A Mother for His Adopted Son

by Lynne Marshall

  She wanted to run away to her studio and slam the door, rather than face the man she thought she loved. The man who’d just halfheartedly tried to fix their problems with an offer that they move in together, and to fix her professional problems by stepping in where he didn’t belong. But she couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Dani in the kitchen confused or worried. She forced herself to move and went to him. “Dani, honey, I think it’s time for you to have your bath and get ready for bed.”

  “Will you read to me?”

  “Not tonight, sweetie, but I promise I will soon. Maybe you can come here and spend the night with me sometime?” She tried to hide the slight tremble in her voice. Tried to keep it from breaking.

  Sam cleared his throat at the kitchen entrance. She glanced up and saw total defeat on his face. Hell, he’d just asked her to move in with him and she’d essentially turned him down because she felt his big idea was for all the wrong reasons. He’d taken a risk and she’d shot him down.

  “She’s right, Dani, it’s time to go.” Sam said it kindly, but with a hint of dejection. The boy dutifully got down from the chair, having finished his milk and cracker, and took his father’s hand. The pressure in her chest seemed to squeeze harder with each beat of her pulse.

  Andrea rushed to Dani and kissed him good-night. “Have some fun dreams for me, okay?” He nodded. Then she stood, her heart feeling stretched to near tearing, took a deep breath and looked into Sam’s tortured gaze. Words failed her.

  He nodded his goodbye, skipped the kiss, turned and took his boy home, giving her the impression he totally didn’t understand but knew when it was time to go.

  She crumpled to the floor, never more tormented and mixed up in her life. How could she let a good man, a man who loved her and wanted to make a life with her, walk away? She’d sent him away!

  Why did everything have to lead back to her childhood and her overbearing father planning every aspect of her life but never bothering to be around as she’d lived that life he’d prescribed? And her withdrawn mother letting her father run roughshod over her and never speaking up for her daughter or herself. Would it be the same with Sam? Why couldn’t she believe him when he said he loved her and wanted to live with her, and not assume there was a big catch, that he only wanted her for his purposes, not simply because he loved her?

  Because there was a catch, a huge one. He wanted her and he wanted that big family that he’d never felt he quite belonged in, and he wanted her to be like his saintly foster mother to make his world right again. Mother Murphy had died, the cruelest form of abandonment. Those were huge shoes to fit into.

  Andrea felt she was barely ready for anything beyond loving Sam and Dani. But Sam expected so much more. She trembled with anger over his foolish and insensitive mistake, but more so with fear that deep down she just didn’t have what it took to be Sam Marcus’s woman.

  * * *

  Things couldn’t have backfired any worse. Sam helped Dani into his car seat, even though his hands trembled. Pain, disbelief and a stew of other emotions kept him from thinking straight. He’d asked Andrea to move in, laid it all out there, and she’d brushed it off. Was that all he meant to her? He’d said he loved her. What did she want from him? Had her father messed her up so much that she couldn’t trust his honest feelings? Maybe he should have asked her to marry him, but they obviously weren’t ready for that!

  Why did he feel so numb? Why had he run to her with a last-ditch plan to keep them together when they hadn’t really even broken up, and now it felt as if maybe they were on the verge of ending everything they’d barely started.

  Why did he never feel good enough?

  Did he really expect her to give up everything she held dear for the kind of life he wanted? He honestly didn’t think so, but that was evidently how she saw it. If he could only figure out what she wanted from him, he’d do it. If she’d just given him a clue.

  Did she really think she’d lose herself in his life? What about building a life together? He wanted what she wanted for herself. Hell, he’d spent twenty minutes talking to hospital administration about the new lobby remodel, encouraging them to brighten things up with pieces of art. Not cheap prints but real art from local artists.

  As dumb as Andrea seemed to think it was, he’d given the executive secretary to the hospital CEO her website address to search for samples of her colorful artworks. He’d left the meeting with a grin on his face, and it had been for Andrea. All for Andrea. Now she had a commission for paintings.

  But that had totally backfired. Man, had it ever. Did a guy who wanted to take over a lady’s life do stuff like that?

  Oh, man! That was exactly like something her father would do! Jerome Rimmer would go behind her back and set things up, as if she was a little puppet. No wonder she’d gone ballistic.

  He’d screwed up royally just now on just about every level and didn’t know how to begin to fix things.

  Maybe he just needed to get his son home, to go through their nightly routine, then life would feel right again. But without Andrea he doubted life would ever be the same.

  He hoped she wouldn’t give up on them—he sure as hell wouldn’t. He loved her too much. There had to be a way to work this out. But there wasn’t enough time tonight.

  As he drove into the garage at his home an image of her face appeared to him. “Maybe, instead of losing yourself with me, you’ll come to find yourself in a life with me,” he whispered. “And maybe I’ll finally find myself, too.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE NEXT MORNING at the medical appointment, the doctor dilated Dani’s eye, made a thorough examination, then had his nurse take him into a dark room to play while the eye medication wore off. Sam sat across from the desk in the office, waiting for the doctor.

