скачать книгу бесплатно
Behind them, Jana sobbed. Blake didn’t turn to look at her. He couldn’t.
“We’re going to get you better,” he promised, as he settled Lindsey back in her bed, pulled the blanket up to her chin and then kissed the top of her head.
“I know.” Her voice sounded thin, weak.
“I mean it.”
She smiled up at him. “I know that I’ll be okay.”
Blake’s throat tightened at the look of confidence and assurance his twelve-year-old daughter gave him. She wanted him to believe she’d be okay. He would make sure she was.
He settled in the chair next to the bed, reaching for her hand. Jana took the seat on the other side, close to the window. She watched them together. Blake tried to ignore her presence. He couldn’t. Somehow their gazes connected. More like clashed. She smiled a little and he nodded, trying not to be touched by that smile, by the regret he saw in her expression.
It was ironic, really. He wanted her to be sorry, to feel guilty. And yet he didn’t want to believe that she meant it. He wasn’t ready to think good things about her. He definitely didn’t want to still be attracted to her. Leftover emotions were bubbling up inside him as he remembered how much in love he’d been with her.
Lindsey moved, drawing his attention back to the bed. She looked up at him, her face thin, her skin sallow in the dim light of the room. She didn’t smile but her hand tightened on his. “Why didn’t you come see me?”
After years of searching for her, he didn’t know how to answer that question. Did he tell his daughter that her mother had kept her from him? As angry as he was, he couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that. Jana would have to tell Lindsey the truth. It wouldn’t be easy for any of them. But he wasn’t going to be the one to turn daughter against mother.
“I think we’ll talk about that later.” He eased out the words, knowing it didn’t make sense and Lindsey would question him. “Why don’t you rest?”
She nodded and her eyes drifted closed. “You’re not leaving?”
“They couldn’t drag me away.”
Her eyes opened again. “I’d like to ride a horse when I’m better. Mom says there are a lot of horses in Oklahoma.”
“Yes, there are.”
She squeezed his hand once and then her grip loosened and she slept. Blake looked up as Jana moved to sit on the empty bed behind his chair, closer to him. Too close.
“Have you told the doctors that she has family here?”
“Yes.” Jana scooted onto the bed, sitting with her feet dangling, her hands clasped in her lap. “They’ll have to test you to see if you’re a match. Blake, it won’t be easy.”
“I know that.”
“You might not be a match.”
He nodded and looked at his daughter again. He had to be a match. “If I’m not, there are plenty of us. We’ll find someone.”
“What if there isn’t one? Or what if one of your family is a match but they don’t...”
He cut her off, raising a hand to stop the storm of words.
“Jana, someone will.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “You do what you need to do. Tell the doctors. Arrange the testing. And we’ll take care of the rest.”
He got up and headed for the door. Jana followed him. Once they were in the hall, he realized she was about to lose it. She had probably been as strong as one person can be on her own. Now she looked like any strength she’d been holding on to was about to give out.
What could he do about that?
“I can’t undo what I did.” She leaned back against the wall and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers. Soft blond hair framed her face.
“No, you can’t.” What an understatement that was. She’d robbed him. She’d robbed Lindsey. Come to think of it, she’d robbed his entire family. Lindsey’s family.
Jana’s shoulders started to shake. Her body sagged against the wall and her knees buckled. He grabbed her, holding her close as she sobbed into his shoulder. She still fit perfectly, and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to remember how it had been when they were young. He didn’t want her scent or her touch to be familiar.
It all came back to him. He pushed it away by remembering coming home to an empty house and a note.
He held her until her sobs became quieter, her body ceased shaking. He held her and tried hard not to think about the years he’d spent searching, wishing things could have been different for them, wishing she’d come back.
Before long, those years of wanting her back had been replaced by even more years of anger, of resentment, of not caring if he ever saw her again. All the while he never stopped wanting his daughter back.
“Mrs. Cooper?”
“She’ll be fine,” he assured the woman in the white lab coat walking toward them, her gaze lingering on Jana. “I’m Blake Cooper, Lindsey’s father.”
“Mr. Cooper, I’m Bonnie Palmer. I’m the nurse practitioner handling your daughter’s transplant.”
“I’m the dad who hopes he’s a match. Can an adult give a kidney to a child?”
“Yes, we’ve had great success with adult to child transplants.”
He realized he was still holding Jana, his hands stroking her hair, comforting her. His hands dropped to his sides and she stepped back, visibly trying to regain her composure. She managed a weak smile.
“Where do we start?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“If the two of you could join me in the conference room, we’ll discuss what needs to happen next for your daughter. And I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Cooper. The sooner we can get this done, the better things will be for Lindsey.”
Blake swallowed the painful lump that tightened in his throat. “Let’s get started, then.”
Jana looked up at him, her eyes still misty. “I’m sorry for falling apart.”
“It’s understandable.” He shrugged it off, but not as easily as he would have liked. He looked from Jana to the nurse. “I don’t want Lindsey left alone. I don’t want her to wake up and think I’m gone.”
The nurse indicated a room down the hall. “You go ahead, and I’ll see if we can find an aide to sit with your daughter.”
Together Blake and Jana walked down the hall. He motioned her ahead of him into the conference room that was really just a room with more bad furniture that he barely fit in and a lamp to soften the fluorescent overhead lights.
The door opened and Nurse Palmer entered the room with a compassionate smile but cautious looks as she glanced from Blake to Jana. For thirty minutes she discussed what had to happen, and what were the best- and worst-case scenarios for Lindsey. Blake listened, trying to come to terms with the young woman in that hospital bed and the little girl she’d been the last time he’d seen her. All of those lost years. He glanced at Jana and she looked away.
“What happens if no one in my family is a match?” he asked the nurse.
