. He has some important information for you.”
Eva realized Brooks had spent the night at the hospital, and she wanted both to scold him and to hug him for that. Instead, she sat up in bed and tried to listen as the anesthesiologist terrified her with warnings
about nerve blocks and spinal blocks, wire cages for her head, mechanical chairs and positions.
“I’ll be awake,” Eva screeched, “but immobilized? Talk about your nightmare scenarios!”
“I’ll be right there with you,” Brooks promised. “I’m scrubbing up and sitting in. I’ll be holding your hand throughout.”
“Bring a mallet,” she suggested dryly. “I have a feeling I’m going to want to give someone a drubbing before we’re done.”
He chuckled. The other doctor droned on about why this was all necessary, about the delicacy of the surgery and everything that could go haywire until she covered her ears and demanded, “Is he trying to make me back out of this?”
Brooks gently pulled her hands away, saying, “No, sweetheart, he has to say these things. Listen now while I tell you the good news. The cyst doesn’t appear to be solid. It appears to be filled with fluid.”
“That’s good news?”
“It is. It means the cyst itself is less serious than we feared. Also, if they can get to it in the way they hope, they won’t have to shave your head, just a space about the size of a half dollar. They may have to put a little shunt in to keep it from forming again, but that’s done all the time. It’s a little trickier to do it this way, but the surgeon’s confident. It’s up to you, though. They can shave your head and actually crack your skull instead of cutting a hole in it.”
“Hey, what’s another hole more or less?” she joked. Then she formed a megaphone with her hands and bleated, “Save the hair!” Grinning, Brooks shook his head, so she kept it up. “Isn’t there a female rights group we can contact? Women Thou Art Vanity, or something like that?”
“Stop it,” he told her. “We’re talking about recovery times versus risk ratios here.”
“So, more hair and less recovery time versus slightly higher risk, right?”
“That’s it exactly.”
She held up her hand. “I vote for more hair and less recovery time.”
“Your vote is the only one that counts,” Brooks told her, nodding at the anesthesiologist, who nodded at Eva and tapped notes in his tablet.
The next few hours both flew and dragged. Techs showed up to set up IVs in both her arms. Morgan and Lyla came with a razor and clothing for Brooks. He shaved but then took the fresh clothing with him for later use. Morgan and Lyla did their best to entertain her until he returned in the ubiquitous green pajama-like uniform that all surgery personnel seemed to wear. Unfortunately, the surgeon was running “slightly behind.”
Eva wanted to scream. Instead, she joked. She joked about her hair. She joked about her ex. She joked about being hungry because she was. She joked about Ricky and his “limo ride” from school. When she got to the point of joking about Lyla’s ex and her bout with cancer, she succumbed to tears, and it was then a nurse with a wheelchair finally entered the room.
They wheeled her off through hallways and elevators to pre-op. Just outside of double metal doors, Morgan and Lyla left them to gesture through a glass wall to the waiting room beyond. Shocked to see the crowd spilling out into the hallway, Eva felt her tears start again. Odelia and Kent were there, along with Magnolia and Pastor Hub, Carissa and Phillip Chatam, Reeves and Anna Leland in all her glorious pregnancy, Kaylie and Stephen Gallow, Petra and Dale Bowen, Asher and Ellie Chatam, even Garrett and Bethany Willows.
Eva wanted to say something clever but she couldn’t speak, so she just wiped away her tears and nodded, smiling.
“Let us have a moment,” Brooks said to the nurse, while everyone gathered around. “Hub, would you?”
“Of course.” The elderly pastor cleared his throat and began to pray.
A few moments later, Brooks crouched before her, threaded his big capable hands through her hair and said, “Remember that tap dance, sweetheart. It will be okay. One way or another, it will be just fine, and I’ll be with you, all the way. This is just for courage.” And he kissed her, right there in front of all his friends. Quite a thorough job he did of it, too. No quick smack of the lips or gentle bussing, this was a blatant statement, a deep, ardent claiming, a solemn promise and as mind-boggling as any drug. Her eyes hadn’t uncrossed before the nurse pushed her through those metal doors, Brooks calling out behind her, “I’ll be along soon.”
She didn’t see him again until they wheeled her into the surgery theater sometime later. He met her at the door, smiling behind his mask. They were both outfitted as if they were going to perform the surgery themselves. She had been scrubbed and medicated from head to toe, but the hair shaving didn’t take place until she was strapped into the chair, tilted at an awkward but surprisingly comfortable angle and clasped, latex glove to latex glove, by Brooks. The shaving felt more like suctioning, which was interesting, and she felt nothing when they cut the flap in her scalp, but no one prepared her for the excruciating sound of the bone saw. What followed was wild, absolutely wild, right up to the moment she blacked out.