  The doctor looked grim, and Sam’s instinct caused his entire body to tense.

  The salt-and-pepper-haired ophthalmologist sat with a loud thump on his chair cushion, like a two-hundred-pound sack of potatoes, and sighed. A sound of defeat. “There are early signs of retinoblastoma in the right eye.”

  Stunned, Sam may as well have been hit with a two-by-four. He couldn’t manage to breathe, his heart stuttered, and gut-wrenching pain for his son filled every part of him. He’d gone through this before, yet this time it felt twice as bad. Was that even possible? His head dropped into his hand, the burden of holding it up suddenly beyond his ability.

  “We’ve caught it earlier this time, Dr. Marcus. We’ll get a CT scan and an MRI, go through the staging process and see what our options are.”

  Sam couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t begin to string words together.

  “Since you don’t have any medical history on Danilo—I believe you said his parents are deceased?”

  It took every last bit of strength Sam possessed to hold himself together. A simple nod seemed beyond his capability at the moment, but he managed to grunt a reply.

  “I can tell you that bilateral retinoblastomas are always inherited, and therefore one of Danilo’s deceased parents had to have been blind from the same cancer.” The doctor continued as if Sam had agreed. “And with hereditary retinoblastoma, we must also be on the lookout for pineal tumors in his brain.”

  The mounting information tore at every nerve ending in Sam’s body. Surely this was how it felt to have his heart ripped out of his chest.

  “We have options this time around that we didn’t with the last tumor because of the size. Even though before, without his family medical history, we didn’t know he possessed a genetic mutation, and we hoped it might only affect one side, we might have handled things differently right off if we had known, but all is not lost. Once I gather the staging information, I’ll know for sure if it’s small enough to consider chemoreduction.”

  Sam glanced up at the doctor.

  “The chemotherapy wi
ll be placed directly into the eye to reduce the size of the tumor. Then we can use laser light coagulation, also known as photocoagulation, to destroy any blood vessels leading to the tumor, starve it and destroy it.”

  “What about his vision?” Sam finally found his voice by focusing on the doctor’s treatment plan.

  “We might be able to save his sight.”

  He’d tossed Sam one tiny ray of hope.

  “Our goal in shrinking the small tumor and essentially cutting off its blood supply is to save his remaining vision. All we can do is hope for the best and move forward from here.”

  “Thank you.” They might be able to save Dani’s sight. That was what he’d hold on to. That would help him through this horror show.

  “We’ll line up those tests ASAP and move forward as fast as we can,” the stocky doctor said.

  “I’m counting on it.”

  Sam left the doctor’s office, seeing Dani playing contentedly in the dim room, and nearly lost it again. He inhaled, forcing himself to keep it together for his son. He walked down the hall, out of voice range, and fished out his cell phone with an unsteady hand.

  His first thought was to call Andrea. But they’d had that nasty fight and she’d kicked him out of her apartment last night. And truth was he didn’t know how he’d get the words out without breaking down. He needed to stay strong right now. For Dani’s sake.

  He dialed another number instead.

  “This is Dr. Marcus. I need to clear my schedule for the next couple of weeks,” he told the administrative nurse for his department. “I have a family emergency.”

  * * *

  After a couple of days off, and without a word from Sam, Andrea returned to work, hoping she hadn’t blown the best thing in her life. Selling her art only brought so much happiness. In fact, without someone to share the milestone with, it felt pretty damn empty. Paintings couldn’t compare to a living, breathing man. Nothing could compare to Sam. She’d missed him and Dani terribly and had also missed being in the hospital, working on her projects for patients. By late last night she’d admitted she’d overindulged in painting for the past couple of days and the results on canvas were disappointing, to say the least. It was time for a change, a breather from creativity, and ocularistry was the answer. Plus she’d be closer to Sam in the hospital.

  Feeling fortunate she had choices in life, she entered the department humming.

  Her grandmother met her at the door to the workroom. “I thought you’d forgotten you had a job.”

  “Not for a second. But I did have some banked personal time off and decided to use it.”

  Before her grandmother could answer, her father strode through the department door. Andrea went on alert.

  “Well, I thought you both should know they’ve hired an administrative assistant from inside to take over this department. Now, Mom, you’ll only need to concentrate on O&A. Hell, you can work part-time, just like this one.” He pointed to Andrea. “If that’s what you want.”

  “Well, that’s good news, but won’t I have to train this administrative assistant?” Judith was all about business before pleasure, probably where Andrea’s father had gotten it.

  “Of course.” Andrea’s father looked at her, narrowing his eyes, though seeming far less imposing than usual. “I still can’t for the life of me understand why you wouldn’t take the job.”

  “You’re the head of cardiac surgery, Dad, you don’t have to understand what goes on in this department.” Or inside my head. She knew her vague answer irked the heck out of him, and she thoroughly enjoyed it.

