Home Again

“You’ll have your brother. I was afraid you’d be alone. I have to go to the film festival, and I have the Aspen house booked for two weeks.”

“By all means, don’t let my death screw up your vacation plans.”

Val flashed a guilty look. “I could cancel….”

Angel had never felt so alone. He was world-famous and it didn’t mean shit. His life was like his star on Hollywood Boulevard. A beautiful, glittering thing to behold, but frozen in the pavement and cold to the touch. “No, don’t bother. I’ll be fine.”

Finally Val said, “You’re stronger than you think you are, Angel. You always have been. You’re gonna make it.”

“I know.”

After that, there was nothing left to say.

Dr. Madelaine Hillyard entered the ICU in a breathless rush, her name still crackling over the paging system.

The room was bright and impersonal. A single bed cut through the center of the small, private room. Beside it stood a table, its surface heaped with pitchers and cups.

Her patient, Tom Grant, lay in the narrow bed, a pale, motionless body, eyes closed, throat invaded by tubing that connected him to the life-sustaining ventilator. Intravenous lines flowed from his veins. Two huge chest tubes stuck out from the skin beneath his ribs, suctioning blood from his surgical wounds to a bubbling, hissing cylinder.

Susan Grant sat huddled against the bed, her arms uncomfortably looped over the silver metal bed rails, her hand curled tightly around her husband’s limp, unresponsive fingers. At Madelaine’s entrance, she looked up. “Hello, Dr. Hillyard.”

Madelaine gave the woman a gentle smile and moved toward the bed. Wordlessly she checked the tubing, made a note on his chart that the canister needed to be emptied more often, and checked his medications. Pressors, immunosuppressants, and antibiotics—they were all working overtime to keep Tom’s battered, cut-up body from rejecting the new heart.

“Everything looks good, Susan. He should come to any time.”

Tears squeezed past the woman’s lashes and streaked down her cheeks. “The children have been asking about him. I … I don’t know what to say.”

Madelaine wanted to tell her that everything would be all right—would be better than all right—that Tom would wake up and smile at his wife and hold his children, and life would be good.

But Tom was a very special patient. This was his second heart transplant. In the twelve years since his first operation, he had proven that transplants could truly give a patient a new lease on life—he’d fathered two more children, become a marathon runner, and been active in spreading the word nationwide that transplantation was an ever-increasing success. Still, the heart had finally given out, and now he was a pioneer again. One of the few patients ever to get a third chance.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Susan said softly.

Madelaine didn’t answer; it wasn’t necessary. Instead, she pulled up a chair and sat down. She knew that her presence would comfort Susan, give the woman an anchor in the silent, terrifying world of post-op recovery. Her gaze shot to the wall clock, and she made a mental note of the time. She had forty-five minutes before her next appointment. She would be able to stay with Tom for a while.

On the bed, Tom coughed weakly. His eyelids fluttered.

Susan lurched forward. “Tommy? Tom?”

Madelaine hit the nurses’ button and got to her feet, leaning over the bed. “Tom? Can you hear me?”

He opened his eyes and tried to smile around the endotracheal tube. Reaching up, he pressed his hand to his wife’s face.

Then he looked at Madelaine and gave her a thumbs-up.

It was the kind of moment Madelaine lived for. No matter how many times sh

e stood at a bed like this, she never got used to the adrenaline-pumping thrill of success. “Welcome back.”

“Oh, Tommy.” Susan was crying in earnest now. Tears dripped down her face and plopped on the pale blue blanket.

Madelaine performed a few quick tests on him before easing out of the room to give the couple their privacy. In the hallway she stopped the head transplant nurse and quietly gave her an update, then grabbed her coat from her office and raced from the building.

She drove out of the parking lot and sped down Madison Street toward the freeway. For the first few moments she was flying high, exhilarated by Tom’s progress. Soon he would be getting out of bed, kissing his children, holding them on his lap, twirling them in the air on a bright spring day.

She, the other members of the transplant team, and the donor’s family had all done their part to make that miracle. No matter how often it happened, she never failed to feel an incredible, humbling sense of awe. When a patient woke up after surgery, she felt on top of the world. Oh, she knew that it could end tomorrow, knew that his body could reject the heart and turn on itself like a rabid dog. But she always believed in the best, prayed for it, worked for it.

She glanced up, saw her exit sign, and the good mood fled as quickly as it had come.