* * *
“A cyst and a tumor,” Brooks reported, trying not to tremble. “The tumor was tiny, and the surgeon feels sure he got it all, but they will biopsy it to be on the safe side. The cyst was large but filled with fluid, so it was drained and removed. At least as much as they could safely get, so a small shunt was put in just in case fluid builds in that area again. But that was after she stroked and they put her into the coma.”
A gasp went around the room. Brooks rubbed a hand over his face and bowed his head. He still couldn’t believe it. She’d never forgive him if she came out of this with serious impairment, even if they had saved her life—and that was if she understood all that had happened.
“She will come out of the coma, won’t she?” Magnolia asked.
He nodded, trying desperately to believe it. “She should. The instant they realized what was happening, the anesthesiologist put her under and flooded her with drugs to stop the stroke, but it could be a while before she wakes up and only then will we really know what specific parts of her brain are affected. The neurologist thinks it could be very localized. They say, with all the pressure inside her head, it’s a wonder she hasn’t had a stroke before this.”
“Well, that’s something to be thankful for,” Hub said, and Brooks nodded. He was thankful, even if it meant the end of all his personal hopes and dreams.
“Will you be staying here, then?” Morgan asked as they all began to gather their things.
Brooks nodded, but then he thought better of it. “For a while, but Ricky has to be my immediate priority.” He turned to a very subdued Magnolia, saying, “I want to explain this to him myself, so if you could just tell him that his mom is resting comfortably, I’ll be down to talk to him a little later.”
Magnolia nodded, patted his shoulder and followed Hub, Odelia and Kent out. Brooks saw them on their way, then he slipped into Eva’s ICU cubicle. She had been intubated, though he had no real idea if it was necessary. Better to be safe than sorry, though. Propped on her side, her caged head slightly elevated, she was surrounded by machines. He tried to take comfort in the readings, but the doctor in him held little sway over the man who stood in this darkened room.
He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her hands, which he kept in his as he bent over and whispered into her ear.
“I love you. I would do anything to help you, to make you well and whole. Please get well and come back to me. I need you. I don’t know how I managed to this point without you. Your son and I both need you. I’ll be praying for you. I love you.”
He had no idea if she could hear him. Probably not. He felt better, stronger, for having said it, though. Now if only God would grant him the chance to tell her again when he knew she could hear and understand...
Chapter Fifteen
After speaking to the nurse and ascertaining that the doctor intended to keep Eva in the drug-induced coma for a period of at least t
wenty-four hours, Brooks changed and drove back to Buffalo Creek. Once there, he went straight to Chatam House.
Ricky was understandably distressed when Brooks explained the situation to him, so Brooks comforted them both by staying the night at Chatam House and sleeping in the extra room in the East Suite. He showed Ricky the papers he had signed, making him Ricky’s guardian in the event his mother became unable to care for him.
“So I’d live with you if my mom doesn’t get well?”
“Yes. If she doesn’t get well,” Brooks told him. “I’m not saying that’s going to happen, but maybe you’d like to see my house on the way to school in the morning.”
Ricky said he would, so they left early enough to swing by Brooks’s place. It was a nice house that he’d had built only about six years ago, with a pretty pool and patio and a shady lawn, nothing too ostentatious but something in which a successful family doctor could take pride.
“Do you play billiards?” Brooks asked as they walked through the game room. Ricky shook his head. “I’ll teach you. Play the piano?” Another head shake. “Maybe you’ll want to take lessons sometime.”
“Mom might want to,” Ricky said hopefully.
Brooks smiled. She had to survive and retain enough dexterity and mental acuity for that. Please, God, he prayed. He’d been praying since the alarm had sounded in the operating room.
After he let Ricky out at school, he drove into Dallas to the hospital, but all he could do was pace, hold her hands and whisper to her. In midafternoon the neurologist came in to say that they would start gradually weaning her off the drugs that night and hope to awaken her enough to run some tests by the next morning. He suggested to Brooks that he go home and go about his business. Brooks remembered how many times he’d given that same advice, and laughed, though it wasn’t in the least funny.
He drove back to Buffalo Creek in time to pick up Ricky from school. They shared dinner, and Brooks took Ricky to prayer meeting with him, where they prayed earnestly for his mom. Then they drove together into Dallas to see her. The breathing tube had been removed, and she was breathing comfortably on her own, which was a great relief, but she didn’t wake or seem to know that they were there. Nevertheless, Brooks encouraged Ricky to tell his mom that he loved her and would see her the next day. Brooks whispered the same and kissed her good-night.