  “You’re right about that. I’ll probably live a lot longer if I quit trying to figure you out.” At last, a feeling they shared. His response wasn’t to bristle, as it usually was. It actually seemed as if he just shook it off. Wow. That was a first. “But that’s not the reason I came down here.” He handed his mother a letter. “This came through Administration, and I thought your grandmother might like to read it to you.”

  Judith opened the letter and read it out loud.

  Dear St. Francis of the Valley Hospital,

  The community of Cuernavaca, Mexicali, wishes to thank you and your mission members for helping us in our time of need. You saved lives and helped us get back on our feet.

  We are especially happy about the recent packages received by many families with new eyes, ears and even noses. These gifts seem like miracles for so many children. The parents of Jesus Garcia cannot thank you enough for giving him back a normal face.

  We hope these pictures say what we cannot in words.

  Forever grateful.

  Moved by the heartfelt letter, Andrea stepped forward. “May I see the pictures?”

  Smiling, Judith dug inside the envelope and found a photo, then handed it to Andrea. It was a grainy group shot of all the children she’d helped. Immediate fond memories, recognizing face after face, made her grin. A second picture remained inside the envelope. Judith took it out, studied it, then gave it to her. It was of a young boy that Andrea remembered well, beaming with pride as he now had both ears and a tip for his nose, and it seemed impossible to tell which ear was his and which had been made by Andrea. Though she knew it was the left one.

  “This, my dear father, is why I need to be here in the lab, making eyes and noses, and not becoming one of the suits, running things.”

  Her father glanced at the pictures, then studied them more closely. “Nice work.”

  Had he just paid her a compliment? Had Mom started sharing her new medication with him? “Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to show this letter to Sam.”

  “He’s off on a family emergency,” Jerome said.

  Concern shivered through her. “How do you know that?”

  “I just came from the monthly administration meeting, remember? He’s been off since yesterday.”

  Anxiety sliced through Andrea over what the reason was for Sam taking family time off. Part of her plan for coming back to work today had been to invite him for lunch and admit she’d discovered that not only did she love him but she needed him in her life. And if his offer was still on the table...

  Something must be wrong with Dani for him to take off so suddenly. She reached for her cell phone and dialed his number, walking into a secluded part of the department to talk to him, leaving her father and grandmother to chat.

  “Sam? Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, hi. Um, yeah. Dani’s had a couple of tests and we’re just keeping things low-key.”

  “What kind of tests?”

  “A CT and an MRI.”

  He wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information about why Dani had needed those tests. “Is he sick?”

  Sam cleared his throat. “The cancer has come back in the other eye.”

  She gasped, couldn’t help it, and spontaneous tears flowed. “I’m coming over right now.”

  “No. You don’t have to. We’re working through this. We just need some peace and quiet.”

  Shaken and taken aback that he’d dismissed her so matter-of-factly, she wasn’t sure how to respond. “Uh, okay.”

  “Okay. Thanks for calling.”

  Still stunned over the horrible news for Dani, and feeling dismissed by a zombie version of Sam, she let him disconnect and stood staring for a few seconds, wiping the tears from her eyes, her fingers trembling. He didn’t want her there.

  Hurt wrapped her up and nearly squeezed the air from her lungs. She stood, stuck to the spot, thinking rather than panicking.

  She’d spent a lot of time thinking while painting the past couple of days, too, and had figured a few things out. Sam kept her at a distance, even when he’d asked her to move in, by making it seem like a practical decision, having nothing to do with love or longing or—her new favorite word—needing. Because that was the mi
ssing ingredient she’d discovered while painting. Need.

  That was how he’d learned to deal with his personal pain of having a mother who’d left him alone and vulnerable, who’d had to give him up and who had never tried to get him back into her life. He’d grown up feeling an outsider in a big family, always afraid he’d get sent away, pretending to be part of one big happy family but always keeping his distance, watching, waiting for the day to come. His relationship with Katie had proved he wasn’t capable of committing until it was too late and the relationship was over.

  From where she stood, Sam was repeating history with her. He’d asked her to move in in a halfhearted way, not to get married, and had probably used her “no” as a reason to shut her out now.

  Well, he wasn’t going to get away with it this time because, unlike Katie, she loved him enough to fight for him. For Dani, too. Oh, God, poor Dani!

  Rather than stand there and bawl helplessly, she grabbed her shoulder bag and marched toward the department door. Her father had left, and Andrea spoke to her grandmother on her way out. “I’ve got some personal business to take care of. I promise I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Judith raised her palms. “Like I could stop you? Do what you’ve got to do. Your job’s safe with me—that is, until the new administrator takes over.” She winked and smiled, as only a grandmother could.

  “Thanks, Grandma.”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later Andrea knocked on the white front door of the boxy mid-century modern home in the hills above Glendale. It seemed she’d first stood at this door a lifetime ago. Sam’s house. She’d been nervous then, but right now nothing could compare to the butterflies winging throughout her entire body—even her palms tingled. And her heart, it pounded hard enough to break a rib. She’d never taken a bigger risk in her life, but Sam and Dani were worth it.