“We’ll continue dialysis and keep looking for a kidney. We’ll continue to monitor her blood, her heart and her blood pressure. We’re going to do everything in our power to get her well.”
“And if we find a kidney?”
“If she’s fortunate, she won’t reject the kidney, and both she and the kidney stay healthy. Later in life she’ll more than likely need another transplant. If she gets a kidney from a living donor we hope for twenty years.”
Twenty years. She’d be thirty-two. Blake shook his head as the reality of his daughter’s future hit. No matter what, she’d have a lifetime of medication and medical care. “So what do we do first?”
Nurse Palmer stood, clipboard in hand. “We can start testing you, Mr. Cooper. If necessary we’ll test the rest of your family. If they’re willing.”
“They’ll be willing. But let’s just go with the assumption that I’m the donor. When would we do this surgery? How soon?”
The nurse smiled. “Let’s take things one step at a time.”
“It seems to me that time isn’t something we have a lot of.”
“Mr. Cooper, believe me, I appreciate the urgency of this situation.”
“Okay, what’s the first step?”
“We start with paperwork, of course. And then we’ll do blood tests. We want to make sure you have blood types that match. The last thing we want is for her body to reject your kidney.”
“I’m her dad—why wouldn’t they match?”
“Mr. Cooper, being her dad isn’t in question. Your blood type, the antigens in your blood and her body accepting your kidney—those are the issues we’re looking at here. And we also want to make sure you’re in good health and that you have two very healthy kidneys.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Yes, let’s.” Nurse Palmer paused at the door. “Mr. Cooper, you have to understand this is a lengthy evaluation. It isn’t going to happen in an hour. And it isn’t going to happen today. We want a complete physical, blood tests, and we’ll also have you talk to a counselor.”
Great. They’d soon find out he resented the woman sitting across the room from him. He hoped that wouldn’t undo everything.
“I understand.” He reached for the hat he’d dropped on the end table. “But the way I see it, the sooner we get started, the better.”
Jana followed them into the hall. “I’m going to stay with Lindsey.”
Blake gave her a strong look and pushed back a truckload of suspicion. She wasn’t going anywhere with Lindsey. Not now. He knew that, and he’d fight through the doubts about Jana and her motives. He’d do what he had to do to make sure Lindsey got the care she needed.
He’d deal with his ex-wife later.
* * *
Jana watched Lindsey sleep. The nurse’s aide had left when she got back, only to return with a tray holding two plates. The meal was some type of chicken stir-fry. Jana tried to eat but couldn’t. Eventually Lindsey would wake up, and when she did, she’d have questions. Jana would need to have the answers. Real answers, not the ones she’d given her for years.
As she had done for the past few months, Jana prayed. She’d learned to pray, learned to trust God. She knew that Blake doubted her. Sometimes she doubted herself. But she didn’t doubt God or the faith that she’d learned to rely on when she first discovered that Lindsey’s kidneys were failing.
She had termed it “end of the rope” faith. She’d been dangling at the end of hers, and God had reached out to save her, even though she’d always doubted His existence.
“You took me away from here?” Her daughter’s soft voice broke into Jana’s thoughts.
She looked at her daughter, at the hazel eyes that were so similar to Blake’s. Those eyes were full of accusations.
“I did.”
“Why?”
Jana couldn’t look away from her child. She also couldn’t avoid the answer that would make her look like the most selfish person in the world. But hopefully someday Lindsey would see her mother as someone who’d made a mistake and then tried to make things right.
For now she would tell Lindsey the basics, not the whole story, a story that included not realizing how depressed she was during those dark days before she left Dawson and for months afterward.
“I was lost, Lindsey. I loved your dad, but I didn’t know how to be the wife of a Cooper. I didn’t know how to live so far away from London. I thought if I tried to leave him, he would take you away from me. I know that what I did was wrong, but at the time I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“You knew he was looking for me. That’s why we moved so often.”
“Yes.” The word cut deep, to the very depths of her soul. Jana reached to brush dark hair back from Lindsey’s face. “I am sorry. I’m going to make it up to you.”
“I’ll never leave with you again. You can’t make me.”
“I won’t try. We’ll stay here so you can be near your dad.”
“I want to live where he lives.”
“Okay.” Jana choked on the word, because she knew that her daughter meant living with Blake and not with her.
“Where is he?” Lindsey looked around the room. “Is he gone?”
“No, he’s being tested to see if he can be your donor.”
Lindsey reached for the cup on the table. Jana picked it up, held it to her lips. Lindsey took a long drink and then pulled away.
“Do I have other family here?”
Jana nodded. “Yes.”
“Tell me about them.”
“You have grandparents. Tim and Angie. I think Tim’s mother, Granny Myrna, is still alive. And then there are about a dozen kids, your dad’s brothers and sisters.”
“A dozen?” Lindsey’s eyes widened.
“Yes. The Coopers had several children, then adopted more. It’s a very big family. They have a large ranch with horses and cattle.”
Lindsey closed her eyes, a faint smile appearing on her lips. “I always thought I remembered my dad and the horse.”
Lindsey opened her eyes again and her smile faded. “I’m mad that you kept me away from them.”
“I know.”
“Mothers make mistakes, sometimes.” The woman’s voice at the door startled Jana. She turned to face the visitors and then she stood as Angie Cooper entered the room. “You brought her back to us, Jana. That took courage.”
Jana didn’t know what to say. Behind Angie, Tim Cooper filled the doorway. Older, but every bit the man she remembered. He entered the room, frowning and then looked past her, his gaze locking on the face of his granddaughter, and he smiled.
“Lindsey, these are your grandparents.” Jana stepped back out of the way. “Tim and Angie Cooper.”
“You can just call us Nan and Granddad.” Angie leaned over her granddaughter. “You are just as beautiful as I remember.”
